ESPN analyst points out unpopular truth that Michigan actually beat Western Michigan

People are entitled to their own opinions. They aren't entitled to their own facts.

There was time on the clock when the Western Michigan defender jumped up and touched the first Hail Mary pass attempted by Bryce Underwood last Saturday in the Wolverines 13-12 win, after stepping out of bounds previously.

There is a new video, where the ball is tracked, and when the defender appears to make contact with the ball, there is one second still on the clock, just as the Big Ten said all along.

Even though the Western Michigan President and many others want to say, "Western Michigan won," that's only true if a game ended after 59 minutes and 59 seconds.

Unfortunately, for the college football world, there are 60 minutes in a game. As badly as many people wanted to see Michigan lose, the truth is, inconvenient as it is, the Wolverines won. Bryce Underwood made an incredible throw. J.J. Buchanan made an even better catch, and there was time on the clock.

Don't take my word for it either, this is coming from Dan Wetzel of ESPN.

In his weekly podcast with Reece Davis and Pete Thamel, Wetzel did what many others are seemingly incapable of doing: he told the truth.

"In truth they won the game," Wetzel said. "I was watching these Zapruder films and they got the stop watch. It took 8.3 seconds for that first Hail Mary to go down. There was nine seconds left on the clock. So there was time. The Big Ten clock, whatever the heck that was, was actually correct. The NBC clock was wrong. The MAC is arguing we should use the wrong clock because using the wrong clock is the right protocol then using the wrong protocol to get the right clock, and the NCAA basically came out and said yes, I agree."

Michigan players got a raw deal in Western Michigan clock fiasco

Western Michigan agreed with the Big Ten's statement on the ruling, until the MAC decided it would be better to wage a PR campaign saying the Broncos won the game. Michigan was even removed from the AP poll, dropping out after being ranked 16th, despite one close win over a team that won its conference last season.

A drop was warranted. But Michigan shouldn't be treated as though it lost a game it won. In that regard, it's the Wolverines who honestly have a gripe.

Instead of Underwood or Buchanan getting celebrated as they should have been for great plays, they were labeled as "cheaters" because too many were too quick to jump to conclusions, even when the Big Ten released the raw footage that led to the decision.

People called for transparency. How does it get more transparent than that?

The schtick of ranking Michigan like it lost, such as Jeff Saragin of the Saragin ratings, shows how truly ridiculous this whole thing has become.

Rankers get to the judge the results. They don't get to make them up. You don't get to re-write the record book because you disagree with it.

Saying Western Michigan won this game is no different than saying Michigan won "The Game" in 2016 when JT Barrett was clearly short on a fourth down that would have ended the game, but replay didn't get the call right.

So did every AP voter who saw the refs get the call wrong have the right to vote for Michigan if they agreed? Should Saragin have ignored the results, because of a blown call? Of course not.

The talk is all about how Western Michigan got cheated. It didn't. The Wolverines were essentially given a loss when they earned a win, and were also called cheaters without justification.

That's a raw deal.

Officials made the call. Even if it was the wrong call, Michigan had no hand in it.

Did Michigan play well? No. There are plenty of justified criticisms, but saying a win isn't a win just because you didn't like it?

That's something else entirely.

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