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Michigan has a well-documented history of losing road trips out West.

 @Mdot21 and others mentioned the same thing.  First I want to point out that this is FAR from a "Michigan" thing.  All of our teams have trouble with West Coast games and in this new era having four league members out there it will be interesting to see how that plays out.  

Secondly, the article that @CatsbyAZ linked here lists Michigan's last four regular season road games out West and notes that they are 1-4 in those but it is actually worse than that because Michigan was the MUCH better team in most of those games, from the article:

• 1983 Washington 25, Michigan 24:  In their other 10 regular season games Michigan went 9-1 with a loss to league champion Illinois, Washington went 7-3 including a loss to a sub .500 LSU team.  
• 1989 Michigan 24, UCLA 23:  Here is the win but note that Michigan's only losses that year were to ND (finished 12-1) and USC in the RB.  This was a Michigan team that went undefeated in the league playing a UCLA team that finished 3-7-1.  Just looking at the final records, the team that finished 10-2 should have clobbered the team that finished 3-7-1 but Michigan only won by a single point.  
• 2000 UCLA 23, Michigan 20:  This was a Michigan team that went 9-2 in their other 11 games including a win over Auburn in the Citrus Bowl playing against a UCLA team that went 5-6 in their other 11 games including a loss to Wisconsin (whom Michigan beat) in the Sun Bowl.  
• 2001 Washington 23, Michigan 18:  Both teams finished 8-4 with comparable bowl losses so this feels like a more even match-up.  
• 2003 Oregon 31, Michigan 27:  This was a Michigan team that went 10-1 in their other regular season games and lost the Rose Bowl to one of Pete Carroll's juggernauts against an Oregon team that lost four regular season games and lost the Sun Bowl to a Minnesota team that Michigan defeated.  

Note that this post is NOT to dump on Michigan.  Ohio State's history in west coast games is similar and AFAIK most of the rest of the traditional Big Ten / Big11Ten / B1G teams are in the same boat.  

FWIW, tOSU games out West in the same 1983-2023 timeframe:

• 2013 Ohio State 52, California 34:  This may look impressive at first glance but it isn't.  California went 1-11 that year with their only win coming against FCS Portland State and the 34 points that they scored against tOSU was their second best on the year with only Portland State allowing more.  This Ohio State team started the year 12-0 and this game shouldn't have been anywhere near this close.  
• 2008 USC 35, Ohio State 3:  This was another of PC's juggernauts so losing to them wasn't all that bad but getting run off the field was.  This Ohio State team went 10-1 in their other regular season games with a TD loss to a very good PSU team and lost a squeaker in the FiestaBowl to a VERY good Texas team.  
• 2007 Ohio State 33, Washington 14:  Much like the 2013 win over Cal this isn't as impressive as it sounds.  Ohio State went 11-2 including an appearance in the BCSNCG and their only losses were to League Champ Illinois and National Champ LSU.  Washington went 4-9.  
• 2001 UCLA 13, Ohio State 6:  Both teams finished the regular season 7-4 so this feels like a reasonably even match-up.  
• 2000 Arizona 27, Ohio State 17:  Ohio State was only 8-4 in 2000 but Arizona was worse, 5-6.  
• 1994 Washington 25, Ohio State 16:  Ohio State went 9-4 that year including a close bowl loss to an Alabama team that was one point in the SECCG from being undefeated.  Washington went 7-4 and watched the bowls on TV.  
• 1989 USC 42, Ohio State 3:  USC was pretty good that year, 9-2-1 with a RoseBowl win but Ohio State was decent at 8-4.  Losing wasn't terrible but getting run off the field was.  
• 1986 Washington 40, Ohio State 7:  Ugh, another ugly blowout and once again it was a game that should have been at least competitive.  Ohio State finished 10-3, Washington finished 8-3-1.  

If I'm counting right:  In the last 41 seasons Ohio State and Michigan are a combined 3-10 with all three wins with the three winners being teams that finished with double-digit wins and beat teams that finished below .500.  

That said...

Michigan 23, Washington 21

MSU last won a road game against a traditional Pac 10 team against Cal in 1957.

They won a couple of traditional Rose Bowls, and beat Washington State in a Holiday Bowl.  But in terms of true road games, they have been 0-13 since 1957

Lost to Arizona State in 1986 and 2018; lost to Cal in 2008; lost to Stanford in 1962; lost to UCLA in 1974; lost to USC in 1963, 1972 and 1978; lost to Oregon in 1980, 1998 and 2014; lost to Washington in 1970 and 2022.

Yikes, so it seems like it is an all-of-us problem but the odd and unexpected exception appears to be Indiana.  Their recent road games against teams of the former Pac12:

• 2024 Indiana 42, UCLA 13
• 2004 Indiana 30, Oregon 24:  Oregon only went 5-6 but Indiana was worse at 3-8.  
• 2003 Washington 38, Indiana 13:  UDub went 6-6, IU went 2-10.  
• 2002 Utah 40, Indiana 13:  Utah was then in the Mountain West.  

probably should've offered the DC the job and not the OC...


https://twitter.com/UMGoBlog/status/1841262192953278700

It's going to be interesting going forward. I would suspect that a lot of the poor performance by B1G teams heading west for regular season road matchups was partially due to the rarity of ever having to do it.

Now going forward it will likely be an annual thing or close to it. Purdue has a regular season West Coast game every year from 2024-2027, albeit this year it was only an OOC game against OrSU.

As teams get used to it, will they start getting better at it?

And if not, does that mean that our West Coast teams will always be at a natural disadvantage in conference games having to fly 2-3 time zones East multiple times per year while the East Coast / Midwest teams only have to fly 2-3 time zones West maybe once per year?

It'll be interesting to look back at this a couple seasons from now.

We did an analysis of HFA a while back and some of the results were expected while some were not, from what I recall:

• We looked at conference games only because some of the difference in OOC games is due to playing cupcake buy games exclusively at home.
• HFA is definitely real. Every single team had a better league record at home than on the road.
• The teams with the biggest differential were not the ones that we think of as having the loudest stadiums. Instead the teams with the biggest differential tended to be teams that are typically middling in the league.

I didn't expect this result but I think it makes sense. Teams at the top of the league probably only typically play maybe two or three games a year in which HFA might plausibly determine the outcome. Ie, it only likely matters against the other contenders, the rest they should beat regardless of location.

At the opposite end of the spectrum teams at the bottom of the league pprobably only play two or three games a year in which HFA might plausibly determine the outcome. Ie, it only matters against the other bottom-feeders, the rest they will lose to regardless of location.

HFA makes the biggest difference for a middling team because they are typically good enough to beat most of their opponents at home but still suspect enough to lose to most of their opponents on the road.

While most people want to go down the path about talking about an assistant that dealt with signs, the closer reality is that Michigan had one of the best coaches out there as their DC. This wasn't a one-off and neither is his success in LA. Look at what he did at Georgia St, then the Ravens? You think Jim's brother set him up for failure with the recommendation? Minter is top tier defensive coach. By the end of the season, he will be talked about as a head coach candidate in the NFL. The guy has been growing into a force for the last half decade.

only people that talk about BuTsIgNz in relation to Jesse Minter are OSU fans and retards. So...same thing.

Jesse Minter has been a rising star in the coaching ranks, he's basically just a better version of Jeem's previous Michigan DC Mike MacDonald- who is now an NFL head coach. Jesse Minter will be an NFL head coach within 3 years. He's that good. #BuTsIgNZzzzzz!

Jeem finally getting a legit QB in JJ (top 10 NFL draft pick, hello), Michigan's insane coaching staffs on defense, + Sherrone Moore fixing the OL and bringing it back to the Michigan standard of old that it used to be at when Michigan had guys like Steve Hutchinson, Jon Jansen, Jake Long, and David Baas and you just expected Michigan to have great OL every year is what put them over the top. Urban leaving also helped imo. Day ain't quite Urban when it comes to running the football and playing defense. Urbz always elite in those two areas- and THE GAME usually comes down to that- who can run the ball and who can stop the run and play defense. Winner of THE GAME historically has been that- who runs the ball better and who stops the run- win those two battles you win THE GAME 90%+ of the time.

 Urban leaving also helped imo. Day ain't quite Urban when it comes to running the football and playing defense. Urbz always elite in those two areas- and THE GAME usually comes down to that- who can run the ball and who can stop the run and play defense. Winner of THE GAME historically has been that- who runs the ball better and who stops the run- win those two battles you win THE GAME 90%+ of the time.

Wow that's actually a great point. The other part that Urban was a legend, which I'm not saying is a problem for OSU now because it's clearly not, but Urban was as good as it gets at recruiting and recognizing talent that others may not see the ceiling. It's one thing to do it at OSU and Florida, but the dude pulled in Josh Harris and Cole Magner at Bowling Green who were unknown recruits to the rest of the world and became absolute stars at a small MAC school.