Jason Beck looks like a bust as Michigan's OC after another dismal performance New York Times (Online) Austin Meek ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Kyle Whittingham got it half right when he assembled his coaching staff at Michigan. Whittingham's defensive coordinator, Jay Hill, looks like a star. Hill's defense bore that out by holding defending national champion Indiana to six points in regulation in Saturday's 13-6 loss . Whittingham's offensive coordinator, Jason Beck, looks like a bust. His offense bore that out by failing to locate the end zone for the second time in three games, despite being close enough to stumble in accidentally. It's a good thing Bo Schembechler wasn't around to see Michigan drawing up play-action passes for converted defensive tackles on third-and-goal from the 1-yard line. This is Michigan, a program that should be able to run for 1 yard against anybody. In the span of seven games, the Wolverines have traded that identity for something utterly unrecognizable. Unfortunately for Whittingham, getting it half right is a recipe for getting it all wrong. There's no partial credit at Michigan. No one is going to celebrate an overtime loss against a team ranked No. 6 in the polls. With Michigan sitting at 4-3 and 1-3 in the Big Ten, the offensive flaws appear fatal to whatever goals the Wolverines had in mind. “You name it, we've got to work on it,” Whittingham said after Michigan's offense averaged a paltry 3 yards per play against the Hoosiers. “That's our challenge. That's my challenge. That's Jason's challenge. And it's squarely on our shoulders.” Whittingham isn't a head coach who's going to get under the hood and fix what's wrong with his offense. He's a defensive coach by trade. It's no coincidence that his Utah teams excelled on that side of the ball while cycling through a rotating cast of play callers during Whittingham's 21 seasons. Beck earned Whittingham's trust by orchestrating a one-year turnaround at Utah, taking the Utes from near the bottom of the FBS in total offense to the top five. Michigan is paying Beck an average of $3 million per year, more than double what he was earning at Utah, to deliver the same results. Right now, it's not working. The Wolverines benched five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood for freshman Tommy Carr in hopes that Carr would spark a stagnant offense. In his first start, Carr looked like a freshman playing behind a patchwork offensive line and facing one of the best defenses in the Big Ten. Carr provided a modest upgrade in a few areas, but the difference was negligible. The takeaway is that Michigan's problems go much deeper than one player. If a quarterback change didn't fix Michigan's offense, what's left to try? That's a question for Whittingham to ponder. Saturday wasn't the first time he's alluded to the possibility of schematic changes, which makes it even more baffling that Michigan continues to try the same stuff with the same results, week after week. Michigan is still trying to establish the perimeter run game, long after establishing that it doesn't work. The Wolverines are still using a heavy dose of Beck's rhino package, which incorporates a sixth offensive lineman and takes away a receiving threat. Quarterback aside, Michigan has a lot of the same players in the same positions, running the same plays, trying stubbornly to pound (thwack) … that square peg (thwack) … into that round hole. Saturday's glaring example was the third-down call from Indiana's 1-yard line. Michigan, down 6-0 at halftime, opened the third quarter with one of its best drives of the season. The Wolverines had two plays to punch the ball into the end zone and take a one-point lead. Instead of a quarterback sneak with Underwood or a handoff to Jordan Marshall, Michigan elected to have Carr roll out and look for Manuel Beigel, Michigan's rhino, in the end zone. Indiana had defenders in Carr's face almost immediately. He took a 13-yard sack, and Michigan missed a 32-yard field goal — the second time in the game that a red zone sack turned into an empty possession. Whittingham acknowledged that the play-action pass wasn't a good call. Everybody in the stands could see that, but unlike Whittingham, they couldn't do anything about it. Whittingham isn't a passive spectator. He's the head coach, with the authority to step in and change something he doesn't like. “Do I have the ability to overrule? I can overrule anything in the whole program,” Whittingham said. “It circles back to me.” It's mystifying that Beck's offense could work so well at Utah and so poorly at Michigan. You can say it's about the personnel he inherited, but Hill also inherited a bunch of players he didn't recruit, and Michigan's defense has been as good as any in college football. Meanwhile, Utah's offense has been rolling along just fine. Saturday started with Utah coach Morgan Scalley, Whittingham's successor, schmoozing with Nick Saban on the “College GameDay” set. A graphic flashed on the screen showing Utah with 15 consecutive games of 400 yards or more, the longest streak in the FBS, followed by a segment on Utah's two quarterbacks, Devon Dampier and Byrd Ficklin. Saban heaped praise on Scalley, the Utes' defensive coordinator and coach-in-waiting under Whittingham, for the creativity of Utah's offense. “I'm just glad that I'm not a defensive coordinator and have to play against your ass,” Saban said. The coach who installed that Utah offense is at Michigan now, not scaring anybody. Whittingham seems as baffled as anyone about why Beck's scheme isn't translating in the Big Ten. The upshot is that a team with a Playoff-caliber defense is going to play in a middling bowl game, and that's assuming the Wolverines find a way to win at least two games down the stretch. It's a shame that Michigan let Saturday's defensive performance go to waste. The upset was there for the taking. This might have been Michigan's best shot at signature win in Whittingham's first season, and the Wolverines fumbled it because they couldn't convert when they had the chance. With an offense that was doomed from the start, Michigan has squandered a lot more than that.