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    • Michigan football, loss to Texas, faces harsh reality
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    Michigan football, loss to Texas, faces harsh reality

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    The eyes of Texas certainly enjoyed it. But Michigan fans wanted to blindfold.

    That wasn’t a game Saturday at the Big House, it was an execution. That wasn’t competitive, it was repetitive — as in Longhorns, Longhorns, Longhorns. And that wasn’t a slow fizzle of vulnerability from a corn and blue balloon. That was a bang.

    You knew after last season’s national championship that the Wolverines would fall back a bit. The question was how much? And from what level would they resume their climb?

    REQUIRED READING: Michigan football’s faceplant against Texas is hardly shocking. Time for Wolverines to sober up

    Based on Saturday, it could be a long climb. No. 9 UM was no match for No. 3 Texas, which crushed the Wolverines so much on offense and defense that even actor and Texas fan Matthew McConaughey was tired of cooing, “Okay, okay, okay.” By the end, it was more like, “Leave them alone, guys, they’ve had enough.”

    Texas piled up 31 points, 389 yards and three takeaways in a game that was effectively over at halftime — with a called-back touchdown and a missed field goal. I wouldn’t say the Longhorns converted too many of their drives, but if third downs were fish, they would have thrown a few back.

    “We haven’t had a game like this in a while,” UM coach Sherrone Moore said after the 31-12 loss.

    That’s your classic understatement. This was Michigan’s first loss since 2022, its first home loss since 2020 and the worst beating since Georgia ousted them in the 2021 Orange Bowl. Saturday at times resembled a typical Michigan non-conference game in September, except the Wolverines were the overmatched opponent from a lesser conference.

    They’re not used to losing in Ann Arbor. They’re certainly not used to losing like this.

    “It sucks,” Wolverines quarterback Davis Warren said.

    That pretty much sums it up.

    Start over.

    Who is responsible for this debacle in Michigan?

    For what it’s worth, here were the low points. Michigan’s offense had 80 yards rushing. It ran just nine plays in the first quarter. The defense didn’t have a sack. Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers gashed the Wolverines for 246 yards and three TDs, slinging the ball to the corners or finding streaking men downfield. He reminded Maize and Blue fans how nice it is to have a starting quarterback who’s headed to the NFL. Especially since UM’s counterpart, senior walk-on Warren, looked a long way off Saturday.

    Warren, in his second start, threw receivers over or under. He shot into coverage on a ball in the first half that was tipped and intercepted, and he threw another pick in the second half when a receiver went the wrong way. He finished with 204 passing yards, most of it in garbage time when U-M trailed by three scores. He finally threw a touchdown with just under two minutes left, but half the seats were empty.

    “We’ve got to get better,” Warren said. “I’ve got to get better.”

    Someone asked him whether Saturday’s result was because Texas performed better, or because Michigan underperformed.

    “All the executions are ours,” Warren insisted. “I didn’t do enough. I shot us in the foot too many times.”

    REPORT CARD: Michigan Football Numbers vs. Texas: Brutal Performance on Offense and Defense

    That’s admirable, and Warren seems like a nice guy with a whale of a backstory (he survived cancer in high school). But the truth is, Texas did the shooting on Saturday. Their offensive line handled the supposedly strong UM defense. And their running backs and receivers made UM defenders look out of place. The same Longhorns kept getting open or breaking tackles.

    Meanwhile, several UM receivers dropped passes, and tight end Colston Loveland simply dropped a ball he had already caught late in the first half. No one even touched him. Texas recovered the fumble and entered the end zone 49 seconds later for a 24-3 lead.

    “We’ve got a lot of hard-nosed individuals,” Loveland said after the loss, “guys that don’t like to lose at all. … We’ve got a group of guys that despise it.”

    How much, we will know soon.

    Should you be sounding the alarm about Michigan this season?

    There’s a giant new sign at the Big House celebrating the 2023 national champions. And no doubt fans still basking in that glow watched Saturday’s beating and murmured, “Where’s JJ? Where’s Corum? Where’s Kris Jenkins and Mike Sainristill and Junior Colson?”

    Gone, baby, gone. Off to the NFL with Jim Harbaugh. And you can’t deny that that’s largely responsible for what we saw in Saturday’s debacle.

    But that’s no excuse. Yes, Michigan lost 13 players to the NFL draft, the most of any team. But Texas was in second place and lost 11. The difference is that the Longhorns kept their quarterback, they recruited everybody’s All-American Arch Manning as his backup, and their coach, Steve Sarkisian, who led the Longhorns to the playoffs last season, is still there.

    And I’m sorry, but even though he filled in for Harbaugh multiple times last season, Moore, who has never been a head coach before, still has a lot to learn. He should be allowed to do that. Replacing a suspended boss who can still coach during the week and provide input at any time is not the same as running the program yourself.

    Moore is the man now, and he’ll have to do something that hasn’t been done in a while: motivate the Wolverines to bounce back early in the season. They play Southern Cal in two weeks and Washington in four. If you want an idea of ​​why Harbaugh thought it was a good time to leave, just think about that schedule.

    “My message to the team was it takes determination,” Moore said. “We don’t like to lose… What are we going to do to get better?…

    “You can’t point fingers. … You discover who you are as a team when there’s adversity.”

    It struck early — and often — on Saturday afternoon. The good news is that under the new 12-team CFP format, a loss like this doesn’t end the Wolverines’ playoff hopes. The bad news is that they have a lot more top teams to contend with in the expanded Big Ten.

    “Everyone is taking (the loss) very seriously,” Warren said.

    They should. It’s been a while since the lights in Ann Arbor flickered before the leaves changed color. But that was a four-alarm fire on Saturday. Maybe it’s an anomaly. Or maybe it’s a sign of things to come.

    For now, we know this: It was a delicious champion’s pie that everyone devoured in January. Victory tastes sweet. Defeat, like Saturday’s, tastes more like Texas roadkill. And no one wants a second helping.

    Contact Mitch Albom: [email protected]. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom.

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