This Song is Over

Tommy Carr's fourth-down pass to Salesi Moa in overtime falls just short, and Michigan loses another winnable game.  (Rachel Leggett)

The song is over

It's all behind me

I should have known it 

She tried to find me

 --"This Song is Over" by The Who, from their 1971 album Who's Next

There was an argument for yesterday being a Michigan win before toe met leather.  It wasn't even an outrageous one.  This Indiana team, while still excellent and propelled by a top-shelf defense, isn't as good as last year's national champion.  Josh Hoover might still be dinged up after last week's Ohio State game (despite an availability report that revealed nothing on Indiana's side), and Michigan still has an exceptionally good defense.  Keep it close, maybe get some turnover luck, and Michigan could pull off an upset.

All of this ignored one critical factor: Jason Beck's utterly incomprehensible offensive game plan.  While Michigan did turn the ball over twice in the first half, an exceedingly unfortunate fumble off a failed option by Tommy Carr and a freshman throw into double coverage resulting in a tip drill interception both gave Indiana the ball inside the Michigan 30, but Michigan's defense held and limited Indiana to a pair of field goals.  Michigan went into the locker room, getting the ball back on the second-half kick, down just 6-0 despite having no sustained drive longer than 41 yards.  This game still felt like one that could be won.

The song is over
I'm left with only tears
I must remember
Even if it takes a million years

Michigan put together a reasonable, long, sustained drive to start the fourth, eventually setting up shop with first-and-goal on the ten.  It hadn't been pretty, but Tommy Carr found his receivers downfield, and Michigan's backs got the yards they needed to keep the drive moving; it worked, including a seven-yard pass to Hoffman that set Michigan up with third-and-goal from inside the one-yard line.  You can call a lot of things here, but mostly, why not run Jordan Marshall up the middle?  Nope.  A naked bootleg for the freshman quarterback resulted in a field-goal attempt...that was missed.  It perfectly encapsulated everything that has gone wrong on the offensive side of the ball this season.  Indiana's ensuing drive was cut short by a brilliant pick by Zeke Berry, who was forced out of bounds at the IU 13-yard line, with an entire stadium wishing he could have caught it because it might have been the only way Michigan could have gotten into the end zone today.  This was borne out by a three-play sequence of confusion and despair that ended with a successful Michigan field goal.  Michigan entered the red zone twice in the third quarter and left with three points.  But they were still in it.

And now, a data interlude.

Michigan's defense has held all 7 opponents to 20 points or fewer. Since 2014, FBS teams that do that win 87% of the time. Michigan is 4-3. Jason Beck has to go. Now. Here's the data. 🧵

[image or embed]

— Bill Radjewski (@collegefootballdata.com) October 25, 2026 at 10:25 AM

The fourth-quarter punt fiesta left the stakes at Michigan needing 57 yards at the end of the game to win the football game, or at least tie it up with a field goal.  Thanks to a brilliant improvisation by Tommy Carr on third and ten, Channing Goodwin went 24 yards to the Indiana 24; Michigan would, once again, be set up first-and-goal on the IU ten as we came out of the two-minute timeout.  Kudzal's initial six-yard run put it at second-and-four, but Marshall's one-yard run gave the Wolverines essentially a two-point conversion to win.  Once again, Tommy Carr was sacked, Michigan let the clock run down, took a timeout, kicked the field goal, and sent the game to overtime, where everyone knew what would happen.  Michigan's defense finally collapsed, and Michigan's offense once again looked utterly confused by the idea of a red zone possession.  Indiana wins in Ann Arbor for the first time since 1967, and Michigan looks at a regular season where 6-6 would be the best-case scenario most can envision.   

I'm not a "Fire X" person, but Bill's embedded thread above shows that Michigan is wasting, utterly wasting, an elite defense, and that, to me, is maddening.  Even acknowledging the good fortune of WMU being able to cut the other way, Michigan is roughly one incompletion and one successful three-yard run away from 6-1 in a college football year where we might have to accept the idea that no one is good.  But this is where Michigan is now, and it's not a fun place to be for anyone.

Tales from the Spreadsheet

• 6-13 is NOT a Scorigami!  It's not even a Scorigami this century against a team from Indiana (2012 Notre Dame).  The 1934 Northwestern game also had this result.
• 111,276 attended the game, the 56th-largest crowd in Michigan Stadium history.  (Lots of IU fans in the crowd.)
• Michigan falls to 62-12-0 all-time against Indiana University.  (Remarkable fact: Indiana's three wins over Michigan in the 2020s are more than they had in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s combined.)
• Michigan falls to 15-7-0 all-time on October 17, following up Indiana's 1987 win over Michigan with this one.
• Michigan falls to 13-27-4 when scoring exactly 6 points (the most recent 6-point effort was 2013 Michigan State.  That was Michigan rushes for -48 yards).
• Michigan falls to 47-13-1 all-time when allowing 13 points to the opposition.
• Michigan has lost 36 games all-time by exactly 7 points, most recently the 2019 Penn State game with the comeback that fell short.