Bryce Underwood's failed Hail Mary seemed to seal a Western Michigan upset before officials put one second back on the clock at the Big House.
Page S2From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 6 September 2026
Officials add one second no rule can name, converting it into Michigan's winning touchdown.
Hot Mic Moment
somebody get me the political desk. If a conference can invent a second of game clock with no rule in the book and no penalty for it, the same governing bodies can invent a year of a man's career, and they already have -- the NCAA granted Ole Miss tight end Dae'Quan Wright, and others alongside him, an extra year of eligibility, per the Washington Examiner's August 29th filing, under the same fog of unnamed authority now deciding who plays for Michigan.
Gushis side
This reporter has called games from press boxes that shook, press boxes that leaked, and one press box in Ann Arbor that, on Saturday, simply stopped believing in physics. With the clock at zero and the Michigan State Spartans' upset bid one incomplete pass from complete, the officiating crew restored a single second to the clock.
That second, resurrected by a crew this reporter can only assume consulted Rule 12, the league's Expedited Chronometer Override, allowed Underwood to find JJ Buchanan for the 47-yard touchdown that salvaged new head coach Kyle Whittingham's debut.
A touchdown manufactured from a second nobody can source is, this reporter submits, the cleanest metaphor college athletics has produced all year, and this reporter does not use the word cleanest lightly given what else is being manufactured out of thin institutional air.
Trudyher side
It's Michigan, sugar, not Michigan State. Bryce Underwood throws for Michigan, in the Big House, and it was Western Michigan on the wrong end of the restored second -- CBS Sports has it in the first paragraph.
There is no Rule 12. There is no chronometer override. What CBS and Fox both report is a rules analyst left to guess at the crew's authority same as the rest of us, because nobody in stripes has cited one. You're not misquoting a rule, Gus, you're composing one.
Nobody is patching you through to the political desk, and you were not supposed to be near a live mic making that argument, however true it happens to be -- the Examiner's August 29th piece names the Wright waiver plainly, no invented rule required, which is more than the officiating crew in Ann Arbor managed. Go lie down, Gus, and eat your mushrooms on the way; your memory's had a longer game than the clock did.
“They found a second lying around that no rulebook admits to owning and spent it on a touchdown for the home team -- that's not a bad call, that's a receipt with no signature. Same week, a kid at Ole Miss gets a whole extra year handed to him the same unsourced way, and nobody's supposed to notice it's the same hand doing both. Follow the second, follow the year, they both lead back to somebody deciding the rules don't apply to them this week.”
“Look, the officiating crew has full discretion over game administration, that's in the manual -- which manual, don't get hung up on that. The clock operator sees things we don't see from our couches, that's just, that's just how expertise works. Did I say 'full discretion,' because that's not a rule, forget I said discretion, the point is Michigan won fair and square and if a rules analyst is confused that's a media problem, not an officiating problem.”
The receipts
Officials restored one second to the clock after an incomplete pass, allowing Bryce Underwood to find JJ Buchanan for a 47-yard score to salvage Kyle Whittingham's debut
· College sports might die before our eyes from the morgue, 29 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.