Right, a perfect storm of bad coaching decisions, bad luck, and unfavorable officiating
Posted on September 27, 2026 at 08:49:27 AM by jon
It really took all those things to overcome what was, on a down to down basis, complete domination. The modal outcome for this game is something like a 31-3 win. In my optimistic moments during the week i was thinking of the 2015 Michigan-Northwestern game: early home matchup against ranked opponent that doesn't have our athletic talent, but we have been struggling and looking disjointed. The game played out like that but for the perfect storm.
BTW, on the last offensive drive, I pointed out during Oklahoma we did the same thing, turtling rather than try for a game-ending first down. We even followed this strategy when the 2 minute warning made the 3rd down play call irrelevant -- in BOTH games, we sacrificed a chance for the first down to consume a few extra seconds by running rather than passing just before the automatic timeout. It's not a post-hoc complaint -- in both games I was calling it out beforehand.
The 4th and 1 sneak I was also calling out based on formation alone. That is a formation and line splits you use to gain six inches at the goalline. It's almost impossible to gain a full yard jumping from a standstill undercenter. Literally physically impossible, given that the opponent is diving over the top also. It wouldn't work against a decent high school defense.
The optimistic takeaway would be to think of it like 1990 Notre Dame, a game I still cannot understand how we lost. (There was also a gigantic tipped pass play on defense, though just one, and a few infuriating coaching decisions by Moeller). The team that played yesterday is the second best team in the Big Ten. We have one loss, and we deserve to have one loss -- it's just that the loss we deserve is Western Michigan, not Iowa.
We nearly escaped September unbeaten despite starting the season totally unready to play high-level football. The good news is that we might be on the cusp of it? The bad news is that our coaches might not get smarter.
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