Michigan Fires Offensive Coordinator Jason Beck After 15-6 Loss to Michigan State

Michigan's offense has spent most of Kyle Whittingham's first season looking for answers. On Sunday, the Wolverines decided the answer was a new voice.

Michigan has fired offensive coordinator Jason Beck, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported Sunday evening, less than 24 hours after a 15-6 home loss to Michigan State. The move was also reported by On3, Sports Illustrated and Detroit Sports Nation, all crediting Thamel. Michigan had not announced who will call plays for the rest of the season as of Sunday night.

Beck, who also coached Michigan's quarterbacks, lasted nine games in Ann Arbor after following Whittingham from Utah in January.

A Reversal in Less Than a Day

The timing is the striking part. After Saturday's loss, Whittingham was asked directly whether he would replace Beck, and he shut the idea down. "Not right now, not as I'm sitting here at this podium, no," he said, according to MLive. "We'll evaluate everything after the season and determine what the best course of action is."

By Sunday evening, that evaluation had been moved up by about a month.

Saturday made it hard to argue otherwise. Michigan State beat Michigan 15-6 at Michigan Stadium without scoring a touchdown. The Spartans came in at 2-6 on a six-game losing streak, and Michigan was a two-touchdown favorite. The Wolverines finished with 192 total yards and 54 rushing yards, converted 2 of 10 third downs, turned the ball over four times and gave up five sacks. They did not score until Savion Hiter's 1-yard run with 1:35 left.

"Really, I can't come up with one positive offensively in this game," Whittingham said afterward, per Sports Illustrated.

A Season-Long Problem

The Michigan State loss was the low point, but it was not an outlier. According to Sports Illustrated, Saturday marked the fifth time in six Big Ten games that Michigan's offense failed to score more than 21 points. MLive noted Beck's unit entered the weekend ranked 126th of 138 FBS offenses. Detroit Sports Nation put Michigan's scoring at 19.6 points per game through nine games, down from 27.5 in 2025 under the previous staff, per SI.

Two weeks before the rivalry game, Indiana beat Michigan 13-6 in overtime in Ann Arbor, the Hoosiers' first win at the Big House since 1967. In between, the offense's best day came in a 28-21 win at Rutgers on Oct. 31, when freshman Tommy Carr led a 75-yard go-ahead drive in the fourth quarter.

The quarterback position has been unsettled all fall. Bryce Underwood was benched during the Oct. 17 win over Penn State, and Carr has started the last three games. Against Michigan State, Carr completed 14 of 26 passes for 138 yards with two interceptions and was sacked five times. Underwood did not take a snap, according to Wolverines Wire.

Who Is Jason Beck

Beck arrived at Michigan with one of the best résumés of any coordinator hire in the country. In 2025, his only season as Whittingham's offensive coordinator at Utah, the Utes averaged 41.1 points per game, fifth nationally, and ran for 270 yards per game on the way to an 11-2 record. Sports Illustrated noted that Utah jumped from 102nd to fifth in scoring in his one year.

Before Utah, Beck was the offensive coordinator at New Mexico in 2024 and at Syracuse in 2023. He spent six seasons coaching quarterbacks at Virginia, where he worked with Bryce Perkins, and three at BYU, where he coached Taysom Hill. Beck played quarterback at BYU from 2004 to 2006.

He was also expensive. Wolverines Wire reported that Beck was the highest-paid offensive coordinator in football, NFL included, with a reported $9 million buyout. Michigan has not commented on the terms of his departure.

What Comes Next

Michigan sits at 5-4 and 2-4 in the Big Ten and needs one more win to become bowl eligible. The schedule does not offer an easy one. The Wolverines play at Oregon on Saturday, Nov. 14, host UCLA on Nov. 21 and close at Ohio State on Nov. 28.

Whoever takes over the play sheet will have six days to prepare for Eugene. Sports Illustrated listed run game coordinator and running backs coach Tony Alford, assistant Koy Detmer Jr. and receivers coach Micah Simon among the staff members who could take on a larger role, though Whittingham had not named anyone as of Sunday night.

For a first-year head coach who said Saturday he would wait until the season ended, Sunday's move says plenty about how urgent things have become in Ann Arbor. Follow all of Michigan's coverage on Undrafted.

Sources: ESPN's Pete Thamel, as reported by On3, Sports Illustrated and Detroit Sports Nation; MLive; Wolverines Wire; ESPN box score. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Michigan Photography.