00:00Hello, sports fans. I'm Screaming Scott Randall with 94.7 WCSX's Coffee with the Coaches
00:06with Michigan Wolverines head coach Kyle Whittingham. How are you doing, sir?
00:11I'm doing okay. You know, a lot to think about after this past weekend, but the bottom line,
00:18we're sitting here 1-0, which is a good thing, and had a little wake-up call and learned a
00:23little lesson without having to endure a loss, and that doesn't always happen. And so if you can
00:28get a little bit of a wake-up call and still get a win, then that's ideal.
00:34Well, are you ready for some hard-hitting questions?
00:37Let's go. Lay it on me.
00:41Hold on. Can you give me one second?
00:44You can take all the time you need.
00:46Did you see what I did there? Give me one second.
00:49Oh, I got you. There you go.
00:52Sorry.
00:52I put that together. Good for you. Good job.
00:56Congratulations on your first win as head coach. How does that make you feel?
01:01You know, it's memorable. I'll tell you that. I'll never forget it. And it was,
01:08it looked pretty dismal there at the end, obviously. And so, as I mentioned, just to be
01:15able to pull that out and have the players hang in there, even though we were very ineffective
01:19for about 58 minutes of the 60, we hung in there and found a way, bottom line, found a
01:27way to get it done.
01:28Well, I'll tell you, this game is the most talked about, and you as a coach, most talked
01:33about coach in the league right now. I did not realize there were so many referees and
01:39time clock experts out in social media. Have you noticed that?
01:45Yeah. And, you know, the ending of the game, I guess, you know, I had never heard of the
01:51Hawkeye. Is that what they call it? So, anyway, that was news to me that there's more to it than
01:56just the game clock and the stadium ticking down. Now, that being said, when it did tick down
02:02and the ball, you know, sailed out the back, I glanced up, but I thought that was going from
02:06one to zero. So, I thought maybe there's a chance. I wasn't sure. I thought this was
02:1050-50, whether we're going to get another shot or not. And, fortunately, you know, whatever
02:14technology they used proved that to be the case, and we got another chance.
02:19Well, take us back to those last couple chances, I should say, with Bryce Underwood and JJ.
02:26How did that all come about? Who did the play calling on that?
02:29Well, that was Jason Beck. That's our, we call it Big Ben or Hail Mary. You know, it's typically
02:33known as a Hail Mary pass, and you put three receivers in a pod like you saw in the formation
02:39and snap the ball. They all run down to the center of the end zone, and you throw the ball
02:44up, and hopefully one of you guys comes down with it. Now, the first time we did it, Bryce
02:49sailed the ball out of the back, so it really never gave us a chance. But fortunately, on
02:53the second attempt, he threw a perfect ball, and JJ perfectly positioned himself, went up and
02:58got like a 40-inch vertical jump, so that helps in that scenario. And it didn't surprise
03:04me at all that he was the one that caught it. He makes those contested catches all day
03:08long in practice every day. And, you know, the 50-50 ball is not the 50-50 ball when he's
03:13involved. It's more like 80-20 in his favor.
03:17Well, by the numbers, take a look at the game. 276 total yards, 170 passing yards, six tackles
03:26for losses. The thing that worried me most about the game was time of possession. What
03:31are you going to do about that?
03:32Amen. Amen. And the problem there is Western Michigan had an outstanding game plan going
03:39in. If I was in their shoes, it was the same exact plan I would have used, try to shorten
03:43the game, bleed the play clock, control the ball, keep the opposing offense on the sideline,
03:48and that's exactly what they did for 40-plus minutes. And we never did anything offensively
03:54to gain control of the game to force them out of that. We never put points on the board
03:58because if we had gone up, you know, 21-3, then they were going to have to start to, you
04:02know, air it out a little bit and open things up. But we never did anything to put the pressure
04:06on them. So they continued for the entire game to play close to the vest and just methodically
04:13chunk the ball down the field. And in fact, they had a 20-play drive, which is, I don't
04:17know if I've ever been involved in a 20-play drive. That was pretty incredible. But credit
04:21our defense, they didn't let them in the end zone one time. And the red zone defense
04:25was probably the thing that gave us the chance to win the game at the end. Western Michigan
04:30was in the red zone three times, came in with zero touchdowns. And so field goals, we never
04:35worry about field goals in the red zone. We worry about touchdowns. And if you can be
04:38that effective in the red zone, then you're going to have a chance to win. And that proved
04:42to maybe be the biggest difference in the game.
04:44One highlight you can take back is, if you can, in setting a record, six receptions,
04:50126 yards, 47, of course, the 47-yard TD, game-winning catch. How would you rate Bryce's
04:59performance and the game?
05:01We need to get better. We all need to get better. Coaching needs to get better. The run game
05:06needs to get better. You know, there's a lot of areas. And so Bryce didn't have his best
05:11game. I'll probably be the first guy to tell you that. But neither did a lot of people,
05:17neither did the coaches. And so we all got to make dramatic improvements between now and
05:21Saturday at noon, because Oklahoma's coming in and the degree of difficulty goes way up.
05:26And we're fully aware of that.
05:27To grab one of your quotes that you made, we're not going to win a lot of ball games if
05:32we don't
05:33fix some things and fix them right away.
05:35There you go. Yeah. Being able to run the ball with more violence, more finish with the offensive
05:40line, more violence out of the running backs. Got to be able to defend the run better, even though
05:44we didn't give up a ton of yards running the football. Still too many. We try to keep it under
05:49100. That would be ideal for us as a defense. But and probably the biggest statistic of the game
05:56right along there with the red zone defense is the turnover margin. We're minus three. And you don't
06:01win many football games being minus three. In fact, your chances of winning are about 5% in that
06:06scenario. Now, the locker room after the game, of course, exciting hail marrying touchdown win.
06:13What was the locker room like? And what did you say to your team after the game?
06:19It was very somber. There was no celebration. There was no hooting and hollering. We understood that.
06:24And that was really the player set the tone. You know, when I got in there, they were already in
06:28there
06:30very, you know, businesslike and understanding that, hey, that that won't fly. What we just did the
06:35last 60 minutes won't fly. And we've got to be way better than that. And, you know, the players
06:41were were very I was very impressed with how they handled it. Now, hey, you know, we won the game.
06:47But hey, guys, we played not good. And that was the overriding sentiment. And it came from the
06:53players. I reinforced that and said, you guys are right on the money. You know, we did win the game,
06:58but, you know, we're not going to win many more with that type of effort. And so we're all on
07:02the same
07:02page. Well, you told the crowd to be loud and boisterous. They did their part and piled onto
07:09the field. I wonder if we're gonna get fined for that. I don't know what the Big Ten does when
07:14you
07:14feel brush the field, but we may have some monetary commitment there. Well, my father used to always
07:21say to me as a kid, you can't drive an I-75 while looking in your rearview mirror. Now, I
07:29say that
07:29because, again, the Sooners are coming to town. Are you ready? We better be. We got five days to
07:37get ready and put the plan in place and and right the ship, so to speak, and and become the
07:44football
07:44team that we know we can become because we got some we got some good players and we got some
07:47things going for us. You'd never know that by watching the game on Saturday. But I feel like we
07:53have a chance to be a heck of a football team when all is said and done. But we're not
07:57there right now by
07:58any means. Well, you can have a lot of game film to look at because the Sooners beat Utah 51
08:06to
08:06nothing. Wow. How are you going to stop that incredible offense? Yeah, they've got a lot of
08:12weapons. Starts with the quarterback. The offense runs through Mattier, John Mattier, and and he's got
08:18a physical offensive line in front of him. Very good running backs, a receiver that's receiving core
08:24that's very good. But the particularly number one is a is a big time playmaker. And so we've got our
08:29work cut out for us. And, you know, that's just that's that's the nature of the game. You're at
08:34Michigan or you're big, you know, big schools and you're going to have you're going to have big
08:37opponents. And that's just how it goes. Well, you were three out of 10 on third downs.
08:43What do we do with the offense to get that motivated? Well, first of all, we kept shooting
08:48ourselves in the foot with penalties, way too many penalties, nine penalties for 80 yards, put us
08:53behind the sticks constantly. And so we only had 10 drives because of the, you know, the
08:59Washington, Michigan playing keep away and bleeding the clock. So we only had 10 opportunities.
09:03And when you're that poor on third down and you turn it over a couple of times, there's not a
09:07room,
09:07there's not much room left to do, you know, score points. And so we have got to be better on
09:12third
09:12down. And the way to get better on third down, first and foremost, is have third downs that are more
09:16manageable instead of some of the situations that we're in. And so we've got to be better on first
09:21and second down, which will in turn make us more productive on third down. Now, what is your work
09:26ethic for preparing for this week? I mean, you know, today's a holiday, but look at you, you're in
09:33your office already. I was in all day yesterday, all day. There's no holidays in football. Trust me.
09:38It's not like, okay, guys, it's New Year's. You guys are off today. I mean, that's not how it works.
09:42And so there is no downtime in football. We'll put in another 90 hour a week. And that's about
09:48what we average here in the season, 80, 90 hours a week. And that's just how it is. There's no
09:53shortcuts. There's no way to get the job done without putting the time in.
09:58Well, coach, I know you've got your work cut out for you this week.
10:02Yes, we do.
10:03The best of luck. But there is, I always like to leave you with a positive.
10:07Just know something good. You and your team are undefeated so far this season.
10:13There you go. 1-0. I had to read the paper to make sure of that.
10:17Coach, thank you so much for the time. And again, go blue and look forward to this Saturday.
10:22Okay. Thank you very much. Take care. Bye-bye.
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