The Michigan Wolverines are 3-0 after the blowout win over UTEP this past weekend. Next up: the Big Ten opener against the Iowa Hawkeyes this Saturday at The Big House (3:30 p.m., CBS).<\/p>\n
Head coach Kyle Whittingham met with the media on Monday morning for his weekly press conference to preview this week\u2019s game. Here are some key things he had to say:<\/p>\n
An emphasis on preventing turnovers<\/p>\n
The Wolverines have put the ball on the ground six times in three games in 2026, far more than that number should be. Whittingham was asked early on during his time at the podium about that, and he said they emphasize preventing turnovers in practice every day and there\u2019s \u201cnothing more we can do in that regard.\u201d Furthermore, he equated the slow start against UTEP to the fumbles lost by Bryce Underwood and Savion Hiter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve gotta get that corrected. You can\u2019t win a championship or even hope to be in the mix with putting the ball on the ground that often,\u201d Whittingham said.<\/p>\n
Asked another question about this later on in the press conference, Whittingham said a couple of the fumbles have been due to players having a loose grip on the ball. \u201cNo excuses. As I mentioned, the team that won the championship last year, Indiana, fumbled one time all year.\u201d It sure sounds like they want to put a strong emphasis on this moving forward.<\/p>\n
Whittingham on Tommy Carr<\/p>\n
Whittingham was asked a very specific question about backup quarterback Tommy Carr regarding keeping a player like him engaged in this era of the transfer portal. Reading between the lines: \u201cWhat are you doing to make sure Carr doesn\u2019t hop in the portal this winter?\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to that, Whittingham started by saying they think highly of Carr, with that dating back to his performance in spring practices. In the UTEP game, Whittingham said he saw some \u201cexplosion\u201d on the ground from Carr, as well as the \u201ctouch he was able to put on the ball on that touchdown pass to Moa in the end zone, so it was good to see him translate what he\u2019s been doing in practice to a game situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as the rest of the question goes, Whittingham mentioned they are going to begin the roster retention process towards the end of the season. \u201cYou try to keep them all engaged, and the bottom line is guys that can help you win, you wanna get on the field, and that\u2019s where we\u2019re at right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior tight end Hogan Hansen returned from his injury on Saturday, playing his first live reps for the first time this season. Whittingham acknowledged that it was nice to have him back on the field and that he\u2019s a \u201cbig catch radius guy that Bryce can go to \u2026 it\u2019s great to have him back.\u201d Whittingham also said Hansen \u201cbrings some things to the table that the other guys don\u2019t,\u201d so I wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see even more of him as the season progresses.<\/p>\n
Whittingham also brought up senior Zack Marshall, who \u201cdid some good things on Saturday as well. And for the second week in a row, Whittingham mentioned freshman Mason Bonner, who is continuing to progress while the coaching staff tries to \u201cget him a little more integrated as he\u2019s ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Michigan Wolverines are 3-0 after the blowout win over UTEP this past weekend. Next up: the Big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,579,103090,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-856105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-michigan-football","tag-michigan-football-news","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}