Won't Get Fooled Again

The Stripe Out worked pretty well (Michigan Photography)

Change, it had to come

We knew it all along

We were liberated from the fold, that's all

And the world looks just the same

And history ain't changed

'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

--"Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who, the lead single from their 1971 album Who's Next.

It was always going to be like this.  There was no possibility it would be any different.  When you have watched enough football, you know that if you keep leaving the door open to a team, to a program, that thrives on making you pay for leaving that door open, you might fail.

We can argue that this is karma.  We can argue that Tim Lester avenged his alma mater.  We can say that this is just a fitting Final Destination-style fate, served up slightly sooner than perhaps this kind of thing shows up.  But let us not lose sight of this: it took a remarkable number of breaks going Iowa's way on that final drive to put themselves in position to win it at the horn.

But the result of this game was not just the events of the final drive.  It was Michigan not finishing drives on offense (a failed 4th and 1 where I really want to question the choice for Bryce to jump the pile when about three other things might work, the red zone interception); it was kicking off to an Iowa return man and never touching him; it was killing drives with penalties, AGAIN.  This game was not lost on the last drive or the last play; it was lost by a thousand cuts over the course of the previous 59:58.

That said, the final drive was spectacular and novelistic.  There were a couple of times when Michigan was inches away from a game-sealing interception.  Iowa kept getting passes caught off tips; how does that happen?  Michigan broke up an Iowa pass on third and 12 from Iowa's 40, only to see Zeke Berry get called for a late hit out of bounds.  Iowa then threw two straight incompletions to set up 3rd and 10 from the Michigan 45.  Iowa got it down to the Michigan 16 with two seconds left when John Henry Daley went down with an injury, stopping the clock.  Daley doesn't go down; Iowa can't spike the ball, so they're running a fire-drill final play, and maybe they get it, but no, Iowa essentially got a timeout to call its best play, and to their credit, executed it perfectly.  Iowa wins 20-19, and Michigan is left only to lament what might have been.

The sad thing is that the general consensus was that Michigan looked better than it had in any of the three previous games.  Sometimes, the other team just gets a couple of breaks that seem utterly ridiculous in the moment, but it's confirmation bias.  We tend to overlook "luck" for our preferred teams because that's just supposed to happen that way.  Michigan lost a game, a game where they had a 92.7% post-game win expectancy according to SP+.   Brush it off, get ready for a Minnesota team that looks a little better than expected, and retain the Jug.  That's all you can do.

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 19-20 is NOT a Scorigami!  It happened in 1957 Illinois.
• 111,126 attended the game, the 64th-largest crowd in Michigan Stadium history.
• Michigan moves to 45-16-4 all-time against the University of Iowa.
• Michigan moves to 10-2-0 all-time on September 26, the other loss being against 1959 Missouri.
• Michigan moves to 14-5-1 when scoring exactly 19 points (the most recent 19-point effort was 2022 Illinois, which is the Money Moody game).
• Michigan moves to 26-20-1 all-time when allowing 20 points to the opposition (This is the first time Michigan has allowed 20 points in a game since...2025 Maryland).
• Michigan has lost 26 games all-time by exactly 1 point, most recently in the 2016 Orange Bowl against Florida State.