Joel Klatt urges perspective on young Michigan team after rare turnover-ridden win

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Joel Klatt has seen a few Michigan football games this season, having called the Wisconsin, Washington, and now Northwestern games. And the Fox Sports color commentator is looking at things through a different lens than perhaps a lot of Wolverines fans at this moment.

While many are not optimistic about the trajectory of the now 8-2 team, Klatt — first of all — thinks that the way that the maize and blue won against the Wildcats is incredible given the circumstances.

In fact, it's historic.

"Michigan survives after losing the turnover margin by five. By the way, they also missed two field goals," Klatt said. "Now, can we just say, I immediately, I'm thinking to myself, have I ever called a game where a team lost the turnover battle by five and won? So they were a minus five and won. And no, that's never happened. So this is the first time that I've ever seen it live, period. 

"Then I was reminded, hey, they also missed two field goals. And I was like, oh my gosh, no way. Well, has that ever happened in college football? And here's what I can tell you. Going back 25 years, we can only find one other game in which the team that won lost the turnover battle by five and missed two field goals. That was Boise State beating BYU in 2016. That's it. In a quarter century, that's how rare it was to see Michigan win that game on Saturday."

Digging deeper into the team and its performance against Northwestern in particular, Klatt says that you have to take the one-off of beating the Wildcats as they did. Because the Wolverines aren't likely to turn the ball over five times while netting none on the other side, while missing two field goals, in most games. Yet, in this one, Michigan did, and it walked away unscathed.

"There's two ways you can look at this: you can say, man, that's a young team that's finding a way to win, even in an impossible situation?" Klatt said. "You can be up on it. You can be like, 'That's incredible. They won, even though they made all those mistakes.' Or you /can say, 'Gross.' I don't know which way.

"And listen, there's going to be Michigan fans on both sides of that, both sides of that. And I think I kind of understand both sides. I lean a little bit more towards the optimistic version. Because listen, they can't play that way and beat a great team like Ohio State. We can't play that way against Ohio State in the last week of the year and think that they're going to get a win. There's no chance, no chance. And yet, I look at this team, it is the youngest team in the Big Ten, by a wide margin, by the way. And they win that game, and it takes a lot of grit and resolve. It takes a lot of bounce back from a lot of different people on that team, including the coaching staff.

"And here's the thing. With youth, and they had freshmen everywhere, six starting on offense. You've got a third-string running back coming in late, because Jordan Marshall goes down. You've got Jordan Young, a true freshman, playing safety in a crucial moment. That didn't fall away. You've got Andrew Marsh being the target on offense. He's a true freshman. There's youth everywhere, everywhere. And with youth is inexperience. And with inexperience, you're going to ride the roller coaster. There's going to be peaks, and there's going to be valleys. And when you've got more youth, if it's just one freshman on the field, you can kind of weather the storm. And you're not going to ride the roller coaster as much. But when all the players on the field are this young and this inexperienced, you are going to ride the roller coaster, period. And there's nothing you can do about it. The shoulder straps come down, it's like, boom. And they lock in, and it's like, hey, three, two, one, boom. And you're riding the IncrediCoaster at California Adventure. And you know what you can do? Nothing, because you're on the roller coaster. And you're going to be up, and you're going to be down. And you know what? All you can do is not throw up. So good luck. Good luck, because that's what it's going to be. That's what it's going to be until they develop consistency through experience.

"So a game like that is exactly what they need. And you would much rather win a game like that than lose a game like that. Because even in a win, there are going to be learning opportunities, in particular for a young quarterback."

But with all of that, Klatt says that Michigan fans need to understand the situation they're in for the final two games of the season.

This is not the Michigan team that won big in Jim Harbaugh's final three years. This is an inexperienced, young team that's finding ways to win. Certain things are working, but as he noted with the IncrediCoaster reference, it's a work in progress. If you play Ohio State like that? Yes, you'll lose. But this is a team that's still figuring things out game-by-game, and with all the goals ahead of them, you can only really judge them game-by-game.

"Real quick about Michigan: I think life, in a lot of ways, is about expectation and expectation management," Klatt said. "And I'm not telling Michigan fans to lower their expectations But I am saying that I think that this team is getting a bit of an unfair rap because, in particular on offense, everyone's like, 'What is he doing?' He says, 'What is he doing?' Relax. Relax, OK? 

"Michigan's offense is vastly better than what they were a year ago, OK? And I understand that they were bad. They were, I think, 129th in college football. But like, vastly better. They are averaging over 400 yards of offense. They almost had 500 yards of offense against Northwestern, which is not a bad defense. The quarterback is getting better. Two and a half quarters, he played his best football of his life. They've got three redshirt freshmen on the offensive line. Relax, OK? The offense is fine. Now, they're battling some injuries now, which we'll see how that happens, or we'll see what they do with that moving forward. 

"But the problem with those, there are some of you, as Michigan fans, I'm just telling you right now, all you do with this group is view them through the lens of the '22-23 Michigan team. Like, come on. You can't do that. That team had like 500 plus total starts. That's how much experience they had. And that '23 team that won the national championship, about, at this point in that '23 year, they had like 500 plus starts on their offense and defense. You think this team has that? This team has like a total of like 100. I don't know the exact number. I'll try to get that at some point. But it ain't 500 plus, I can tell you that. So that's an unfair comparison. 

"And then the other thing that happens, and it happens for Ohio State as well, is that every game that Michigan plays, they're compared to Ohio State. And Ohio State happens to be the No. 1 team in the country. So this young team, youngest team in the Big Ten, showing more in the second year, got an 18-year-old quarterback. And some Michigan fans want to just compare them to the best Michigan team that they've had ever, a 15-year-old team that won a national championship, and the No. 1 team in the country this year. Now that's fine. I get it, you want to have high standards. More power to you. I'm all in on all of that. But like, you understand that that's a little off, right? Right? OK."

This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Klatt: Michigan's wild win shows grit, not gloom for young Wolverines

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