Andy & Ari On3 - MICHIGAN MIRACLE? Or did Western Michigan get ROBBED?

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

Andy and Ari break down Michigan's stunning 13-12 win against Western Michigan that came on a Bryce Underwood Hail Mary after officials put one second back on the clock after it appeared time had expired.Our show is presented by Polymarket!New User Offer: Deposit $10, get $50 upon sign uphttps://app.polymarket.us/S8ac/ON3Trade on College Football games every week on Polymarket. Download the Polymarket App with code ON3 for a $20 bonus upon sign up.18+ only. Restrictions and eligibility requirement apply. Not available in all jurisdictions. Trading is risky. 100% loss can occur.Join On3 today! https://www.on3.com/joinSubscribe to On3!  ⬇️ youtube.com/on3sports/?sub_confirmati...Welcome to On3 | The best of college football and recruiting https://www.on3.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to an emergency emergency reaction about whatever the hell just happened in Ann Arbor. Ari. Is my Mike? Your mic is right. Western Michigan was about to win without even scoring a touchdown. Bryce Underwood appeared to throw a Hail Mary out of the end zone as time expired. The clock hit zero. Western Michigan players begin to celebrate. and then shades of the 2009 Big 12 championship game between Nebraska and Texas, the officials are like, no, we're going to put one more second on the clock.

There was no time left. You know what happened next? Oh, it was zeros. It was zeros. You know what happened next. Well, I don't know what yardage was. My head still spinning 50-something yards to Buchanan as time expired. Yes.

We definitely ran beautiful. if we ran play. I'm like my mind is spinning. Talk, Arr and talk. Your job is to talk. Yeah, sorry. Our editor's texting us about the headline to the live video to fix it. It is what it is. We fixed it. We fixed the headlocking. Okay. The story is did they, should they have been able to run the play? That's the story of what happened here tonight. So obviously, you know, we'll get into the back half part of how did Bryce Underwood play and what's up with Michigan that was unlike Kyle Whittingham, all that stuff that we would have talked about.

But the question I have to you is why would they be able to run that play? Listen, the forensic scientists are going to spend a lot of time with this tape because there's a face mask the officials missed on a drive earlier in the game that would have allowed them to take more time off the clock. Very blatant face masks. Michigan was holding on the first two downs of the drive that ended up in the Hail Mary. didn't call that. I mean, it, it felt like everything, every call went Michigan's way there down, down the stretch. Yeah. I still, this is the type of play, Andy, that we will be.

47 yards, by the way. 47 yards. This is the type of play. This is the type of situation that will last college football history. Like what we just saw there wasn't just a amazing Hail Mary. those happen once a year, once every few years. It wasn't just an avoidance of a crazy upset. That was something that I think is going to transcend time and is going to be like on college football montages for years and years and years. Do you agree with that?

Yes, I absolutely agree with it. And, you know, are they going to call this the Ann Arbor Screw Job, though? Or is this going to be the Michigan miracle? Yeah. I mean, have you ever seen anything like that in your career? Yes, I covered. I covered the 2009 Big 12 championship game. So I have seen that exact scenario without the Hail Mary as a field goal.

But yes, I've seen it. Yeah. I've covered basketball tournaments where Evan Stewart hit a three-quarter shot as time expired. I've seen Hail Marys. I've seen all sorts of things. I've never seen time added on like that. And then, of course, did you have a pit in your stomach before they ran the play that you had a feeling that was going to happen? Yes, of course.

They're not going to believe me. Everybody had that. The second they said they were putting a second back on the clock. I was like, oh, Michigan's going to win this thing. Yeah. It's funny because our initial headline of the video is like Western Michigan, stunts Michigan. And it's updating things.

It's underwent the problem. And yes, even though he threw that Hail Mary, he's still the problem probably because they got to play Oklahoma next week. Is he the problem? Probably. Yeah, I mean, give 95 yards. Like. Dude, Lance Taylor.

He had 95 yards. He got called for holding. He fumbled in a critical situation and probably should have crossed his team the game. Yeah, dude. He had 95 yards passing. I'm a Michigan fan. I will take this. I will run with it.

I will never say anything about it. I'll be like, thank you. We'll just take this. Well, this was going to be the next Appalachian State, Andy. That's what this was going to be. This was Appalachian State. Now, I know what the F. But, yeah.

It being an in-state rival, I think, makes it worse. You know, I think that it was a MAC team that shares a state with them, makes it worse. You know, and it's been, what, since 2007, so we're almost at the 20-year anniversary when that happened. It was also the opener, all those different things. You know, I think that, you know, as the days go on and we start to really break down, you know, the Michigan team and the team that a lot of people had in the college football playoff, I think this might be a team that struggles to win eight games, you know, if that's who they are. But man, my head is still spinning, man. I mean, that's the thing that's so crazy. You know, they talk about baseball.

And every time you watch a baseball game, you see something that you've never seen before. But it's like college football is just like that, dude. Like, why do they put a second pack on? Like, what's the explanation? They showed the replay. Is it possible that their clocks are different? The defender was out of bounds and he touched the ball with a second left.

And as soon as he touches the ball, the clock is supposed to stop because he was out of bounce. Okay. But the clocks that they were showing on the television broadcast didn't show that. Sure looked like zeros. Ooh. Ooh. Andy.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. That's the most shocking thing that we've ever gone live for. Ever. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Yes, because we weren't doing this for second and 26. No. We weren't doing this for the kick six. Nope. I mean, I'm trying to think of, games that ended in more shocking fashion than this, and there are very few of them. Yeah. Lance Taylor was on a show a few months ago, man. He's a really good dude. I feel bad for him.

I do too. They got absolutely destroyed. Yeah. Destroyed. I mean, that is, because, I mean, look, if they just call that face mask, it's a first down. Michigan probably runs another two minutes off the clock. Now, maybe things happen differently. Maybe Rice Underwood doesn't fumble in that case. So I don't, there's a butterfly effect there. But yeah, the one second thing, like this is one of those.

I'm sure the pool reporter is going to go talk to the official, talk to the referee and get an explanation for it. But I can tell you this right now. There's nobody on earth who isn't a Michigan fan who's going to say anything other than Western Michigan got right. robbed that they were just screwed here. Yeah. I'm looking at the chat. The chat is just the word rigged over and over and over. Can we just actually cut the bullshit and just do the show without being afraid of offending

people's feelings? Michigan has been accused of in their last national championship run of cheating. They have not been very good to elite in the time since. They didn't cheat here. If this happened and it was wrong, it's because of incompetence. Of course they didn't cheat. That's not what I was going to. You got to let me fit it.

You can't say that I think that I'm going to say that. But all right, go ahead. Everybody on earth still holds that viewpoint of them from Conor Stallions and all that stuff. And there's probably an underlying resentment whether they did what they did or whether it helped them win games. We'll never know the answer to that. But there is an unsettled score, I think, in a lot of people's minds of what Michigan accomplished a few years ago. and they have not been very good in the time since, and they're not meeting the charges.

So for what happened back then, like, of all the teams that would do it, like, do you think that if this happened and it was Minnesota, that one in the same exact way, the entire chat would be like yelling, cheating in the thing? Like, I don't know. I think if it was against a max school, probably yes. I mean, because people, people want the underdog to win.

Yeah. Yeah, maybe you think I'm full of shit on that. But I just, it's, but no, the school. People, people do, like, People who are not Michigan fans do tend to hate Michigan more. Yeah. So, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, they didn't just ruin the integrity of college football. Mistakes happen. Like, you know, it's just, it's unbelievable that that happened. You know, especially considering the fact that Western Michigan charged the field, Andy, they were celebrating. You saw the pure joy on Lance Taylor's face. You saw the players, and it's probably pretty hard to recalibrate back into one more play mode. like even if they if it would have just i mean it's a hail mary you got to stop a hail mary you got to yeah

man but oh my god this is just it's crazy it almost seems like it's difficult to have like a real like analysis conversation about what this means for michigan after this it's so crazy that like you can't even like is there like room for a five minute bryce underwood nil breakdown right now not n i l breakdown but we could we could certainly break down bryce underwood and how he played in this game and how bad that's going to look if he plays like this against Oklahoma. Like Oklahoma is going to destroy Michigan

if he plays like that. He will have to be the guy we saw on the throw down the middle and the last drive and the Hail Mary. Because if he's not, if he is like he was the rest of the game, they're going to get annihilated. Yeah.

It almost felt like a regression. And the interesting thing about it, Andy, as we talk all summer and, you know, we're breaking down. Oh, yeah, yeah. By the way, everything I said about better coaching, all the crap that was going on behind the scenes, forget I said that. Maybe they need more crap going on behind the scenes.

I don't know because they look awful. Well, you know, I think that there is, I hate to pile on anybody, but there is a recalibration, I think, of how to allocate funds at this position. I don't know if you're ready for this conversation. or not, but to give a multi-year $10 million to you. If you think Tommy Carr is the better, if you think Tommy Carr is the better quarterback,

you play Tommy Carr. No, I'm talking about giving a high school. No, no, a high school or a $10 million deal on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think the people who, well, let's put it this way. LSU seems to be enjoying their veteran quarterback that they bought, who we've already seen win big games, who's led a team to a Power Conference Championship.

Like if you flip over to the LSU Clemson game, they're pretty happy with Sam Levin right now. They're happy with that investment. Do that game just simultaneously take value away from every five-star quarterback in America that's all in high school? Like, do people just not want to do this anymore? No, there's still going to be good five-star quarterbacks. But, yeah, Michigan will have to figure this out.

Either he's going to have to get better or they're going to have to go with somebody else because they're like Kyle Whittingham's jobs to make the playoff, it's to win national championships. And what you saw today will not get them there. Yeah. I honestly don't even know what else there's to say about it. It was a terrible game. Terrible game.

They were about to lose to a Mac team that didn't score a touchdown. And probably they probably did lose to a Mac team that didn't score a touchdown, but the refs bailed them out. Yeah. It's so funny because we did play that game earlier in the offseason, Andy, when we were, if we could go back in time and change history or overturn a bullshit call. Like, wouldn't this be like 1A on that list? Because that was kind of a hard game to play when we were trying to come up with things. And I think it was June or July, you know, games that, you know, should have ended differently had it not been for a bad, uh, ref call or a terrible situation or something fluky.

Like in terms of of this, like when a game is over, it's over. you know, not to mention like, oh, it's a PI or a first down or a missed holding call or something when the game is still going on. But when the game ends and then you add a second back on, like it literally cannot get worse than that. Yeah, this is this is going to be, I don't know. Okay, question. Because LSU's been the villain of the sport for the entire summer. Yeah. Does Michigan suddenly become the villain again?

And look, I know Michigan fans have no problem being the villain. Like, it's cool. but going into the Oklahoma Michigan game next week is the entire country rooting against Michigan. Yeah, well, I think in order for them to be the villain and sustain the villain, they have to be good. I think people lose interest if you're not a very good team.

And I think there's some real... I'm talking about noon on Saturday of next week. I'm not worried about the rest of the season. Yeah, I mean, I would think so, but I think that that might be the case anyway, even if this was just a normal game. I actually think that Brenton Venables in Oklahoma are actually quite likable nationally for whatever reason. Michigan has, the thing I said five minutes ago, I think that ever since they won the national championship,

there's been a segment of people who hate watch them in a way that they've been before. But people like Kyle Whittingham? Like, I don't think he's a very likable coach. Yeah, I don't think he inherited any of that, you know, bad juju. Yeah. People liked him at Utah. So I do think this, though, and it's not Kyle Whittingham's fault either. all he did was send his team out there to run a play when they gave him an extra second.

Like nobody on Michigan has it, you know, bears any responsibility for this. You know what? You know what? How I feel about it, Andy? I feel more heartbroken for Lance Taylor than I do like ire towards Michigan. Yeah. That's where I'm at with it. Like, I don't think that like Michigan's a bad program now because they won the game the way that they.

You know, I just. Their job is to just go run the play when they get the extra second. They get that. Yeah. but everybody, I mean, if you go look at my Twitter feed right now, I haven't deleted anything, but like I said Western Michigan won. I have not deleted that yet. Like, you know, they won the game.

Well, I've deleted my tweet because I had already written the headline for this thing, and I hit the button on the stream, which sends it out as soon as the clock hit zero. and then what five seconds after that the final play is under review I'm like oh no oh no oh boy what are we going to do here so yeah speaking of freezing cold takes

has already been sent that that screenshot about five billion times so we are we are gonna be featured prominently that's not a freezing cold take actually I think like in if you're going to make an error in journalism or an error in your headline or your title like that probably is the most understandable circumstance where it could occur

because like it was over. You know, I don't know how. If I were a Michigan fan, I'd be on the field. What are you talking about? No shirt on. Why wouldn't they celebrate? That's where they were. It's where they all were.

And I don't blame them one bit because think about how bad their night was. They were about to lose to a Mac team that had not scored a touchdown. And now they can go to the bars and celebrate. I mean, what a turn, what a flip. So for the Michigan fans, like, by all means, party down. This is going to be the best night of your life because it was about to be the worst. Yeah.

But also for the Michigan players, you may want to start watching Oklahoma film now. Like yesterday, yeah. You're going to need all the help you can get. Andy, maybe that was the explanation for why they were bad tonight. They spent all this past week watching Oklahoma film. Yeah. I'm trying to grasp at straws here because like it's just, Andy, do you think that we need to have a real conversation about Tommy Car?

We got Eric in the chat, who's a Michigan fan. He's firing Kyle Littingham already. He's firing him. Bro, he won. They won. He's 1 and 0. First coach in college football history to be 1 and 0 on the hot seat. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen that before.

Yeah. Western grad, Ray in the chat, Western grad, Michigan fan, Western got robbed and there needs to be an investigation and an explanation. I will settle for an explanation. Yeah. I don't know about it. And maybe there is a reasonable. Maybe there's a reasonable one. But listen, I remember having to interview Bo Polini.

I remember having to interview Bo Polini after that 2009 Big 12 championship game. There was no explanation you could have given him that was going to work. Andy, you know a lot about the ref stuff behind the scenes. Your years at SI, you know, I remember when we were at the call. Clemson, Ohio State, Fias the bull, you were the guy talking to the pool, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the same thing. The reflux are that they use and then the ones that we see on the broadcast are. That I don't know.

And I'm also not sure if the broadcast has access to the actual gameplay system. Yeah, the, the same, what, what the replay system has. And I, I think that's also something that, that we should try to find out. You know, the ACC has the deal now where they take you behind the scenes and you get the audio from the command center and you hear the conversation back and forth. I would have loved to have heard that conversation. That would have been very helpful in this instance because maybe the explanation is that what you had on the broadcast was a half second faster than what the actual game time was or a second faster. Well, and the thing is like if this were a basketball game, you would have had tenths of a second also. Yes.

Which I think would have maybe been helpful. Yeah. And then also what's the rule when the ball goes over out of bounds or when it lands? Well, I think in this case, I don't have the play in front of me, but I believe there was a Western Michigan defender whose feet were out of bounds who touched the ball, maybe in bounds. But when someone who's out of bounds touches a ball inbounds, it's incomplete. Okay. I just don't remember anybody. I have to watch the play again, but my understanding was that once it crossed the line in the air, I don't know if it crossed before somebody touched it.

If somebody who's standing out of bounds touched it, it's, I just don't remember anybody touching it at all. I have to go back to watch it. I don't know. I don't know if anybody touched it before it crossed the back line and the end zone. So that's the hard part. But we're going to see that play over and over and over again.

and we're going to see the 47-yard touchdown pass over and over and over again, too. Yeah. And sorry if this live appearance was kind of discombobulated because it's really hard to organize your thoughts and something that shocking happens. We are just as shocked as you. Yeah. I think it's the best way to put it. We will probably have, like, what, an hour?

LSU is beating Clemson 31 to 3, which will probably lead our show tonight. I don't know, maybe we'll lead it with this again because this was so insane. But we'll have more organized thoughts. My head is still spinning. I've never seen anything like that before. in my entire life. Yeah, we need to talk about this. We need to talk about

LSU Clemson, Grand Scheme. There's a lot. There's a lot to talk about. But this was one of the most shocking endings I have ever seen to a game. So I was at the Boise State

Oklahoma game with the Statue of Liberty. But that wasn't controversial at all. I was at 2nd of 26. also not controversial but incredibly shocking I'm trying to think of anything else I was not at the kick six live I was at the the big 12 championship game but that was it like it was a chip shot field goal once they got the second yeah so it wasn't like this it wasn't a Hail Mary man

yeah yeah yeah river is that is going to I'm blown down yes it will be I think you could make the case right now although there are things that happen similarly that this is one of the top five worst calls in the history of the game. I think we're going to find out because one, this is going to get dissected,

and two, they're going to have to explain themselves. Yeah, but if the explanation is the clocks that you see on the broadcast are one tenth or like one second hour thing. If that's the case, that needs to be fixed tomorrow. Because we live in the year of our Lord 20206, we can sink clocks. Yeah.

Also, Command Center. Yeah, I mean, the ACC, I mean, honestly, that's a real thing. What the ACC does needs to just be done. I think transparency in all regards in college football is a net positive. It's transparency in the college football playoff, deliberation room, the review rooms, the ref intercoms, anything that like, you know, they make things seem shady when they're not.

And I think that being able to watch. Oh, this is an interesting one, Spartan Bob. Okay, that's a really good one. This is 2001. That game is a fascinating one. That is 2001 Michigan and Michigan State. I think that's the one that made them change who actually runs the clock. Okay.

So Michigan State spiked the ball. Yeah, Michigan State spiked the ball. I was Jeff Smoker? Yeah, it was Jeff Smoker. Spikes the ball. what appears to be zero seconds on the stadium clock, they said the clock was stop of one second remaining. And they called the person who was pressing the button.

They called that person Spartan Bob. That was what the Michigan fans called that person. So it is, and then there was another second, and then Michigan State wins the game. So, you know, if you're a Michigan fan, maybe you were saying finally retribution for Spartan Mob. Maybe that's what you're saying.

Yeah. What's sport? Do you know what's so funny? Lane Kiffin during his halftime interview. We don't know this yet. Let's wait. Then we can watch it and we can talk about it. 1130.

Well, not 11.30, because it's almost 11.30 p.m. It's your time. Now, when LSU Clemson ends, or, well, I don't know if it's going to be when it ends. It might be sometime during the fourth quarter when we're just bored of watching LSU crush them. We're going on live again. We're going to talk about everything that happened today, including LSU Clemson,

and whatever the hell, Lane Kiffin said in his halftime interview. But we're probably going to talk a lot more about Western Michigan and Michigan and one of the most shocking endings in college football history. We will talk to you very soon.