Biff Poggi reveals message to Michigan following Nebraska's Hail Mary conversion

Michigan got the win on Saturday in Lincoln to improve to 3-1. After the Wolverines took down Nebraska, 30-27, Michigan will get a much-needed week off before taking on Wisconsin at home in two weeks. The Wolverines can get healthy, have their head coach back, and fix some mistakes that have hindered them through four weeks.

Some of those are mental -- just like how Michigan ended the first half. The Wolverines were up 17-10 and Nebraska had the ball. But the Michigan defense shut down the Huskers and Nebraska appeared to be fine punting the ball away to end the first half, but interim head coach Biff Poggi made a major blunder.

Instead of calling a timeout with 30 seconds left, as the down marker switched to fourth down, Poggi let the clock wind down. One issue -- Matt Rhule had a timeout in his pocket. The Huskers' head coach called a timeout with one second left, which allowed Nebraska to do the unthinkable. A converted hail mary to end the half.

Instead of going into the half up 17-10, Michigan was tied 17-17. Following the game, Poggi was asked about the reasoning for not calling a timeout to force the Cornhuskers to punt.

"We conferred on that, and we thought it was the best thing for the team to do that," Poggi said of the strategy to end the first half. "We did not think they were going to call a timeout. However, thinking about it, maybe we could have called a timeout and gotten the back end set up better. We had plenty of players, there were plenty of players, they were in position, the kid made a great play."

Poggi's message to the team at the break

That hail mary would be enough for some teams to pack it in and lose momentum, but the Wolverines stayed calm and kept battling. What was Poggi's message to the team following the unthinkable catch? He told his team they were beating the snot out of Nebraska.

"Sometimes those things happen," Poggi said. "What’s most important is how do you respond from them and, at halftime, I called them up before we went on the field, I told them, I said I know it’s 17-17 but physically we’re beating the snot out of them and we’re turning this into a heavyweight fight and that’s going to be our big advantage in the second half and I think it was."

The Michigan trench play came to play against Nebraska. The Wolverines sacked Dylan Raiola seven times and had pressure on him the entire night. While the Huskers made some nice plays, it was the Wolverines who were the more physical team on Saturday.

Poggi's message to the team at the break

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