Davis Warren: “The standard hasn’t changed” after Michigan’s loss to Texas
Michigan Wolverines quarterback Davis Warren said the “level of the defending national champions has not changed” after losing 31-12 to Texas.
Texas eyes certainly enjoyed it. But Michigan fans wanted blindfolds.
That wasn’t a game on Saturday at the Big House, it was an execution. That wasn’t a contest, it was a replay – like Longhorns, Longhorns, Longhorns. And that wasn’t the slow hiss of corn-and-blue balloon vulnerability. That was a bang.
After winning the national championship last season, you knew the Wolverines would drop off a bit. The question was, how much? And from what lower point would they resume their climb?
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Based on Saturday, it could be a long climb. No. 9 UM was no match for No. 3 Texas, which so crushed the Wolverines on offense and defense that even actor and Texas fan Matthew McConaughey got tired of cooing, “All right, all right, all right.” In the end, it was more like, “Leave them alone, boys, they’ve had enough.”
Texas put up 31 points, 389 yards and three takeaways in a game that was essentially over at halftime — and that was with a touchdown taken back and a field goal missed. I’m not saying the Longhorns converted too many of their drives, but if third downs were a fish, they would have thrown back quite a few.
“We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time,” said UM coach Sherrone Moore after the 31-12 loss.
That’s the classic understatement. This was Michigan’s first loss since 2022, its first home loss since 2020 and the worst loss since losing to Georgia in the 2021 Orange Bowl. At times Saturday looked like a typical Michigan non-conference game in September, except the Wolverines were the inferior opponent from the smaller conference.
They’re not used to losing in Ann Arbor. And they’re certainly not used to losing like this.
“It sucks,” said Wolverines quarterback Davis Warren.
That pretty much sums it up.
New beginning.
Who is to blame for this debacle in Michigan?
Here are the low points. Michigan’s offense managed 80 yards on the run game. It ran just nine plays in the first quarter. The defense didn’t have a single sack. Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers rushed the Wolverines for 246 yards and three touchdowns by throwing the ball to the corners or finding running opponents further down the field. He reminded Maize and Blue fans how nice it is to have a starting quarterback who goes on to the NFL. Especially since U-M’s counterpart, senior walk-on Warren, looked far from that description on Saturday.
Warren, in only his second start, threw to too many or too few receivers. He threw a ball into coverage in the first half that was tipped up and intercepted, and he threw to another receiver in the second half when it went the wrong way. He finished the game with 204 passing yards, many of them in garbage time when UM was down by three points. He finally threw a touchdown with just under two minutes left, but by that point half the seats were empty.
“We have to get better,” Warren said. “I have to get better.”
Someone asked him whether Saturday’s result was due to Texas’s superiority or Michigan’s failure.
“All done by us,” Warren insisted. “I didn’t do enough. I shot ourselves in the foot too many times.”
TRANSCRIPT: Michigan football grades against Texas: Brutal performances in offense and defense
That’s admirable, and Warren seems like a nice kid with a great backstory (he survived cancer in high school). But the truth is that Texas was firing the shots on Saturday. Their offensive line overwhelmed the supposedly strong UM defense. And their running backs and receivers made the UM defenders look out of place. Those same Longhorns kept getting open space 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. Nobody hit him. Texas recovered the fumble and reached the end zone 49 seconds later for a 24-3 lead.
“We have a lot of tough individuals,” Loveland said after the loss, “guys who don’t like to lose at all. … We have a group of guys who despise it.”
We’ll soon find out how much.
Should we raise alarm bells about Michigan this season?
There’s a huge new sign in the Big House celebrating the 2023 national champions. And no doubt fans still basking in that glory saw Saturday’s loss and muttered, “Where’s JJ? Where’s Corum? Where’s Kris Jenkins and Mike Sainristill and Junior Colson?”
Go, baby, go. Go to the NFL with Jim Harbaugh. And there’s no denying that’s largely to blame for what we saw in Saturday’s debacle.
But that can’t be an excuse. Yes, Michigan lost 13 players to the NFL Draft, more than any other team. But Texas was second with 11 losses. The difference is that the Longhorns kept their quarterback, they recruited All-American Arch Manning as his replacement 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 several times last season, there’s still a learning curve for Moore, who has never been a head coach before. He should be allowed to do that. Filling in for a suspended boss who could 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 has to do something that hasn’t been done in a long time: motivate the Wolverines to bounce back early in the season. They face Southern Cal in two weeks and Washington in four. If you want to know why Harbaugh thought it was a good time to leave, check out this schedule.
“My message to the team was that it takes determination,” Moore said. “We don’t like to lose… What are we going to do to get better?…”
“You can’t point the finger at anyone. … It’s only when misfortune strikes that you find out who you are as a team.”
It struck early Saturday afternoon — and often. The good news is that in the new 12-team CFP format, such a loss doesn’t end the Wolverines’ playoff hopes. The bad news is that they’ll have to contend with many more top-ranked teams in the expanded Big Ten.
“Everyone is taking (the loss) super seriously,” Warren said.
They should. It’s been a while since the lights started blinking in Ann Arbor before the leaves changed color. But that was a Level 4 fire on Saturday. Maybe it’s an anomaly. Or maybe it’s a harbinger of things to come.
For now, we know this: It was a delicious championship cake that everyone devoured last January. Victory tastes sweet. A loss like Saturday’s tastes more like a roadkill in Texas. And no one wants a second helping.
Contact Mitch Albom: [email protected]. For the latest updates on his charities, books and events, visit MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchhalbom.
