“The only thing that was on my mind was, ‘Just don’t overthrow him,’” Hoyer said, following last Saturday’s 28-24 loss to the Wolverines.

He cranks his arm back and springs it forward, chucking the ball downfield. It hangs in the air, and Thomas has a good few yards of separation from his defender.

Then the ball starts falling, but it’s too soon.

Thomas puts the breaks on his wheels and has to scramble to get back to the ball. It falls just short of his fingertips.

Another missed opportunity. Maybe it was the wind, maybe it wasn’t.

But if that ball is caught by Thomas, he most likely would have been in the end zone, and that bothered Hoyer immensely.

It bothered him so much that he admitted he let it affect his performance on the following snaps.

“When you miss somebody that wide open and especially when I threw the ball and I’m like, ‘All right, it’s a touchdown’ and the wind got it or whatever, I just let that affect the way I played for a little bit,” Hoyer said.

He’s usually good at having a short memory and moving on to the next play, but the magnitude of the rivalry game may have had something to do with it, he said.

“It’s something I learn from because two plays later I go out and throw an interception,” Hoyer said. “You can’t let things in the past affect you.”

After missing two wide-open receivers for potential touchdowns and throwing an interception, Hoyer felt a lot of heat from the loss to the Wolverines.

Head coach Mark Dantonio said the starting quarterback often takes the rap for the whole football team.

“Usually, when you’re a quarterback or a head coach, I guess, you tend to take more criticism and get more praise than you probably deserve,” Dantonio said.

“So it goes both ways, and he’ll deal with it.”

Throwing for 161 yards against U-M sent him past the 2,000-yard mark on the season.

Out of the seven Big Ten quarterbacks who have thrown for at least 2,000 yards, Hoyer has the fewest interceptions with five but also the fewest touchdown passes with 12.

Despite once ranking second in the conference in pass efficiency, Hoyer now ranks fifth.

One criticism of Hoyer has been that he has a problem locking onto one receiver, not scanning the field for his other options.

Dantonio said he doesn’t know if that actually is an issue.

“I think it’s something certainly you’ve got to try and omit from what he’s doing, but everybody has strengths and weaknesses,” he said.

Although Hoyer never pictured how he would be performing 10 games into the season, he said it is fair to say that he’s on par with his expectations.

But the real way you define a quarterback is by wins and losses, he said.

At 5-5 overall and 1-5 in the Big Ten, it goes without saying that he’s not satisfied.

“You’ve got to find a way for your team to win, and that’s something that’s been tough on me,” Hoyer said.