Michigan had nearly won the grind it out, defensive slugfest against their in-state rivals. However, a last-second botched punt sealed one of the worst endings you could ever imagine. Here’s some insight as to why it happened:

“In a sense, it was quite an innate reaction to still kind of kick it,” Chapman said. “Yeah, he probably should have jumped on it, but jumping on the ball is not what we do here. We pick it up and we move it forward by hand or foot. If the ball is on the ground and two teammates jump on you (in Australian rules football), it can be called holding the ball — I get penalized and you receive the ball because I didn’t attempt to get the ball out and continue the game on.” Weber State coach Jay Hill, who signed O’Neill from Australia, thought the same thing when he saw the Michigan-Michigan State ending.“If you watch Australian rules football, those guys are used to kicking with people draped over them in traffic,” Hill said. “My guess is his natural instincts took over and he thought he could get the kick off. They do that 20 times a game with something similar and it just didn’t go his way this time.”

 

Source: Michigan punter’s Australian rules past may have contributed to mishap – CBSSports.com

The point is not to linger on the defeat, Blue. We got blown out the past two seasons and we just wanted to prove we belonged on a real stage – and we did that. The polls reflect this, all we dropped was to #15. Let’s take the bye week to regroup and then keep playing great football!