Everything Kyle Whittingham said after Iowa, ahead of Minnesota

Michigan football head coach Kyle Whittingham met with the media Monday following the Wolverines’ loss to Iowa and ahead of their first road game of the season against Minnesota.

Whittingham discussed Michigan’s mounting penalty issues, the final defensive call against Iowa, the Wolverines’ inability to close games, Bryce Underwood’s continued improvement, the identity emerging on offense, several offensive line injuries, the lack of defensive takeaways and one fourth-down call that both he and offensive coordinator Jason Beck wish they had back.

Here is everything Whittingham said Monday.

John Henry update

Updates, not definitive updates for availability this week. It’s still early in the week, obviously. So we’ll just have to take it day by day at this point. We should have, by Wednesday I think, a much clearer picture. I think that’s the first day that the Big Ten injury report comes out, coinciding with when we have a pregame one.

Formation penalties

Absolutely. I wouldn’t say that. I think what we need to do is coach better Monday through Friday and make sure everyone knows where to line up. We do a pretty good job of it during the week in practice, but we’ve had a few miscues during the games.

Final defensive call

Jay Hill calls the defense and felt that, based on what he was expecting and what we’re best at, he thought that was the best structure to be in. So that’s the best answer I can give you right now. There’s two schools of thought. You play coverage or bring it all.

Penalty problems

Not really. Not really, and that’s a concern. Obviously, the penalties, we’re 16th in the Big Ten out of 18 teams and like 100-and-something out of 138. So it’s not completely ridiculously over the top, but we have way too many penalties. We understand that. So it’s a work in progress. Some of the penalties are the cost of doing business. You’re never going to be penalty-free, but if we can get it down to 50 or less a week, that’s probably the ballpark we want, which we were last week in the UTEP game. But three of the four weeks, we were what, 90, 80, 70-something? So entirely too many, and we’ve just got to do a better job coaching it, do a better job of heightening the players’ awareness to thoughtless penalties — the penalties that could very easily have been avoided. That’s really the thing that we’re focusing on.

Rhino formation issues

No. I think the officials called a good game. I wouldn’t put anything on the officials in that game. As I’ve said many times, I never complain. He’d had limited reps, and that’s not an excuse, but he was playing his first extended amount of time in that position. There’s a lot to that position as far as formations. So, again, we’ve got to do a better job coaching him up.

Red-zone interception

Yeah, there was a miscommunication. It’s unfortunate it was in the red zone, which magnifies it. We were going in to score, and there were three or four things that were really disappointing in the game that really tilted the balance of the outcome. We obviously beat them handily in the statistics, total offense versus their total offense, but the penalties were in their favor. We didn’t do a good job there in the red zone. It was in their favor. They won the red-zone battle. We lost the turnover margin. Again, it was only 1-0, but that’s 1-0. It’s minus-one. Those three things — had any one of those three things flipped, we would’ve won the game. But they did a good job, and credit them.

Five deciding factors

Two other disappointing things were letting the kickoff return out of the gate, and the two-minute and the four-minute offense. We’ve got to be better. We’ve got a few chances now to have a four-minute offense and put the game on ice, and we weren’t able to get that done. So what’s that, five things? Any of those five things were in our favor, we win that one. So we’ll move on.

Four-minute offense

Sure, that third down especially. The third down could’ve gone either way, and as soon as you throw it and it’s incomplete, they save the timeout. Then everyone’s saying, why didn’t you run the ball? They can burn their last timeout. So there’s arguments from both sides. But the bottom line is we need to do a better job of putting games away when we have control.

“Feel like 0-4”

Well, we’re 3-1. I feel like we’re 0-4. I can tell you that’s how I feel. We’re 3-1, one play away from 4-0, one play away from 2-2. So it’s been three of four games very close, contested games. It’s been an emotional roller coaster in a way, but I see a lot of things trending in the right direction. The offense, Bryce Underwood as an individual, the offensive line. So I think we’ve got some things going for us, but we’ve still got the things that we’ve already talked about that need to be cleaned up.

First-month assessment

I think the defense has met our expectations. Special teams, we need statistically to be better. We’re not very good in that regard statistically. Our punt team has been a good weapon for us. Overall, we need to be better. Offensively, we’re still finding who we are. But again, we’re seemingly getting better. I thought Bryce played his best game of the season overall. I thought Jordan Marshall was at his best. Two receivers went over 100 yards each. The offensive line, I think the run game was blocked up pretty good. We rushed for 150, 160. They rushed for 50. It was one of their lowest rushing totals in years. There’s some good things going on, but we’re still a work in progress.

Team progress

Well, like I said, we are making strides. Our guys are playing hard. They played with passion and energy all 60 minutes on Saturday. They compete, and they’ve got a great attitude. They’re a pleasure to coach. I love these guys, and we’ve just got to keep together and not fragment, which I don’t anticipate happening, and just continue to battle. It’s a long season. We’re only four games in. We’ve got at least eight games to play, so we’ve just got to keep forging ahead.

Underwood’s improvement

I thought he threw the ball very well. Going through his progressions, getting the ball out expeditiously. I think he’s doing a better job of not getting skittish in the pocket. He’s got more confidence in his offensive line to stand in there and go through his reads. He also ran the ball effectively. Not as effectively as the Oklahoma game, but still effective. I thought, like I said, Jordan Marshall and Savion, they each added 50 or 60 yards to the rushing total, which was good to see.

Correcting penalties

Yeah, there is a film review. We don’t punish them in practice. I guess if we can’t get it cleaned up right away, then maybe that’s something we’ll have to go to. But to this point, just keep coaching it, keep educating, decision-making. Like I said, some of the penalties are just going to happen. But it’s the thoughtless ones that we could’ve very easily avoided. Those are the ones that drive me nuts.

Offensive line injuries

Yeah, we’re on the way to clarity. We’re closer to clarity than we were. We’re not at a point where we know definitively one way or the other, but it’s starting to come into focus a little bit. There’s one or two more things that are going to be assessed or evaluated, and then we should have the clarity we need whether Andrew Sprague is going to become available. If Blake’s out and Andrew is continuing to be out and the Rhino’s still out, we expect Marvin to be back today. That’s a positive. So hopefully we don’t have that issue. But if we lose another tackle, I guess there’s some good news about Andrew Babalola. They’re going to let him start practicing in one week, so apparently we’ll get him back next week. We’ll have to figure out the best combination because that will put us in a little bit of a bind. Nobody feels sorry for us, so we can’t feel sorry for ourselves. Just figure out who the best five are going to be and what configuration we’ll go from there.

Underwood on move

Because he throws very well on the move. We saw that on tape last year, and I mentioned at the beginning of the season that moving the launch point and having some throws on the run appeared to be his strength, and that’s proven to still be the case. So that’s just playing to his strengths.

Season goals intact

By no means. I can’t imagine that one loss is going to do that. There’s still a ton of football to be played. We’ve got eight more conference games. So in our opinion — I guess there’s a scenario or two where it’s not in our control — but we feel like everything’s going to be within our control still going forward.

Minnesota’s momentum

There’s pros and cons. They’re probably feeling pretty good about themselves right now. A road win at Husky Stadium, which has traditionally not been easy to do for anybody. So they’re playing with a lot of confidence, a lot of passion, a lot of energy. Sometimes teams start feeling too good about themselves. That could be. And then there’s the wounded animal. If we’re coming off a loss, they’ll be angry and ready to fight. There’s many different ways you can look at it. So we’ll just see what happens.

Avery Gach’s play

Yeah, I thought Avery played well overall. His overall grade — and we talked about the one miscue — but the overall grade was solid. He stepped in, next-man-up mentality, filled the shoes of that Rhino position and was overall net-positive for sure.

Zeke Berry penalty

Yeah, it was unnecessary. That’s for sure. It wasn’t ridiculously flagrant or out of line. You see some of the things that happen, the hit in the USC-Oregon game. It wasn’t just completely heinous, but something that could’ve been avoided. Zeke feels badly about it, and we’ll get it corrected. But we’ve had far too many personal fouls. We’ve had eight in four games. So that’s too many. And again, coach better. Put it all on us as coaches.

Creating takeaways

Turnovers are an elusive thing for a defense. You can practice creating turnovers the exact same way for years and years, and you’re not going to get the same results. I don’t want to say it’s luck. Sometimes the ball bounces your way, sometimes it doesn’t. We had two or three balls right in our hands for interceptions in that past game and couldn’t hang on to them. So we just got to keep practicing it and emphasizing it. Hopefully the floodgates will open up soon and we’ll start to get some. Traditionally, Jay Hill’s defenses are very opportunistic in that area. They’ve intercepted a ton of passes going through the last few years, and hopefully we can start seeing more of that happening.

Offensive improvement

We are starting to get enough from the run game. We faced, on paper, the No. 1 defense in the country on Saturday and put 400-plus yards on them — 150 rushing and nearly 250 throwing, thereabouts — and a bunch of first downs, 20-plus first downs. So I think we’re heading — I know we’re heading — in the right direction, barring any setbacks going forward. But so far we’ve seen a steady improvement. Again, that was a very stingy defense, at least in the first three games of the season. So it was good to see the production that we had.

Offensive identity

We’re a spread attack, heavy RPO, not a lot of drop-back passes, mainly play action, on the move. Zone scheme, gap scheme, heavy in the run game. Right now, that seems to be who we are.

Deflating Iowa loss

No, I feel like it was such a deflating loss because we had it. I mean, we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, the old saying. But again, credit Iowa. That’s nothing new to them. That is their game to a tee. Hang around, hang around, hang around, win it again. That’s who they’ve been for years. Unfortunately for us, it played out pretty much how they scripted.

Red-zone benchmark

Yeah, good with the scheme. We just got to execute better. I think we’re at about 58% touchdowns right now in the red zone, which isn’t good enough. We need to be at 70. That’s our benchmark. So we’re about 12% off of that. Obviously, things that happen in the red zone are magnified — turnovers, fourth-down stops and that type of thing. Conversely, defensively, up until last game, they were two for two, I believe, in the red zone. So we’ve been very good defensively. But again, we’re looking for that 20% spread: 70% touchdowns on offense, 50% touchdowns on defense. We’re there on defense right now, but we’re not quite there on offense.

Ball-spot concerns

Yeah, Bryce had one. I thought it was on the 3-yard line. Next thing I know it was on the 5. So the only recourse is to burn a timeout and see if you can get — is it worth burning that timeout at that juncture to fight for two yards? You’d think they’d maybe have that more accurate. But again, I’m not going to complain about the officials.

Unusual season start

I’m sure I have. Twenty-something seasons, yeah, I’m sure I have. But I would have to research and try to pinpoint it. Probably somewhere along the line. We can get together for lunch.

Fourth-down QB sneak

Correct. Don’t like the call. Jason Beck didn’t like the call. He readily admits that. And we’ve got to do a better job of coaching. It’s not like on the goal line where if you break the plane, it’s over and you get a touchdown. If you break the plane but then you pull it back because you’re not down yet, it’s a whole different structure there. So again, coaches, we’ve got to be better in that situation as well. One of the things we as coaches have to work on.

The fourth-down answer at the very end is particularly notable for the premium Beck article we were building: Whittingham explicitly says, “Don’t like the call. Jason Beck didn’t like the call. He readily admits that.” That is much more direct than the previous examples we were working with. Pasted text

There’s also a very clean companion story in his description of Michigan’s offensive identity — spread, heavy RPO, play action/on-the-move passing, zone and gap run schemes — because it gives us Whittingham defining what Beck’s offense is actually becoming four games into the season.