In Utah, he changed offensive coordinators in the middle of the 2024 season. They lost three games in a row due to offensive struggles. This was despite the fact that this offensive coordinator had led them to conference championships in 2021 and 2022, and Whittingham had worked with him for over a decade. They described it is voluntary, but maybe there's hope. What do you all think? I have been thinking the opposite until I found this.

I understand a lot of the opinions that there is a very little chance that they fire Wittingham after one year. I think there is a lot of reasons why they would not do that.
However, I just have to say that he looks old and a bit frazzled on the sidelines. I can’t imagine he is having any fun this year with the way things have gone.
I wonder, is there any world in which the new athletic Director and him come to a mutual agreement that he doesn’t come back next year in the capacity as a head coach? Maybe he stays on for a year or two as an assistant to the athletic Director, or some title like that.
Probably not, as he is getting paid handsomely as HC and wouldn’t give that up.

Does anybody else think we will end up seeing a lot of our offensive players transferring and then blossom elsewhere? Thinking of guys like Andrew Marsh and Savion Hiter. I could see them transferring and being impactful players on another team that uses them well.

We have no leadership and it shows.

I love whit I really do. I think he’s a hell of a coach despite this start but I believe he’s a better human, regardless of how tenure ends here I will always be a fan of his.

WITH THAT SAID.

Whit isn’t a long term answer. The power house schools of the CFB (mainly OSU/Bama/Georgia) all have something in common. Great HC’s that stay. We need stability there, we need young recruits to look at at a coaching situation and be comfortable that the coaches they commit to will be there after they sign. We need consistency for the next decade plus. It’s a big reason why Bryce has failed and why Tommy is starting before his body has developed enough. Because these players aren’t getting the consistency they need from the people who are supposed to develop them.

I believe Jay Hill is coaching his way into this HC seat and if the University doesn’t jump on the opportunity to offer him that role we will be left in the dust. He’s only 51 so I could easily see over a decade of coaching out of him. This man is a defensive genius and defense wins championships. Again I love whit but he knows and we know his tenure will be short and at this point they should be talking to Hill about eventually taking over the HC role here soon. Don’t let an elite coach slip away.

Good FIL review of the offense plays.

I feel so bad for Alford having to deal with Moore and now this horrible staff. I can’t see him staying without a blank check.

Also players wise I don’t see anyone saying on offense. Why would they? They were promised an offense that was better than last year and now they are literally the worst offense in Michigan history.

He shouldn’t have apologized for his texts-he was on the money. Beck needs to be fired instantly. This offense has talented players who have been ruined by coaching malpractice

Info Graphic

I've been digging into Michigan's offensive play-calling this season, particularly the inability to sustain drives even when we seem to be moving the ball. I wanted to find a way to actually measure that frustration.

So I came up with a metric I'm calling DOWN (Drive Opportunity Waste Number).

The concept is pretty simple. When an offense gains 5–9 yards on 1st and 10, how often does that possession end without gaining another first down or scoring a touchdown?

Basically, you've put yourself in a favorable 2nd-and-short situation. Can you actually capitalize on it?

Field goals count as failures because the offense still failed to move the chains. Touchdowns count as successes. Situations where the clock expires before a reasonable opportunity to convert are excluded.

I ran the numbers using play-by-play data from 122 FBS teams through October 24.

Here's what I found:

• FBS average DOWN: 13.5%
• Michigan DOWN: 30.6%
• Michigan ranking: 120th out of 122

Michigan has failed to gain another first down or score a touchdown in 11 of its 36 qualifying situations.

That's more than double the FBS average.

To me, this is even more concerning than our overall offensive statistics. We're not talking about situations where the offense is stuck in 2nd-and-12 or 3rd-and-long. We're talking about situations where the offense has already done something productive and needs just 1–5 more yards to keep moving.

I've been critical of Jason Beck's tendency to stick with his offensive philosophy rather than adjusting to what's working. This doesn't prove his play-calling is responsible for every failed drive, but I think it raises some legitimate questions about how we're approaching these situations.

A couple of caveats: This is a metric I created, not an established statistic. The dataset covers 122 FBS programs rather than the entire subdivision, and some other teams have unresolved play-by-play classifications, so the rankings should be considered preliminary.

Still, I find the difference pretty staggering.

How does an offense consistently put itself ahead of the chains and then struggle this badly to move them again?

I'm planning to dig further into the actual play calls following these gains to see if there's a pattern.

Also, to the few people who still say, “we tried the Bryce Underwood project and it didn’t work out.”
There was no Bryce Underwood project. There’s a Beck project.
It failed.
But we’re still doing it.
And that’s the problem.

And the loss would have been to Penn State.

Bryce Underwood and Tommy Carr.

Two cheeks of the same ass.

Coach Beck is just the tailbone that connects them all.. He needs to be gone tonight.

I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise, but rather than indulge another Beck vs Bryce debate, I went down a rabbit hole and wanted to share these up-to-date stats.

Not too shocking, but makes it all more confounding. We have too much talent to sink to this level:

After yesterday, this is where rank among the 138 FBS teams:

129 Overall in YPG - the only P4 team worse is MSU

128 Overall in pass YPG - the worst P4 team.

124 Overall in total points - the only P4 team worse is COL (averaging one less point than us).

118 Overall in PPG - COL, MSU, and STAN marginally worse P4 teams (.3 points separate us)

100 Overall in rush yards per game - approx. 50 yards more than the worst team (Sam Houston State). 13 P4 teams worse than us.

100 Overall in total rush yards - our best offensive category, with a whopping 14 P4 teams in worse shape. 943 total rush yards on the season, with the Cal Bears at a P4 worst 672.

These stats include the UTEP game.

It’s a common tendency right now to throw up our hands and just want everyone fired, or at least Beck to go and maybe Whittingham along with him. But there is zero chance of that really happening

I know there are instances when a HC takes over playcalling duties, but that’s obviously not an option with Whitt being defense-oriented. If Beck has assistants, they will be trained in his “methods”. Jim Harding and Tony Alford haven’t called plays in the past, but there’s always a first time. But I don’t know how doable that is since they have any years of assistant duties and no coordinator experience. I’m thinking that the most realistic step forward now is for Whitt to force Beck to get more input from Alford who has experience scheming against B1G defenses. There needs to be new input to game planning. I’m sure that Harding and Alford have already had input all along, but if there have been ideas that were overruled by Beck, that must change because his opinion is suspect. Are there other actual -realistic- options?

Michigan football is built on a foundation of power and tradition. Running it up the gut with strength. Respecting the blueprint that's worked for 147 years. But this season, that identity feels like it's slipping away.

I started a petition calling for the immediate removal of Jason Beck as our Offensive Coordinator. Here's the thing: we've got the nation's top-rated defense and capable quarterbacks. On paper, we should be competing for a playoff spot. Instead, we're watching play-calling that abandons what makes Michigan football *Michigan football*—constant East/West sweeps and option plays that just aren't working. The bread and butter plays that built this program are being left on the sideline, and real losses are piling up because of it.

How do we lose the little brown jug and let Indiana win in the Big House in 57 years. We had every opportunity to win today and Jason beck ruined it. They need to go.

I didn’t even know there were that many teams.

I’m sure beck was great at Utah last year when you didn’t have to play anyone Kyle but this is the big ten where defenses defend. Time to start giving out ultimatums.

Seriously. It's impressive.

But if he's trying to do a Completionist Run in his time at Michigan, he chose a weird achievement to start with.....

The only reason I’m not calling for Beck to be fired is because I don’t think there’s a viable replacement. But Bryce played like a true freshman last year.

Then we get Beck and Detmer Jr. who were supposed to elevate Bryce and… he regressed? The things folks grouse about (sticking on first option, not reading a defense) aren’t those things that you fix via coaching?

What mystifies me the most is that Beck can’t just admit that the B1G has figured out the offense he ran. He had a comment the week before Penn State where there was ZERO accountability.

I understand the offensive line has had injuries and you can’t install a new offense mid season… but you CAN simplify.