3 things we learned from Michigan Football’s last-second loss to Iowa

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For the second time in four games, the final play of the game decided a contest for the Michigan Wolverines. This time, karma reared its ugly head as the Iowa Hawkeyes left the Big House with a victory in a game they probably didn’t deserve to win. The other shoe dropped from the miraculous Hail Mary that Michigan needed to beat Western Michigan in the opener, and now we’re a quarter of the way through the season.

Here’s what we learned about the maize and blue from the loss:

Michigan can’t stop beating itself

Every analytical angle of this game you look at will tell you Michigan was the better football team on Saturday. In fact, from start to finish, this was maybe the best game the Wolverines played this season. The Wolverines had 429 yards to Iowa’s 285. Bryce Underwood was efficient and had over 300 yards himself. Offensive Coordinator Jason Beck got both JJ Buchanan and Andrew Marsh involved early and often. The Michigan run defense held Iowa to only 58 rushing yards, the pass rush was getting home, and Iowa struggled to move the football for large stretches of this game.

Three plays changed this game, and all of them were essentially self-inflicted. The first was the kickoff returned for a touchdown immediately after Michigan took their first lead of the game. Iowa had 77 yards in the first half, that single play was the only thing they had going for them, and the Wolverines otherwise could have buried them early.

Then, coming out of that halftime break, Michigan had the chance to expand the lead to two scores, opening with an eight-play, 45-yard drive. A penalty on the first play in the red zone backed the Wolverines up, and then Underwood tried to force something that wasn’t there in a miscommunication with Marsh, giving the Hawketes an easy interception:

It’s about execution. A field goal here would have made it a six-point game at the time, and it also would have left the Wolverines up eight on that devastating final drive.

Which brings me to the last drive of the game and the unforgivable penalty by Zeke Berry. There’s important context to this play that I don’t want to be lost. The Iowa receiver is Tony Diaz, the leader in receptions and receiving yards heading into this game for the Hawkeyes. An interview clip of him last week caught the attention of the media, calling man defense, like Michigan plays, “candy”. The Michigan defensive backs were letting Diaz have it all game, chirping back-and-forth. On the final drive of the game, Berry made the selfish decision to take a late shot at him out of bounds. It turned a failed 3rd-and-12 into a first down, into the game-winning touchdown.

These three plays cost Michigan this game, because Kirk Ferentz and Iowa do what they always do in these situations: they execute. Kyle Whittingham wishes his team had the discipline that Iowa’s program does; you see it every time the camera cuts to him, each time the team makes another stupid mental error. He’s been calling these sloppy moments out all season, and it’s been the elephant in the room since the Wolverines took the field in Week 1. Their talent outweighed this fatal error three times this season, but this loss is a slap in the face for a program that needs to realize that won’t continue in Big Ten play.

This coaching staff has to prove it can coach at this level

“The adult in the room” was a phrase used often as Michigan brought in Whittingham to replace Sherrone Moore. In my opinion, that referenced both on and off the field. We were talking organizational discipline coming into Schembechler Hall with a head coach that had decades of excellence.

That’s not what we’ve seen through four games. In fact, you could argue it has been worse from a penalty perspective this season. Undoubtedly, this is the biggest shock for me and the largest takeaway from the Whittingham era. Utah was routinely known for essentially being the Iowa of the West. Their best teams took care of the ball and constantly made the right decisions to go from a Mountain West sweetheart to a Power 5 contender.

At Michigan, that coaching group now has more resources and better players than they ever had during that run. The expectation for me was that, even if the Wolverines weren’t a playoff team, they’d be building the foundation to become one and raising the standard of acceptable. I haven’t seen that yet from the people in that building.

Maybe where I was most wrong was with offensive coordinator Jason Beck, who went from leading the No. 4 scoring offense, led by a dominant running game, last season at Utah. With Underwood, Jordan Marshall, and five-star freshman Savion Hiter, Michigan ranks 66th in rushing yards per game, averaging only four yards per carry (75th). It’s stunning how much further away the Wolverines are from being a dominant running team than I thought they would be at this point.

Bryce Underwood is coming along

The offensive piece is important because Underwood has responded exceptionally well after that awful performance against Western Michigan. He was exceptional against UTEP and responded with another really strong game facing a tough Iowa defense. Outside of the interception referenced earlier, this might have been the best he’s looked in Ann Arbor. He made the right plays with his feet, was reading the defense well, and rarely put the ball in harm’s way.

As he was dealing in this game, getting Michigan’s best pieces – Buchanan and Marsh – the ball, Beck took the game out of his quarterback’s hands when he had the opportunity to seal the deal. With 2:26 seconds remaining, up 19-14, the play calling was run, quarterback run, run on 3rd-and-5. It was a completely uninspired drive where essentially the thought was, “Iowa can’t go 90+ yards on our defense and score a touchdown in under two minutes.”

They played it overly safe instead of trusting the guy that has seen obvious improvement over the last several weeks. Personally, I feel like the guy you’re paying millions to has earned that trust because of his response. The coaching staff obviously felt otherwise.

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