Michigan Outgained Indiana and Lost 13-6. Kyle Whittingham Put It on the Coaches.
Michigan outgained Indiana 224 yards to 212 on Saturday. It won the first-down count 16 to 11 and held the ball for nearly 34 minutes. It scored six points and lost 13-6 in overtime at home.
That is not bad luck. That is an offense that cannot finish anything, and Kyle Whittingham said so about as plainly as a head coach can.
Four Red Zone Trips, Zero Touchdowns
The Wolverines reached the red zone four times against the sixth-ranked team in the country and left with two Trey Butkowski field goals. They ran the ball 42 times for 57 yards, an average of 1.4 a carry. They converted 6 of 20 third downs.
The worst sequence came in the third quarter with the ball at the Indiana 1. On third and goal, offensive coordinator Jason Beck called play-action, and freshman quarterback Tommy Carr was sacked for a 13-yard loss.
Whittingham did not defend it. “That was not a good football call,” he said, adding it was “a call that I know Jason wishes he had back because it really was damaging.”
On the run game: “It was abysmal from start to finish, and the numbers bear that out.”
And on where responsibility sits: “I’m not putting this on the players at all. We’ve got to be better as coaches.” Later, more simply: “Everything falls on my shoulders.”
A Freshman Nearly Saved It
Carr, a true freshman and the grandson of former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, made his first career start. He finished 20 of 32 for 167 yards with no touchdowns and an interception, was sacked four times, and lost a fumble on a botched option pitch that gave Indiana the ball at the Michigan 28.
He still almost won the game. After Josh Hoover ran in a 4-yard touchdown on Indiana’s overtime possession, Carr converted a fourth down with his legs and then hit Hogan Hansen in the end zone for what would have tied it. Hansen had stepped out of bounds. Michigan’s night ended on another fourth-down throw, incomplete to Salesi Moa.
Whittingham was protective afterward. “It would be absurd to judge him just off this one performance, but he is a guy that is mature beyond his years,” he said.
The Defense Is Being Wasted
Here is the number that should bother Michigan most. Its defense has allowed 20 or fewer points in all seven games this season. Per AP’s Josh Dubow, Michigan is the 33rd power-conference team since 2000 to manage that through seven games, and the only one of the 33 to lose three of them.
Saturday was the best version of it yet. Indiana came in averaging 449.3 yards a game and gained 212, with 81 passing yards. Zeke Berry returned an interception 37 yards, the first Hoover had thrown all season. Chris Bracy made a career-high 13 tackles.
“Extremely proud of the way the defense played,” Whittingham said. “That’s an elite defense that we have.”
He is right, and that is exactly the problem. Michigan hired a 66-year-old defensive coach in December on a five-year contract averaging $8.2 million a season, and he has built precisely what he was hired to build. The offense he brought with him from Utah ranked 105th nationally in scoring entering Saturday.
What It Costs
Michigan is 4-3 and 1-3 in the Big Ten, which ends the playoff conversation. It has lost to Indiana in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1958 and 1959, and Indiana has its first win in Ann Arbor since 1967. Indiana is 7-1.
Whittingham still sounded like a man who likes his roster. “If that’s the No. 6 team in the country, then we’re pretty good,” he said. “We’re a pretty good football team even though we’re sitting here 4-3.”
Half of that is true. The defense is pretty good. Rutgers is next, on Oct. 31, and the offense has five games left to prove it belongs in the same sentence.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
