What they're saying about Michigan football's win over Northwestern
The Michigan Wolverines walked off the Northwestern Wildcats on Saturday at Wrigley Field in Chicago, moving to 8-2 on the season, 6-1 in the Big Ten and keeping their goals alive down the stretch.
But a game with 5 turnovers, a blown fourth-quarter lead and plenty of other drama led to plenty of strong reactions after the fact.
We rounded up some of the best coming out of Saturday’s victory.
Ryan Van Bergen, The Wolverine postgame
Postgame podcast: Michigan coaching ‘No. 1 takeaway’ after close call at Northwestern
”[Michigan] coaching, I think, is the number one takeaway for me,” Van Bergen said. “After a bye week, you should see a well-oiled, executing, high-efficiency offense, defense and special teams. You should have a game plan and be crisp, sharp, fast. You should be fresh. And you didn’t see any of that. I think Wink Martindale and the defense held their own. There are some times when I feel like in coverage we broke down, but I also feel like we’re exposed a lot more than we maybe need to be because of where the offense is going. And with five turnovers. I thought Chip Lindsay tried to install some more RPO, which was feast or famine early on.
“We feasted on the RPO late in the game. I think Bryce Underwood may have become overconfident or was trying to overcompensate for some of the mistakes he made and easy give-aways that were four or five, six yards easy for all. And if you were watching the game on the live broadcast, Joel Klatt was kind of going over their coverage and their quarters and how their safeties were coming down to support the run. And I mean, that wasn’t that hard to pick up on. And Northwestern kind of cat-and-mouse with Chip Lindsay and they ended up getting those picks.
“There were some strides that went forward, but when you have the undisciplined mistakes, there were penalties, there were, there are penalties that weren’t called for sure. Not to be that guy, but we got away with some stuff. Those types of things. The miscues on special teams, those are the type of things after in Week 12, talking about it in every press conference, ‘we have some things to clean up,’ I am kind of standing on that it’s not clean enough. So now what? That’s kind of where I’m at with the coaching staff.”
Chris Balas, The Wolverine
Michigan 24, Northwestern 22 — Notes, quotes, and observations … more of the same, including the win
Northwestern’s game plan in a 24-22 loss to Michigan Saturday seemed pretty simple — play it close to the vest on offense, hope for (expect?) some U-M mistakes, shorten the game, and take their chances.
It’s what we would have chosen, too, having seen this Michigan team the last several weeks.
For a while, it worked … and by “a while,” we mean the entire first half. Between that and “throw it up and hope,” they hung around longer than they should have. They didn’t waver from that strategy, even when they fell behind 21-9, and Michigan continued to oblige with mistake after mistake to keep them in it with four (!) second half turnovers after failing to create distance in the first half.
Such is the danger in letting an overmatched team hang around.
You can watch a lot of football games in the next few years, and you might not see another in which a team that lost the turnover battle 5-0 actually won. But the Michigan defense held the Wildcats to field goals most of the time, the offense moved the ball pretty well, actually, (496 yards) behind a breakout performance from frosh receiver Andrew Marsh (12 catches, 189 yards), and it was just enough.
Clayton Sayfie, The Wolverine
Best and worst from Michigan’s win over Northwestern
Michigan turned the ball over 5 times, including freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood throwing 2 interceptions. There were also fumbles on a handoff gone wrong on a fourth-down exchange between Underwood and junior Bryson Kuzdzal, on an end-around by freshman wideout Andrew Marsh and on a punt return that was going nowhere by junior Semaj Morgan.
The last time Michigan gave the ball away 5 times came in the Jan. 1, 2018, Outback Bowl against South Carolina, but that was a 26-19 loss. It’s hard to win when handing the opponent the ball that often, and it hasn’t happened for U-M since a 27-16 victory by Rich Rodriguez‘s team over Purdue in 2010.
The Wolverines put up 496 total yards, their most in a game against a Power Conference team since the 51-45 loss to TCU Dec. 31, 2022, but they turned that into only 24 points. The theme of not making the most of opportunities continues for the Maize and Blue offense. Still, the team is 8-2 with big goals and ideas ahead of them.
Michael Cohen, Fox Sports
4 Takeaways From Michigan’s Win Over Northwestern on ‘Big Noon Saturday’
Nothing about the way Saturday’s game unfolded suggested that Michigan, ranked No. 18 in the country and needing a win to remain in the College Football Playoff hunt, should, would or could emerge from Wrigley Field with a victory.
Not after turning the ball over five times. Not after missing two field goals. Not after an apparent shoulder injury to tailback Jordan Marshall left the Wolverines without their top two runners in a run-heavy system. Not after squandering a 12-point, fourth-quarter lead.
And yet, despite every statistic and circumstance, there stood Michigan kicker Dominic Zvada, a former All-American, needing only to connect on a 31-yard try as time expired to give the Wolverines an improbable victory and erase an afternoon of errors. He aligned, he stepped, he swung his right leg and buried the field goal. Michigan 24, Northwestern 22 — somehow, someway.
Austin Meek, The Athletic
Michigan keeps winning its Big Ten battles, but its power is going to have limits
The Wolverines are allowed to celebrate. That’s the winning team’s prerogative. But they shouldn’t be surprised if no one else in the Big Ten sees this as a feel-good story about a gritty team overcoming adversity.
From the outside, Michigan looks like a team that keeps whistling past the graveyard and getting away with it. Teams that commit five turnovers don’t usually deserve to win — Michigan was the first team to win a game this season with a minus-5 turnover margin, in fact — but somehow the Wolverines keep ducking the consequences of their mistakes. Rivals in the Big Ten might say it’s not the first time.
It’s hard to separate what’s happening on the field from what’s happening in the Big Ten boardroom. Michigan has been the squeaky wheel objecting to the Big Ten’s plan to raise $2.4 billion in private capital through a deal with UC Investments, which manages the pension fund for the University of California system. If the Big Ten insists on going ahead with the deal without Michigan’s support, some of the school’s decision-makers have suggested it could fracture the conference.
Michigan is flexing its muscle as one of the Big Ten’s two most powerful schools. It’s not just empty talk: Any conference or media partner would be happy to have Michigan’s massive ratings, its worldwide fan base and its iconic brand. Michigan’s takeover of Wrigley Field was another example of why the Wolverines carry so much sway in the Big Ten. Their fans flooded Waveland Avenue before the game, filled the bleachers and rooftops with maize and blue and packed the nearby sports bars after the game.
There’s no denying Michigan’s institutional heft. But, to be frank, the Wolverines haven’t backed it up on the field. They’re 8-2 and technically still alive for a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game, but they’re not on the same tier with Ohio State, Indiana or Oregon. They got blown out by USC, notched respectable wins against Washington and Nebraska and looked shaky against several teams in the bottom quadrant of the Big Ten.
David Hale, ESPN.com
College football Week 12 highlights: Top games, plays, stats
Michigan entered the fourth quarter at Wrigley Field on Saturday leading Northwestern by 12, thanks to stellar performances by tailback Jordan Marshall (142 yards, two scores) and receiver Andrew Marsh (12 catches, 189 yards), but things quickly fell apart.
The Wolverines turned the ball over on three straight drives, allowing Northwestern to take the lead 22-21 with just over two minutes to go.
But in a nod to Cubs fans, who had gone more than a month without seeing the bullpen blow a late lead, Northwestern was happy to fill that void. Michigan drove 50 yards on 11 plays, converting a trio of third downs, before Dominic Zvada drilled a 31-yarder to win it 24-22.
On the upside for Northwestern, at halftime, Tony Petitti sold the naming rights to every fourth-quarter Big Ten collapse to fast-food giant Arby’s — “When it’s the fourth quarter and your stomach is in knots, think Arby’s!” — and that blown lead just nabbed the Wildcats an extra $146.50 in revenue.
Tony Garcia, Detroit Free Press
Michigan football consistently inconsistent, but keeps on winning
The miscues throughout shouldn’t obscure a look at the pleasant parts of a gorgeous afternoon in the Windy City.
True freshman Andrew Marsh has emerged as an electric, game-changing wide receiver. There were flashes of it throughout October, foreshadowing a 12-catch, 189-yard performance that was the best for any first-year U-M pass-catcher since 1979.
He provided a reliable target for fellow freshman Bryce Underwood, as the former five-star recruit had perhaps his best first three quarters this season. He opened 18-for-24 for 237 yards and blew a kiss after he scampered for a 9-yard touchdown for the first score of the second half.
The connection with Marsh – featuring 10 plays of at least 10 yards – featured a pair of pretty plays. Early, Underwood feathered a perfect pass up the right sideline between the back two layers of the NU defense for a 32-yard strike. Late, Underwood scrambled before finding Marsh for a 21-yarder in which he dove along the sideline and dragged his toes before going out of bounds on U-M’s final drive.