Jake Butt played tight end at Michigan from 2013 to 2016. Now, he is opening up about his Wolverines days on his podcast. Some stories are funny. Some are cringeworthy. This one manages to be both.

On a May 28 episode of THE BLUE PRINT: Podcast on YouTube, Butt revealed that before Michigan's 2016 road game at Iowa, Jim Harbaugh sent equipment managers to Kinnick Stadium early with a very specific task. 

"Jim sent the equipment managers out early, and they put all Michigan posters to cover every square inch of pink in the locker room," Butt said on the podcast. "And then we lost."

Harbaugh had sent his staff to cover every single inch of Iowa's famous pink visitor locker room with Michigan posters, wall to wall, so the players would not see any pink when they walked in. However, they still ended up losing.

Butt did not hold back on how that landed. He called it sad and pointed out that the equipment staff did all that work for absolutely nothing. A lot of effort, zero payoff.

What made it funnier was that Butt actually liked the locker room. He got three lockers to himself and joked that every team should paint theirs pink if it means that kind of space. 

Michigan's attempt to erase Iowa's tradition before kickoff backfired as badly as it possibly could. They walked out of that stadium with a loss, and the posters meant nothing.

Why Iowa's Pink Locker Room Has Always Gotten Under Opponents' Skin

Iowa's pink visitor locker room at Kinnick Stadium has been one of college football's most recognizable traditions since Hayden Fry introduced it in 1979. Fry had a background in psychology and painted the room deliberately, believing the color had a softening effect on opposing players before games.

As per SB Nation, it was never really about aesthetics. The whole point was psychological, getting into the other team's head before the opening whistle even blew. Decades later, it still works as a talking point that follows every visiting team into that building.

Michigan was not the first program to push back against the tradition, and it will not be the last. But going through the effort of covering every wall and then losing anyway made the whole thing look far worse than simply walking in and saying nothing.

Do you think the pink locker room stunt cost Michigan the mental edge that day, or was it just a coincidence? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Farheen Fathima

Edited by

Zaid Quraishi