Everything Wrong With Michigan's ‘Bail Mary'

Good morning, everyone! Brigid Kennedy here, coming off the bench to sub in for Dan Gartland. I hope you had a wonderful Labor Day and a wonderful long weekend. Michigan wide receiver JJ Buchanan catches a 47-yard touchdown on a Hail Mary against Western Michigan to win, 13-12, as time expires. | Junfu Han/Imagn Images Good morning, everyone! Brigid Kennedy here, coming off the bench to sub in for Dan Gartland. I hope you had a wonderful Labor Day and a wonderful long weekend. Thanks for letting us take the day off yesterday. On Friday, my colleague Patrick walked you through Massachusetts's upset victory over Rutgers, a shocking win for one of college football's lowliest programs and oneweekend of college football under our belts, let's take a look back at everything that happened over the last few days. To begin: The powerhouses dominated the weekend. Ohio State, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Indiana and more all steamrolled their unranked opponents in lopsided Saturday victories, easing into the regular season with the authority we've come to expect of the biggest names in FBS. LSU also walloped Clemson 51–10 inlike the Broncos had done it–on TV replays, it appeared that Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood had thrown a dud as time expired, thereby handing Western Michigan the win. But Big Ten officials then put a second back on the clock, which meant Michigan had time for one more Hail Mary. Improbably, Underwood's last-ditch attempt resulted in a 47-yard touchdown, and the Wolverines won the game. In some ways, this is the exact type of absurdity we've missed from college football—though that certainly was not the Broncos' takeaway. "If you look at what saw, then you reach the conclusion they reached," Western Michigan president"I think it would be good to ask ourselves, can we sync those up so that the viewers could see what the officials would be looking at? "in the world of college football, in which an understandably skeptical public is left to scratch its heads regarding matters of fairness and collusion once more. Is this just another conspiracy to get up in arms about? Or was it truly an unintentional discrepancy between the broadcast and the Big Ten, which is ultimately responsible for keeping the official time of the game? Whatever it was, it was a big, big flop. Lost in all this hullabaloo is that, although the Wolverines narrowly escaped , they should notIn fact, what the viral ending has overshadowed is just how sloppy Michigan played in Kyle Whittingham's debut as head coach. Despite a strong start and that miraculous finish, the offense was pushed around. Underwood had turned back into a pumpkin by the end of the night. And Whittingham wasn't impressed either. 'We were flirting with disaster,' the coach said. 'That would have been an epic loss. They'll talk about this game for years, I'm sure. ' No kidding. That things even came down to an extra second is telling of the game the group had, one that was unbecoming of its Top 25 ranking and a downright embarrassment to start the year. As a result, our Tim Capursoin the AP's Top 25 poll, which will drop at 2 p.m. ET today. Let's see what happens.5. Sometimes, we Americans can truly rally together around the things that matter, like when these Royals fans placed a giant inflatable3. The Niners are already in Australia, gearing up for their Thursday night game against the Rams. Coach Kyle Shanahan is having aBrigid Kennedy is a writer for the Features and Franchises team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in November 2024, she covered political news, sporting news and culture at TheWeek.com before moving to Livingetc, an interior design magazine. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, dual majoring in television, radio and film and marketing managment . Offline, she enjoys going to the movies, reading and watching the Steelers.