As many readers know, I graduated from UM almost 5 decades ago. My Evansville family went to the UM opening game in Ann Arbor during their National Championship season 3 years ago. One of my grandson's Gibi, is also a devoted Wolverine!
Saying something is unprecedented is an often overused term/phrase.
Not this time. I'm glad my wife was home to watch the ending with me. I have never seen anything like this...........EVER in any football games, let alone regarding this regarding my Michigan Wolverines.
Funny thing is that I was telling my wife that our quarterback just blew the first Hail Mary pass attempt by throwing the ball completely past the end zone.
With time for just 1 more play and UM behind by 5 points but 50 yards from the end zone, the strategy was simple:
Send all your receivers into the end zone, with the opposition sending all their guys there, then have your quarterback throw the ball into the end zone IN BOUNDS and have a "jump ball" to see who can get lucky. The opposition only needs to bat the ball down OR come up with it. M had the better athletes but it was all for naught since our quarterback threw the ball completely past the end zone and the game ended because the clock ran out.
The Western Michigan Broncos had just pulled off an incredible upset by beating the much higher ranked Wolverines in Ann Arbor for the first time ever!
They were celebrating and overcome with joy!!! M fans were totally stunned with this outcome, all of us expecting this to be a blow out.
BUT HOLD ON!
Suddenly the officials indicated that there was 1 second left on their official clock. Where did this come from???
Just enough time for M quarterback Bryce Underwood to get another chance at a Hail Mary pass. This time, he threw it inside the end zone, where every eligible receiver and the coverage was clumped together waiting for the ball to come down.
This time, an M receiver leaped above all the other players and grabbed the football, held onto it and came down in the end zone for 6 points with time expired and a 13-12 win over the team that everybody thought had won just minutes earlier!
Now, WMU was extremely stunned. After winning the game, their win was suddenly turned into a loss.
We'll see what the Big Ten officials say today to explain it. It could have been legit and the clock we saw on tv was off from the official clock. That happens!
You had to be watching that game to appreciate the dynamic.
September 5, 2026 11:29 PM
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metmike: I'm the biggest UM fan on the planet, however the Western Michigan Bronco's apparently GOT ROBBED!!!!
This brings back the unpleasant memory of a previous, unprecedented upset on September 1, 2007.
AI Overview
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I know that date well because it's also when my daughter was married. My sister Patti's family was staying with us from North Dakota. I recorded the game and we watched it AFTER the wedding celebration was over.
Biggest shocking upset in history, made worse with my brother in law cheering for the opposition the entire time and rubbing it in!
Hey Mike,
Rumor has it that the MI fans were carrying the referees off on their shoulders in celebration!
Good one Larry
It was a tough loss for Western, however the tv clock everybody was watching was off by 1 second/faster than the official game clock as the Big Ten demonstrated below!
Very unfortunate and the most extreme example of how 1 second could make such a profound difference in the outcome of a game. See more posts below.
western michigan university football
They DID get it right!!! The TV clock was off by 1 second!
The Big Ten releases footage showing controversial call was CORRECT | Michigan Vs Western Michigan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miFs7KU4caA
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https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/mac-commissioner-responds-big-ten-114228239.html
The Mid-American Conference is not challenging the controversial replay decision that gave Michigan one final play against Western Michigan.
MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said the conference and Western Michigan contacted the Big Ten after Saturday night's 13-12 Michigan victory seeking clarification about why one second was restored to the clock. According to Steinbrecher, the Big Ten subsequently provided video and audiofrom the replay process that confirmed its explanation.
"I commend Western Michigan for the outstanding effort and a well-played game, and I offer my congratulations to Michigan," Steinbrecher said in his statement. "I also appreciate the collaborative efforts of the Big Ten office and its prompt response in reviewing the play and providing the requested clarification."
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This response by the Big Ten and MAC commissioner is DEFINITIVE!
Thanks, Mike! Congratulations! I looked at what you posted.
This is a tough one as the clock that players and coaches see and thus go by was evidently too fast by one second. Depending on how MI ends up this season, this game’s ending could be forever talked about just like the 5th down game still is!
Tough for sure, larry!
Most people will believe that Western got robbed and even as a UM fan, I was feeling more bad for them than I was good for UM, especially since Western(from a weak division-and we tend to root for underdogs at times) played their best game in history and UM didn't deserve to win the game against the non ranked opponent.
It bodes well for the rest of Western's season against much weaker opponents and and very poorly for UM that has arguably, the toughest schedule in the country.
They have 6 games against top 25 teams, including #1 Ohio State, #2 Oregon and #6 Indiana.
And next week, they face the #10 Oklahoma Sooners!
The Week 2 slate is highlighted by a pair of massive Big Ten vs. SEC showdowns
No. 10 Oklahoma's trip to No. 16 Michigan will be a solid undercard as the Sooners bring their dominant defense to Ann Arbor to face a scuffling Michigan offense. In light of Michigan's struggles against Western Michigan in Week 1, the line on that game has already moved significantly in OU's direction
Extremely funny!
Anthony Oliver · t͏e͏o͏d͏o͏r͏S͏n͏s͏p͏0͏0͏h͏1͏h͏c͏7͏1͏7͏8͏7͏2͏4͏2͏4͏g͏9͏m͏t͏l͏l͏h͏g͏c͏f͏h͏m͏2͏m͏m͏8͏2͏u͏4͏t͏g͏1͏4͏m͏9͏2͏u͏l͏9͏f͏2͏3͏i͏h͏a͏ ·
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Regardless of the humor, the authentic, DEFINITIVE fact is this:
The Big Ten official game clock at the game, accurately showed 1 second left. The television clock was WRONG, but everybody is trying to blame the WRONG people for the mistake.
Being wrong by 1 second is extremely trivial but NBC should be apologizing because their clock being off caused all of this!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TRfQ4Ze1j0A
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No nothing's like this are using nonsense to attract traffic to their sites:
So, the official game clock is technically not the “official” clock, according to NBC…
The Big Ten had its own clock that no one else saw during the game or replays, and that is the clock that showed :01. The conference said they were all synced??
Incredibly contradictory from the Big Ten.
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Dead WRONG, Dude!
The NBC clock WAS WRONG. It's absurd to think that the Big Ten should give the power to keep time of games to a for profit, broadcast tv station that makes money by maximizing viewers and could be knocked off the air or suffer technical difficulties at any time.
Instead of the Big Ten keeping time of their own games???
The mistake here was 100% a mistake of 1 second by the NBC clock. Anybody that wants to dispute that thinks that 2+2 =3 instead of 4.
Or in this case
There are 60 minutes in a football game =3,600 seconds
People that want to disbelieve the official, DEFINITIVE Big Ten clock, want to believe that:
3,600 seconds -3,559 seconds =0 The rest of us know that it's = 1 second!
From Rule 15, Article 9(b) of the official 2026 NFL rulebook: “An on-field ruling that time expired during or after the last play of any half, or of an overtime period in the regular season, or of an overtime half in the postseason, is reviewable by the Replay Official only when the visual evidence demonstrates that the clock should have stopped with two or more seconds remaining.” (Emphasis added.)
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I disagree strongly!
This is the age of technology that has completely changed rulings on the field that ARE CLOSE. Most games feature at least several rulings on the field that were close, followed by a PAUSE TO REVIEW THEM using different cameras and angles being replayed numerous times by officials(like Big Ten officials in this game) to confirm the ruling on the field or REVERSE IT when it shows that the ruling on the field WAS WRONG.
You can't adhere strictly to and agree with those new rules using technology ........but then say "well an exception should be made for this 1 in 50,000 game outcome because the NFL(a completely different level/league has an exception that contradicts this). The NFL has numerous other rules that are different than those for college football.
I totally get how horrible this was, mainly for the Western Michigan Bronco's that deserved to win in my opinion.
However, the rules were the rules and and are the rules for good reasons, consistent with every other aspect of the game. The NBC game clock was off by 1 second. This caused the problem not a flaw in the rules! Not from dishonest officials or other people.
The NBC clock was 1 second too fast! The Big Ten clock keeping time for this game and every other game in every other year that Big Ten officials were in charge of was the definitive clock. No exceptions.
During the game, we watched several mistakes by officials that missed penalties because officials can't see everything from every angle the entire time. This is part of the game AND WE ACCEPT IT(at least we are supposed to). Sometimes those mistakes by officials result in a touchdown scored or taken away and a team can lose or win in a very close game from that mistake.
But with the end result here, many folks want the MISTAKE to stand and to ignore the definitive time clock that TRUMPED over and ruled over the mistake on the NBC clock.
It would be like officials ruling a team barely scored a touchdown with a mistake because of their view, looking at the review, seeing that the player with the ball clearly had their knee down when the ball was 1 inch before the goal line and be expected to give them the touchdown anyway because it was so close.
The MAC wants Western Michigan recognized as the “actual winner” against Michigan.
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/1127595/mac-appeal-michigan-western-win-ending-time-zero
AI Overview
I felt horrible for Western when watching the result of the game. UM didn't deserve to win the game but teams win all the time that didn't deserve to win for reasons, X, Y and Z. Sometimes those teams are your favorite teams, sometimes your team is on the other side of a devastating loss that "should have" been a win.
In this case, there was an unprecedented impact from a 1 second difference between 2 clocks with the officiating being done by the Big Ten using Big Ten clocks and clearly explained, proven indisputably and justified afterwards.
However, this is the age of using replays to overturn officials decisions on the field. It also includes adding X seconds back to clocks based on official clocks. We've all witnessed many games where they put X seconds back on the clock.
It just so happened that the 1 second added this time meant more than any time added back to any clock in history. I get that people are upset with the outcome. I still remember Charle's White's "phantom touchdown" in the 1979 Rose Bowl game(I was in the Pacadena stadium with M) that cost us that game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Rose_Bowl
Even Charles White agreed after the game that he fumbled and did not score a touchdown and 1 bad Big Ten official over ruled the others to make the really bad call. But that's how it is in sports. Bad calls all the time (much less today because of OFFICIALS LOOKING AT REPLAYS) and this one, ironically was a call from officials looking at the replay.
In this case, a justified ruling was made at the game looking at the official Big Ten clock. There is ZERO indication of it being nefarious or biased or intentional to help the home team. You and me and everybody else can WANT the NBC or stadium clock to be the one that counts because the Bronco's deserved to win or because of the unusual ending but the Big Ten officials made a ruling at that time based on using the Big Ten clock. If the game was overturned, then it would set a precedent to overturn a zillion games from bad calls A, B, C, D..........Z that gifted 1 team and cheated to other one.
However, in this case I think the biggest mistake was the MAC commissioner suddenly changing his tune from accepting the result to "We got cheated" after getting flack from people in that conference.
When I was coaching baseball, I told the kids(and parents before games) that umpires WILL make mistakes but they have the toughest jobs out there and we need to accept their bad calls because it's part of the game and part of good sportsmanship. You do your best and don't whine or blame others when you lose. Above all else in chess, I stress recognizing your/our opponent's win in the toughest losses. It's easiest to do that when they crush you or when you never had a chance.
However, the quintessential examples of good sportsmanship are those in recognizing the winner in our toughest losses.
NOT doing so is just poor sportsmanship for whatever the reason. Even if it was one of those games that we deserved to win. Even if it was a game with a questionable call by an official that went against us. Even If it was a game that our fan base is upset about. It's especially important for leaders, like the commissioner of the MAC conference to set an example for good sportsmanship.
I would have been more OK with his current position to contest the result if he hadn't already publicly accepted it because he initially knew that was the right thing to do, following the Golden Rule of good sportsmanship and setting a good example for everybody.
Now, after further investigating, he's decided to contest the result. Again, we all know many games where an official made a bad call that cost 1 of the teams the win. This was not even a bad call based on the Big Ten's justification but it was a disputed call AFTER one side experienced the most devastating loss that any of us have ever witnessed.
That's when we find out who really practices good sportsmanship.
I understand one side's position that "this time it was different" because this had never happened before.
It's always different. Each circumstance is unique, some losses are tougher than others and this was the toughest loss ever but that doesn't trump accepting the toughest losses via the code of ethics called "Good Sportsmanship" . The tougher the loss, the tougher it is to practice Good Sportsmanship.
Should this loss be overturned, then I will change my tune because, officially it's no longer a loss that needs to be accepted. In the EXPECTED absence of that, it just makes it that much tougher for everybody when the leader of the smaller conference is violating the golden rule because he wants to be seen as standing up to the Big Ten or whatever the reason.
Just my opinion that's independent of my love of the Wolverines. Again, I felt the Bronco's deserved to win based on who controlled the game and what it meant to them. But that's not how we keep score!
Despite MI’s official win:
By dropping out of the AP Top 25 after being ranked No. 16 in the preseason poll, Michigan now holds the dubious honor of becoming the highest-ranked team to drop out of the following week's AP poll after a victory since the rankings expanded to 25 teams in 1989, according to CBS Sports Research.
And check this out:
Western Michigan jumped 14 spots after its close loss, moving up to No. 32 this week
They deserve to drop out!
This will likely keep them from moving up very fast even if they have impressive wins early in the seaso…..
which seems doubtful but I think the game on Saturday had more to do with the underdog being much better than the world appreciated.
But the NCAA, in an email to ESPN's Adam Rittenberg, stated that its football playing rules do not include a mechanism to overturn the outcome of a game. Also, the FBS oversight committee "does not have the authority" to reverse an outcome.
According to Article 3 of the NCAA rulebook, scores are final when the head referee "declares that the game is ended." Also, regarding final rulings in games, Article 9 states: "No rule decision may be changed after the ball is next legally snapped, legally free-kicked or the second or fourth periods have ended."
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The MAC commissioner should have done more homework and stuck to his original position instead of making an appeal from the land of wishful thinking and placating those in the conference that believe they were cheated.......reinforcing the cheated feeling........instead of a teachable moment in the harsh reality of the worst losses and good sportsmanship.
I feel extremely bad for Western and have the advantage of teaching and living good sportsmanship with no exceptions for 3+ decades pounded into my brain, so I understand why others will disagree.
This was a pleasant surprise/HUGE upset!!!!!!!
michigan football box score
