Western Michigan leadership accepted the Big Ten replay ruling that led to Michigan's walk-off touchdown, choosing to move forward rather than fight a controversial finish
Page S2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 9 September 2026
Western Michigan's president declares victory three days after his own program accepted the loss
Hot Mic Moment
This reporter will say this once, then go back to spotting: the Big Ten Conference is the body that reviewed the disputed final play in Ann Arbor, and the Big Ten Conference is the body whose own member, Michigan, walked away with the touchdown. This reporter is not calling it fixed. This reporter is calling it a conflict of interest no courtroom would tolerate, and this reporter would like the political desk, on live television, because a conference should not be the sole referee of a dispute involving its own member school.
Gushis side
GUS: This reporter has broadcast football for the better part of five decades, and never in this reporter's experience has a university president stood before cameras three days after a loss and announced that his team, in fact, won. Western Michigan president Russ Kavalhuna told reporters Tuesday that his Broncos "won that football game" against the Michigan Wolverines, a 2019 tilt this reporter recalls vividly, played at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing.
GUS: Corrected, if grudgingly. The controversy, this reporter is told, centers on a Hail Mary launched by Western Michigan's own quarterback, which fell incomplete and sealed the Broncos' upset — a final gun that should have stood regardless of what Ohio's replay officials later decided.
GUS: One second. This reporter has seen games decided by less, and calls that book gets closed on the field, not reopened by a stopwatch, ever since the league introduced the two-minute warning back in, this reporter believes, 1958.
GUS: And yet Western Michigan's leadership, in the finest tradition of good sportsmanship, fought this ruling all the way to the Big Ten commissioner demanding a rematch — the kind of chin-up fight this reporter remembers from the boys of an earlier, tougher era.
Trudyher side
Sugar, three corrections before we've even kicked off. It's 2026, not 2019 — CBS Sports has this dated September 6th of this season. The game was in Ann Arbor, at the Big House, not Spartan Stadium — that's Michigan State's building, seventy miles the wrong direction. And Kavalhuna's "we won" remark came September 9th, three days later. Get the calendar right, Gus.
Wrong quarterback, wrong state, wrong conference office. That Hail Mary belonged to Michigan's Bryce Underwood, per Fox News — his failed throw is what seemed to seal a Western Michigan win, before officials put one second back on the clock. And it's the Big Ten office reviewing replays, not Columbus. Ohio doesn't run this booth.
Not touching the two-minute warning today. What matters: that one second was restored, Michigan got the play, and both CBS Sports and Fox News call the result a walk-off touchdown for the Wolverines. That's the box score. Michigan won.
Nobody fought anything, and there were no boys demanding a rematch. CBS Sports reported September 6th that Western Michigan's leadership accepted the Big Ten's replay ruling and chose, in their words, to move forward. Might be time for a nap, sugar, before you invent a whole rematch nobody asked for.
Put the mic down, Gus, before legal calls this desk. But since you asked: the ruling body was indeed the Big Ten's own replay office, and the winning team was indeed the Big Ten's own Michigan, per that same CBS Sports reporting. You're wrong about the fix. You're right about who's grading the paper.
“You accept the ruling on Tuesday, you go on TV three days later and say you won — that's not team spirit, that's a guy checking how much reality he can rewrite once the cameras move on. Try telling your landlord you paid rent three days after admitting you didn't and see where that gets you.”
“Look, the box score says Michigan, sure, on paper — but Kavalhuna's talking about a moral victory here, and moral victories are — did I just say "moral victory"? Nobody's cashed a moral victory since leather helmets. Fine, they lost. They lost with class. Which is a kind of — no, forget I said any of this.”
The receipts
While he's turned his attention to the future, Western Michigan president Russ Kavalhuna's mind is clearly made up on what happened in Ann Arbor during Week 1
· Michigan-Western Michigan clock controversy leaves players, fans and a rules analyst puzzled from the morgue, 6 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.