Michigan's Offense Has 'A Lot of Issues' — How Does Kyle Whittingham Plan on Fixing Them?

Kyle Whittingham spoke to Jon Jansen on Monday night about the Wolverines' offensive issues.

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Michigan has entered its bye week, and it comes at a great time. The Wolverines are searching for a lot of answers after they've dropped back-to-back games to move to 3-2 on the season. Michigan has the No. 122 total offense in the country, yet the Wolverines' defense is ranked No. 6.

Appearing on 'Inside Michigan Football', head coach Kyle Whittingham believes in his defense, and really, there isn't much to change. But as for his offense, there is a lot to fix, and there is a short amount of time to do that.

Whittingham said Michigan has to try and quit putting a square peg in a round hole.

"Offensively, we got a long ways to go," Whittingham said. "I'm telling you right now, there's a lot of issues. And we got to address them. It's just a situation of, again, figuring out what have we done well so far? What do we need to just cast off and not try to do anymore?

"You're not trying to put a square peg in a round hole and find a way to manage the game offensively so we have a chance to win.”

Gone away from downhill football

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Arguably the most disappointing aspect of Michigan's offense through five weeks is running the football. It's been well talked about that Jason Beck has had the No. 2 rushing attack in all of football in both 2024 and 2025. But it's been bad this season in Ann Arbor.

Michigan has the No. 100 ranked rushing attack, averaging 135 yards per game. A large issue for Michigan is that its personnel doesn't match Jason Beck's style of play. He comes from New Mexico and Utah, where he had athletic linemen who were able to attack horizontally, and his runners got the job done east-west.

But these players come from Jim Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore, who were built for downhill football. Whittingham said Michigan has gotten too far away from the downhill attack and that's something the Wolverines need to get back to.

“Okay, so that I would say, first of all, we came out of the gates pretty good running the football," Whittingham said. "We had a couple of real nice runs, and then second half we came out and did the same thing, some downhill stuff, and that popped, five, six, seven, eight yards, and again, schematically, no changes from what they did.

"We just weren't executing as well down the stretch as we needed to, and we just have to be, and we've said this for weeks and weeks, we're more of a downhill team, and I think we got away from that just a little bit, but if we can just continue to be a downhill team, let the offensive line just roll off the ball, that's where we're going to have our most success run in the football.”

Bryce has gone from career best to inaccurate

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Bryce Underwood appeared to have turned a corner after a horrendous Week 1 game against Western Michigan. Jason Beck started to utilize Underwood in the run game, and Underwood began to throw more accurately and started to read his progressions.

Just two weeks ago, despite a loss, Underwood had arguably his best outing of his career against Iowa. He threw for 276 yards and kept Michigan in the game. And he started out well against Minnesota, but old habits reared their ugly head. Underwood missed Andrew Marsh for an open touchdown and made some costly plays.

“Yeah, that's a good question," Whittingham said as to why Underwood struggled against Minnesota. "His throws just weren't as crisp and on the mark as they were earlier on. And then we had the one interception where Andrew was wide open down the field and it would have been a touchdown and Bryce just didn't see it.

"And the quarterback doesn't always see everything. But had he been able to see that one right there, that would have probably been a big factor in the outcome of the game. But this is not all on Bryce.
I mean, by any means, not trying to paint that picture. But he just was more accurate early in the game than he was later on. They didn't really do anything different coverage wise.”

Now, fans are clamoring to see Tommy Carr in the game. But nothing that Whittingham said on Monday night made you believe there will be a change at quarterback. It feels like this week is all about making some changes to the scheme to put Underwood and Michigan in a better position moving forward.

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