Michigan mauled but knows ‘season’s not over’

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Nobody at Michigan expected the Wolverines to start 2024 looking like the unstoppable, undefeated national champions of last year — not when that 2023 team lost an FBS-leading 13 of those players to the NFL, along with its coach.

But the jarring difference that has unfolded in a matter of months was on full display Saturday when No. 3 Texas dismantled the Wolverines in every which way on their home turf, breezing out of town with a 31-12 win while snapping Michigan’s streak of 23 straight wins in the Big House. The loss also broke Michigan’s Big Ten record of winning 29 straight regular-season games.

Following the loss, first-year coach Sherrone Moore said he didn’t think about growing pains with this team, rather he focused on what the Wolverines could do to get better.

“We knew we’re a new team,” he said. “We never tried to rest on our laurels after we won the national championship last year. So for us, it was what are we going to do to get better and make this team good? We’re at where we’re at. We’re going to continue to grow and get better.”

The question isn’t just how quickly — it’s also how much better they can be. It was the second week the offense struggled, as Michigan also got off to a slow start in its Week 1 win against Fresno State. The difference against Texas up front on both the offensive and defensive lines was glaring. While Texas flourished in both its running and passing games, Michigan sputtered to get anything going on the ground and was then forced into an unreliable passing game when it tried to overcome a 24-3 halftime deficit.

When asked after the game if he felt like he needed to make any significant changes to his personnel, Moore said he needed to watch the game film to “figure it out.”

“I don’t want to make a knee-jerk reaction and just say something,” he said. “I’ll watch it, evaluate it, see what we need to do to put the right people in the right places to make it successful.”

Michigan, a team that hadn’t lost in 16 straight games, had three turnovers, including an uncharacteristic fumble from veteran tight end Colston Loveland, who remains one of the Wolverines’ more dependable players on offense. They finished with just 80 rushing yards on the ground, an indictment of the offensive line’s ability to block against a Texas defense that wasn’t fooled much. There were times when Warren showed promise — slinging a dart in the fourth quarter for a first down as he was completely leveled by a Texas defender.

But for the majority of the game, Michigan couldn’t sustain drives, converting only 3 of 12 third downs — while allowing Texas to control the clock by going 10-of-16 on third-down conversions. Not all of these mistakes, Moore said, are long-term issues. He said the first of two interceptions was a tipped pass, and the second was miscommunication. On the fumble, he said, Loveland didn’t tuck it away fast enough.

“Those are three things that, if you don’t have those,” he said, “you’re in a different ballgame. But they happened. And they did a good job capitalizing on them.”

Defensively, Moore said Michigan allowed 135 yards after contact — evidence the fundamental tackling needs to improve.

“For us, those little things, you fix those, it puts you in a better position,” he said, “but you can’t do that against a good team.”

It’s hardly the last good team Michigan will face. The Wolverines, in a supersized Big Ten, will host USC in two weeks, travel to Washington on Oct. 5, and host Oregon on Nov. 2 — all conference games. With a new 12-team College Football Playoff, though, there is still a sense within the program that Michigan can return to the CFP. The five highest-ranked conference champions are guaranteed a spot in the playoff, along with the next seven highest-ranked teams.

“Our season’s not over,” defensive end Josaiah Stewart said, “so one loss doesn’t kick us out of the playoff like it probably would last year.”

While there was certainly disappointment in the locker room following the loss, Warren said Michigan is “better than what we showed today.”

“We let them off too easily,” said Warren, who completed 22 of 33 passes for 204 yards and a touchdown when the game was out of reach. “It’s a really crappy feeling because I know this offense, this team has what it takes to win that football game and we didn’t do it.”

Although this roster has a different look from the national champions, Warren said the standard at Michigan hasn’t changed — and “there’s no difficulty” in maintaining it.

“It falls on all of us to uphold that standard in every single way,” he said. “That’s something we clearly didn’t do well enough today. That falls on me to be better, to play better, and it sucks. Because you come into this game, you know there’s a lot of the line, you want to get a win. We’ve got to take a hard look in the mirror at what type of team we want to be.”