No. 16 Michigan beats Western Michigan 13-12 on controversial Hail Mary after clock was reset to 1 second

No. 16 Michigan avoided an upset loss to Western Michigan on Saturday night with a lot of help from instant replay.

Bryce Underwood hit JJ Buchanan for an incredible 47-yard Hail Mary as time expired for a 13-12 win. The pass came after the ball was snapped with one second left after Underwood's previous Hail Mary appeared to fall incomplete with no time remaining.

After a short review, a second was added back to the clock. And then Buchanan made the catch.

NBC's numerous replays of the first Hail Mary showed that the ball was not close to touching a Western Michigan player who had stepped out of bounds when he jumped for the pass until the clock showed 0:00. Rules analyst and former referee Terry McAuley was unable to come up with a concrete explanation for why a second was added to the clock.

"The ball isn't even close to touching the player when it goes to zero," McAuley said after he told viewers that he was informed that the clock on the bottom left of the screen was the stadium clock and in sync with the replay. "Now their Hawk Eye system apparently either was — had a different sync or whatever and they came up with one second when it touched the players. I don't see how that happened assuming our clock is correct. It is clearly not touching the player. It is clearly still in the air when the clock goes to zero on our screen. So the Big Ten's going to have to tell a lot of us how did they get to one second on this play."

Here's how the first Hail Mary looked in real time.

The second-chance Hail Mary was Buchanan's second massive catch of the final drive. He was responsible for all 75 yards on the drive as he caught a 28-yard pass on third down to get Michigan across midfield and put the Wolverines in position to go for the end zone.

Michigan got the ball back for its final drive with 35 seconds to go after Western Michigan kicked a field goal to go up five points. The Broncos' fourth field goal of the game came after Underwood fumbled while trying to scramble for a first down with 1:40 to go.

That turnover was Michigan's third of the game and Underwood's second. He had a rough game and had just 95 passing yards before the final drive.

Western Michigan's offensive stats weren't pretty either, but they controlled the clock. The Broncos had just 221 total yards on 67 plays but held onto the ball for just over 40 minutes. WMU was 8-of-18 on third downs and had 16 first downs to Michigan's 12.

The Wolverines had 276 yards on 48 plays, but committed nine penalties and were just 3-of-10 on third downs.

Had the clock actually expired on the incomplete pass, the first game of coach Kyle Whittingham's tenure would have been an unmitigated disaster. The former Utah coach hired to clean up the mess left behind by the fired Sherrone Moore has a lot to go through when he watches film with his coaching staff.

Instead, Michigan is, somehow, 1-0, and the Big Ten will be doing a lot of explaining in the coming days to show just why the Wolverines deserve to have that win.