We should not be as shocked as we are by how Michigan went down to close out 2022.

Don’t get me wrong; No. 3 TCU’s 51-45 Fiesta Bowl win over No. 2 Michigan is stunning. It easily qualifies as the biggest upset in College Football Playoff history.

That may not be true by seed, but it is based on where these programs were a year ago today.

The Wolverines were in the Playoff semifinal, seemingly a better quarterback away from becoming a true national championship contender.

TCU was a 5-7 football team that quit on legendary coach Gary Patterson, so Patterson stunningly walked away 8 games into his 21st season. The Horned Frogs finished their 2021 season with a 48-14 loss to Iowa State.

Simply reaching a bowl game this season would have been an impressive feat from first-year coach Sonny Dykes. That’s where the bar was compared to Michigan’s, which was not only to get back to the Playoff but take the next step and win the whole dang thing.

From that perspective, we should remain perpetually stunned by Saturday’s outcome. No one could have foreseen it in August, September or possibly even October.

But how Michigan lost? The writing was on that wall all year, unfortunately.

Inside the 20, you need to get 6. And as has often been the case for the Wolverines, red-zone possessions ended short of the end zone.

The red-zone Achilles’ heel

If you don’t look closely enough, the Wolverines were among the nation’s best teams in the red zone this season, scoring on 93.8% of their trips inside the 20-yard line.

But that was number was largely due to the accurate foot of kicker Jake Moody. Red-zone play was really an Achilles’ heel for Michigan’s offense.

The Wolverines entered the Fiesta Bowl with touchdowns on 67.1% of their trips inside the 20, which rated 37th nationally. After scoring 3 touchdowns on a whopping 7 red-zone trips against TCU, that dropped to 64.8% for the season — 51st in the country.

And perhaps that inconsistency explains Michigan’s baffling decisions inside the 5 early in the game.

The choice to try a 4th-and-goal trick play that turned true freshman tight end Colston Loveland into a quarterback was inexcusably bad, and it set the tone in a game Michigan never found its footing. With an early opportunity to impose physicality on TCU, the Wolverines got cute and paid dearly.

When Michigan tried to get physical on its next trip inside the 2-yard line, it attempted a fullback dive to Kalel Mullings, a converted linebacker who is 10th — 10th! — on the team in carries this season.

Clearly, Blake Corum would have gotten the ball in that scenario if he were healthy. But turning to a guy who has touched the ball 9 times all season reeked of curious desperation, and it should hardly be surprising that the call resulted in a fumble into the end zone.

It’s also true that Michigan should not have been in that situation in the first place. The only people on earth who didn’t believe Roman Wilson scored a 51-yard touchdown on the previous play happened to be in the replay booth.

But the overturn also should not have mattered. Michigan had 4 downs to move the ball 1 yard. And tried doing so with its literal 7th-string running back.

That’s called creating your own failure.

Will Michigan find a solution?

For a program that ties its entire identity on toughness, the inability to punch it in near the goal line is a slap in the face. Michigan has won the Joe Moore Award for nation’s top offensive line 2 straight seasons.

But in most cases, Michigan’s red-zone struggles take place between the 20 and 10 than inside the 5. And that is clearly a product of play calling.

As it turns out, it doesn’t matter who is calling the plays, either.

Under Josh Gattis last year, the Wolverines were 60th nationally in red-zone touchdown percentage, punching it in just 61.2% of the time. The combo of Matt Weiss and Sherrone Moore actually improved on that this year, albeit by a narrow margin.

This is an issue that clearly isn’t going away for Michigan. The hope was that the Wolverines were good enough in other areas to compensate for it.

They aren’t. And until that changes, Michigan’s 1997 national championship banner isn’t getting a new neighbor any time soon.