Michigan’s season opener was supposed to be a comfortable start for Kyle Whittingham. Instead, No. 16 Michigan needed one controversial second to survive Western Michigan. The Wolverines were trailing 12-7 when the clock hit 0:00, and the Broncos began celebrating what looked like a massive upset. Then officials restored one second after replay. Bryce Underwood got one final snap and found JJ Buchanan for a 47-yard Hail Mary touchdown, turning an apparent 12-7 loss into a 13-12 Michigan win.

That is what made the celebration look ridiculous. Michigan needed a disputed second to survive Western Michigan, then stormed the field like it had pulled off something historic. Urban Meyer and former Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram noticed it too. On The Triple Option, Rob Stone brought up Michigan fans rushing the field after the win.

“They didn’t beat Western Michigan,” Urban Meyer stated, before Mark Ingram immediately piled on: “They lost,” a point Meyer agreed with. Ingram then widened the criticism: “Listen, there’s levels to this stuff. I don’t even know if Alabama stormed the field. Like, when you have a culture of natties, you got to act like you’ve been there before. And a lot of these places don’t.”

The irony was that Michigan’s fans stormed the field while the team itself knew how ugly the win had been.

“There was not a lot of hooting and hollering in our locker room,” Whittingham admitted. “We understand that. We got a lot of deficiencies. We got a lot of things to fix, a lot of things to work on.” He later called escaping with the win “really nothing short of a miracle.” Jordan Marshall was just as blunt: “Obviously, it’s hard to win in college football, but this is not how we want to win. We’re a way better team than this. We didn’t play like it today. We got to be way better than this.”

For Ingram, that was the point. A program with national-title expectations should not need a last-second Hail Mary to survive a 27½-point underdog, then celebrate like it pulled off something historic.

Michigan barely got out of the game. Bryce Underwood scored on a 1-yard run, but the Wolverines did not score again until the final play. Meanwhile, Dieter Kelly hit four field goals, including one that put Western Michigan up 12-7 with 35 seconds left. When Underwood’s desperation pass fell incomplete and the clock hit zero, Michigan looked beaten.

Then came the second that changed everything.

Officials reviewed the play and put one second back on the clock. Underwood got another snap and found JJ Buchanan for the 47-yard touchdown that gave Michigan a 13-12 win. But days later, the controversy got worse. The MAC said the Big Ten replay crew had used the wrong clock feed when deciding whether time remained. Under the established replay protocol, the program-feed clock should have been used. Had that happened, the MAC said no additional play would have been awarded and Western Michigan would have won 12-7.

The NCAA later confirmed the replay protocol had not been followed correctly and said the outcome would have been different if it had. The score could not be changed because NCAA rules make the result final once the referee declares the game over. So Michigan kept the win, even after the governing body acknowledged the mistake that created its final opportunity.

Western Michigan president Russ Kavalhuna said his team “won that football game,” while NBC rules analyst Terry McAulay questioned the restored second. Meyer was even more direct: “I don’t know if I’ve ever witnessed that. I mean, I’ve seen bad calls, but this one, this took a win. They were the better team on the field in Ann Arbor. And certainly in the second half, they were.”

Michigan’s record still says it won. But when the NCAA itself says the outcome would have been different under the proper replay protocol, storming the field after that escape was always going to invite questions about what exactly there was to celebrate.