Michigan is in its bye week at 3-2, and Kyle Whittingham says this is the biggest challenge of his 40-plus years in coaching. The easy storyline is “bench Bryce Underwood and move on,” but that skips a harder question: how much of this was avoidable, and how much of it is on the man running the program?
Here are the mistakes that stand out through five games.
1. He tried to copy and paste Utah
Whittingham brought offensive coordinator Jason Beck with him from Utah, naming him OC and quarterbacks coach on January 2. On paper, that looked safe. At Utah, Beck’s offense ranked fourth in the FBS at 41.2 points per game. Michigan is now near 23 points and about 316 yards per game.
Joel Klatt noted on the broadcast that Whittingham appears to be trying to recreate what he did at Utah. The criticism is that Beck, coming from the Big 12, favors perimeter runs, while Michigan’s personnel is better suited to downhill football. A good coach adapts the scheme to the roster. Michigan looks like it is forcing the roster into the scheme.
2. He never built a real plan at quarterback
After the Western Michigan game, Whittingham made it clear that Underwood needed to progress if he wanted to keep the starting job. That is a public ultimatum, not a development plan. Five games in, Underwood has a 5-to-4 touchdown-to-interception ratio, and Michigan has yet to have a 300-yard passing game.
Meanwhile, the backup, Tommy Carr, has barely played. If Whittingham thought a change might be coming, the time to find out what Carr could do was in a blowout, not after back-to-back losses. Now the staff is making the biggest decision of the season with almost no information about the alternative.
3. The offense has no explosiveness and a line that can’t carry it
Against Minnesota, Michigan finished with 180 yards on 49 plays, 2.8 yards per carry and three sacks allowed. The offense has been held under 20 points in four of its first five games. Urban Meyer, who was at the game, put it bluntly: you can blame Underwood all you want, but he sees no explosiveness on offense.
That is a roster-building and play-calling problem, and both of those belong to the head coach.
4. The sloppiness never went away
Whittingham said before the Minnesota game, “We have way too many penalties.” Then came Minnesota. Michigan muffed a punt, threw interceptions on back-to-back possessions, and ran just two offensive snaps in the third quarter while turning the ball over three straight times. Earlier, in the Iowa loss, the Wolverines failed on a fourth-down quarterback sneak.
Discipline and details are the first things a Whittingham team is supposed to be known for. They are what’s missing.
5. He ignored the warning signs in September
Michigan escaped Western Michigan with a controversial 13-12 win, and some critics argued that the opener should have been a warning that this team needed a serious overhaul. Instead, the staff moved on. Then Iowa won 20-19 on a last-second touchdown, and Minnesota followed.
Whittingham has admitted there is a disconnect between how practice looks and how the games play out, and that the season hasn’t gone as he envisioned since spring and fall camp. Those are hard words to hear from the man who set the plan in the first place.
The real decision this bye week
The question isn’t only whether Underwood sits. After Minnesota, Whittingham said “everything’s in play,” including the staff. One analyst wrote that the performance falls on the staff as much as on Underwood or the offense.
Michigan is 0-2 in Big Ten play for the first time since 1967, and Penn State is next. Benching a quarterback might calm the noise for a week. Fixing a scheme, a line, and a culture of mistakes is the harder job, and it is the one Whittingham was hired to do.
