Michigan beat Rutgers 28-21, and the loudest reaction in Ann Arbor should be relief. A roster with this much talent should not need a fourth-quarter rally to put away a Rutgers team that was starting its backup quarterback after an injury to Dylan Lonergan. The fact that it did says the coaching staff has a problem: Jason Beck still has a job he shouldn't, and Kyle Whittingham is the reason why.
The final score flatters the operation that produced it. Michigan led 14-3, then 21-13, and still let Rutgers tie the game in the fourth quarter behind missed field goals, penalties, and blown coverages. Freshman Tommy Carr had to go find a go-ahead touchdown on the ground to bail everyone out. That's a defense and a young quarterback saving a game that a competent offensive staff should never have let get that close.
This has happened before. Two games ago against Indiana, Beck dialed up a play-action call on third-and-goal from the one that was supposed to end with a freshman quarterback throwing to an offensive lineman. It didn't work, and Whittingham himself couldn't defend it afterward. "Everything falls on my shoulders," he said. "It just wasn't a good call at that point in time. It was a very disappointing outcome and a call that I know Jason Beck wishes he had back because it was so damaging." That's a head coach conceding the point in public and still not doing anything about it.
Before that there was a telegraphed wildcat call against Minnesota, snapped so obviously that defenders were jumping the count before the ball moved. And before that, a tight end's leaked message calling out the coordinator directly, saying none of the skill players were being used and that the quarterback was good but "Beck is a problem." The tight end apologized. The offense then went out against Indiana and proved him right.
The defense has been outstanding. Michigan didn't allow a completion in the second half against Indiana or against Rutgers, back to back, under first-year coordinator Jay Hill. That much is real. But it isolates the competence to one coordinator and leaves the other exposed. A defense playing that well should be winning games by two and three scores against a team ranked at the bottom of the conference against the run. Instead it watched its own offense cough up a ten-point lead to a backup quarterback.
Michigan won, and the defense is elite. None of that changes what's missing: an offense that doesn't need its best player bailing out the play-caller every single week. Carr salvaging a drive in relief of Bryce Underwood against Penn State was the right in-game decision. It doesn't replace an offensive staff that can operate without a rescue act.
Michigan brought Jason Beck in off a Utah offense that jumped from near the bottom of the country in scoring to one of the best in it. That track record is exactly why this is a performance problem, and it belongs to the man calling the plays and the man who hired him. Whittingham has already told the world, on the record, that the bad decisions are his to own. The least he can do now is act like it.
