Wolverine Digest

Joel Klatt rips Michigan Football for 'awful' 4th quarter vs. Washington

Fox Sports' college football pointed to several fatal errors for the Wolverines in their loss at Washington...

Matt Lounsberry

Oct 5, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; Washington Huskies running back Jonah Coleman (1) rushes for a touchdown over Michigan Wolverines defensive back Brandyn Hillman (6) during the fourth quarter at Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium.
Oct 5, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; Washington Huskies running back Jonah Coleman (1) rushes for a touchdown over Michigan Wolverines defensive back Brandyn Hillman (6) during the fourth quarter at Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium. / Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images
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Michigan held a three-point lead heading into the fourth quarter at Washington on Saturday, but the Wolverines were outscored 13-0 in the final frame and dropped their second game this season.

In wake of Michigan's defeat, Fox Sports' college football analyst Joel Klatt ripped the Wolverines' for their poor execution and scheme in the fourth quarter and explained what went wrong for U-M on his podcast, The Joel Klatt Show.

"The fourth quarter starts, and Michigan reverts to a version of Michigan that, quite frankly, I haven't seen for the last three years." Klatt said. "It was a team that was undisciplined, they were not fundamentally sound, the structures and the schematics were bad and the decision-making was bad. It was all bad in the fourth quarter."

Klatt specifically broke down one fourth quarter defensive play, in which Michigan rushed with six defenders and left five players in coverage against four Washington receivers. The problem was, the Wolverines' pre-snap alignment was wrong, and Michigan was in zone coverage with the five non-blitzing defenders. Klatt explained what went wrong on the play, which can be viewed below:

"The defense lines up, and before the snap of the football, I pause the film and I'm like, 'Well, that's wrong.' They have a single-high safety, they have two corners and then they have three linebackers and one of the linebackers is walked out towards the single receiver, towards the wide side of the field...So, I'm looking at this and I'm like, well this isn't very good, because now all they have is one corner and kind of a linebacker over [Washington's] three-receiver structure. And then they blitz! Six guys!

"The two linebackers that were lined up inside, and the four down lineman, all blitz...and there is a supprt player walked out to the field, [nickelback Zeke Berry], with no one to defend. And there's only two players that are possible left to defend the three-receiver side. And they just have a nice completion there because they can't get to the quarterback in time, and he just throws it over there because no one's defending him.

"One, you can't play zone if you're going to blitz six guys. You better be in man-to-man defense, and you have two players over three? It blew my mind. Maybe it's just a missed assignment, but that's not a structure you can win with."

Michigan Wolverines football defensive coordinator Wink Martindale
Michigan defensive coordinator Wink Martindale calls a play against Texas during the first half at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, September 7, 2024. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

While that is just an example of one play, it's representative of many of the schematic and execution errors that Michigan has suffered from this season, particularly in the fourth quarter. Klatt pointed out that the Wolverines have surrendered 63 points in the final frame this season, the sixth-most in all of college football. This comes one year after Michigan allowed just 47 points total in the fourth quarter in 15 games last season.

"I've told you before, this Michigan team does not have a margin for error," Klatt said. "So they've got to play sound, everything. They've got to do...everything right. You've got to play with great technique, you've got to play with great game-management, decision-making, fundamentals. And all of that fell apart in the fourth quarter. If you turn the football over and you lose the field position battle as a Michigan team, you will lose the game, and they did. They gave up two short fields in the fourth quarter, and gave up 10 points because of it, and they walked into that fourth quarter with a 17-14 lead. You can't win like that.

"When you walk through the film and you watch that, here's what you see: You see a team that, structurally, on some of these defensive blitzes is not sound...After one of the turnovers, they lose the edge on defense [resulting in a long run]. You run a bad route on the interception, Colston Loveland is drifting down the field, and I'm like, none of this is right. Bad structures, bad fundamentals, bad decisions, all of it bad. That's why they got beat in the fourth quarter. They don't have a good enough team to do that.

"Last year, that team was insanely detailed, insanely fundamentally sound and they had J.J. McCarthy to bail them out on third down when needed. And they had Roman Wilson and some wide receivers that could actually go get it, which is another big third down thing. This team doesn't have that, so they better be buttoned up, and they weren't, and they got beat."

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Matt Lounsberry
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