E-mail Pete Fiutak 
Follow me … @PeteFiutak 

I’m not a fire alarm guy. I don’t believe that a coach’s job should hinge on one game – if a coach needs one specific win to get off a hot seat, you already have your answer. 

Michigan has its answer. 

There are certain every-year-win games you can’t lose if you’re a coach of a superpower program. If you’re the Florida head coach, you can’t lose to Kentucky – a program the Gators have beaten like a drum for decades. The Charlie Weis era came to a close starting with losses to Navy. If you’re the Michigan head man, there are plenty of rivalry games you have to win, but you also can’t lose the Little Brown Jug. 

Give Minnesota credit, too. Michigan’s run defense has been fantastic, so the Gophers mixed it up well and did what it needed to do to get the job done and come up with the biggest win in the Jerry Kill era. But this game is more about Michigan’s failings. Brady Hoke was already under the microscope, and his team just couldn’t perform at home against a mid-level Big Ten team. If you could put the Rich Rodriguez offense with the current Michigan D, everything would be fine, but when the offense goes absolutely nowhere, every mistake is magnified and there’s no margin for error.

Hoke is a good football coach – you don’t do what he did at Ball State and San Diego State without knowing what you’re doing – but he has had more than enough time to make Michigan into a national title contender, and instead, his offense can’t score. It can’t move the ball. It’s getting shut down and shutout by Utah and Notre Dame, and it’s getting embarrassed by Minnesota. 

But consider this Michigan’s step back to possibly take a huge leap forward. If this loss, if this ugliness, if this blowout brings the program one step closer to Jim Harbaugh, then yeah, take it and run. 

It might be the best rushing attempt the Wolverines have had in 2014. 

By Phil Harrison
Follow me @PhilHarrisonCFN

There are problems — big problems in Ann Arbor.

No kidding. 

After exorcising past demons and looking fantastic early in the season against Appalachian State, the wheels have fallen off with a loud and resounding thud with another embarrassing loss to Minnesota. 

So, what has gone wrong with a Michigan program that just a couple of years ago seemed to have things pointed in the right direction? The athletes are there if you believe the recruiting gurus, head coach Brady Hoke has a history of solid coaching, and he’s hired a staff with proven assistants and big paychecks. So what gives?

Yeah the defense hasn’t been anything special, and there’s no free pass to be given on that side of the ball either, but it has been truly astounding how bad the offense has been. There’s no consistent push or protection by the offensive line, and the quarterback play hasn’t been good enough, with far too many mistakes to hide all the other warts. 

The players are saying the right things, but you have to wonder if Hoke is now losing the locker room as well. You only have to look at last year when things began to slowly boil towards disappointment to draw a comparison. The team sleepwalked through the last part of its schedule in 2013, losing five of the last six. Things are now beginning to look eerily similar this year.

On top of everything, now the coaching staff — trying to shake things up a bit — may have done the exact opposite by introducing a quarterback controversy into the fray. Devin Gardner has made enough questionable decisions to warrant a change, but nothing can divide a locker room more than upsetting the balance of the team by experimenting with the guy that touches every snap and makes the engine go.

If you thought Brady Hoke was salty with the media after some suspect performances recently, just wait to see what this week holds as the black cloud begins of questions surrounding the security of his job start to close in even further.