Former Michigan All-American TE Jake Butt Has Blunt Take on Wolverines — He's Right

The former Wolverines tight end is exactly right in his assessment.

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Jake Butt was one of Michigan's best tight ends to ever play for the Wolverines, if not the best. The Ohio product came to Ann Arbor and enjoyed a great four-year career. He was an All-American and was awarded the John Mackey Award for being the top tight end in the nation, back in 2016.

Butt knows what good football looks like and the current Big Ten analyst knows the Wolverines are not playing good football — especially on the offensive side of the ball. Michigan fell for the second time in a row on Saturday. After losing to Iowa in heartbreaking fashion, the Wolverines were thoroughly dominated by Minnesota.

On Sunday, Butt took to X to talk about what he saw. He called the film disappointing and said there are no easy fixes for Michigan.

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"Minnesota film is as disappointing as you’ll find. It’s a hodge podge of poor play calls, poor execution, mental errors, lack of effort, lack of awareness, poor communication and identification, players playing slow.. seemingly from not being aware/ confident of their assignment, then you see pressing. Just saying 'screw it… let me try this'.

"Just really bad football. Defense once again showing their talent and potential. Kept the game close. But really never had a chance with the play of the offense. The answer? I have no idea. Not an easy fix."

Disappointing is an understatement

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Michigan didn't have a good offense under Sherrone Moore in either year, but one thing fans could count on was that the Wolverines could run the football. And the wild thing was with Jason Beck coming to Ann Arbor, he was expected to make Michigan run the ball even more efficiently than it did in either year under Moore.

Beck's offenses had the No. 2 ranked rushing attack in both 2024 and 2025, and Bryce Underwood was supposed to take another step.

Instead, in five games, Michigan has the No. 122 ranked total offense in the nation, along with the No. 100 rushing attack. The Wolverines' best outing on the ground came against UTEP, where Michigan ran for 185 yards. The ground game mustered a meager 79 yards against Minnesota.

All things are on the table

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Kyle Whittingham knows what good football looks like. He was the head coach of Utah for 21 seasons and did some great things for the Utes during that span. Whittingham saw Utah's offense take a new level under Beck last season, but he also knows this is unacceptable.

Following the loss on Saturday, Whittingham said he will look at all possibilities, and righting the ship is a must. He will sit down with Jason Beck and some 'tough decisions' could come to fruition. Most people are looking at the quarterback position and questioning whether the Wolverines will turn to Tommy Carr in place of Bryce Underwood.

Will that fix everything? It's hard to determine. Beck has to adjust his scheme to fit the personnel on this team, and until he does that, no change is going to matter.

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