“Goodness that was stupid,” said one reporter in the gaggle awaiting Kyle Whittingham on Saturday night.
“I feel dirty,” said another.
One more walked in and just loudly sighed: “Pssssh.”
Then Whittingham himself arrived, so everyone returned to the expected level of decorum, trying hopelessly to dance around the obvious.
“What’re your thoughts?” came the first question. “And how happy are you that they converted on that opportunity?”
How happy could he be? This was a man who’d just snatched the luckiest win of his career from the clutches of all-time embarrassment.
“My reaction was just, ‘Thank goodness,’” he said.
But that faded fast.
“I was mad,” he added quickly. “I’m still (mad).”
Everyone in the room following Michigan’s 13-12 win Saturday night could see it. Whittingham tried to lighten the mood with some attempts at humor — “This game will go down in Michigan history,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s in a positive way, but it’ll go down in history” — but mostly he seemed dejected.
One of his players probably said it better later on, when asked whether he tried to “live in the moment” following the improbable win.
“That wasn’t a moment,” the player said, “we really wanted to be living in.”
It certainly wasn’t a moment Michigan fans could have imagined some three hours earlier, when the game kicked off in Ann Arbor. Michigan had paid Western Michigan $1.5 million to serve as a sacrificial tuneup. But the Broncos — last year’s Mid-American Conference champs, and favorites to win the MAC again — came ready to brawl.
That shouldn’t have mattered much given Michigan’s considerable talent and resource advantage; the Wolverines came in favored by 27 and a half.
Early on, after a clinical opening drive that ended with seven points, that looked like smart money. But Michigan’s offense, hampered by procedural penalties and baffling decisions from quarterback Bryce Underwood, quickly stalled out. With 13:40 left in the second quarter, when Underwood threw yet another pass into coverage, the first couple of boos trickled in.
By 7:08, when Michigan was flagged for a late hit, Whittingham was shaking his head in slow motion on television. Three minutes later, when Underwood took a third-down sack, the boos arrived in earnest. “Victor the Frisbee dog” helped lift spirits during the two-minute timeout, but when Underwood threw an interception with just nine seconds left in the half, deep in Michigan territory, Whittingham was soon getting booed out of The Big House after just two quarters.
Little changed in the second half. Negative plays, turnovers and penalties doomed the Wolverines, while Western bled the clock and wore down the vaunted Michigan defense, though never enough to score a touchdown. Leading 9-7 with 1:50 to go, the Broncos forced an Underwood fumble that looked to be fatal, but they settled for another field goal with 35 seconds left.
Michigan was firmly in miracle territory already; many fans had left after the fumble, and a steady stream trickled toward the exits even as Underwood dropped back for a last-second heave. The pass fell well incomplete, sailing way out the back of the end zone and sending Western’s players into a field-storming frenzy.
At that point, the Broncos had bested the Wolverines in rushing (132 yards to 106); first downs (16 to 12); time of possession (40:08 to 19:51); and turnovers (zero to three), seemingly en route to besting them overall for the first time in program history.
But, after review, referees ruled one second remained on the clock.
This was, to use drastic understatement, controversial. Reporters in the press box mused over whether Western Michigan should sue. But it happened, so Michigan tried again.
Underwood threw another deep heave, this one sailing into the outstretched arms of JJ Buchanan and into Michigan football lore.
Buchanan, who followed Whittingham to Ann Arbor from Utah, crashed into the end zone and wrapped his arms around the ball like he was trying to choke it.
Everyone — even in the press box — rose to their feet, all who remained of what had been 110,878 people, to scream or gasp or some combination thereof.
No right-minded Michigan fan thought for more than two seconds that Saturday’s game would end with field-storming euphoria. But in the end the refs put one second back on the clock, and one second was all it took.
Following the game, the Big Ten Conference released a statement and video of the review process, saying in part: “As shown in the provided video of what was viewed during the replay process, a side-by-side view of the play and the game clock, using a direct shot of the game clock in the stadium, was used to determine the final ruling. Eighty-five minutes prior to the game, all broadcast cameras used for the replay system, including the camera on the game clock, are synced using a strobe system to ensure all cameras are aligned,” it added.
Students stormed down from the bleachers. Grown men skipped through The Big House’s main concourse. And in the center of it all was Whittingham, illuminated by NBC’s cameras.
“Obviously, unbelievable last play. Defense played well, didn’t allow a touchdown the entire game,” Whittingham said without the slightest hint of a smile.
He paused to look over his shoulder, like he almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A shirtless kid was helicopter-swinging his shed garment.
Whittingham’s face said Pipe down, but he stayed composed.
“We just hung in there,” he said with a long shake of his head. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got a bunch of work to do.”
That was the same message he shared moments later, with a group of reporters who could barely believe what they’d just seen.
“You’ve got to work yourself out of it. There’s no magic fairy that’s going to wave a wand and solve your problems,” he said. “We got ourselves into this and we will get ourselves out of it, and there’s no way to get out of it but hard work.”
And it’s certainly better, he added, to be able to get to work following a win rather than what could have been an era-defining loss.
Yet Whittingham, too, seemed stricken by disbelief. Not so much in the shocking outcome or what was soon dubbed “Clock Gate,” but by the more foundational fact that his team played so poorly. After an offseason where he was crowned by so many as the perfect man at the perfect time at one of the most historic programs in college football, he’d failed the first test.
And he knows that at Michigan, failure is unacceptable. He said as much when asked what it was like to lead the Wolverines for the first time.
“Coming down that tunnel is special. It’s the same tunnel Bo (Schembechler) came down,” he said. “It’s been as advertised or even better.”
Then, after a long pause: “I love this place.”
Then he was gone, whisked away through a glass door into an indifferent hallway, and everyone went back to talking about Clock Gate and field storming and the general insanity of this atypical night in college football.
For Whittingham, though, the night was likely just beginning. Oklahoma looms in six days. And, as he’d said mere moments earlier: “All this is squarely on my shoulders. There’s no doubt about that.”