Michigan football can build off this loss to No. 1 Oregon

It was over by halftime. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t.

And for those wondering what kind of fight Sherrone Moore has instilled into this Michigan football program in this season of sludge — there it was, easy to see, late in the third quarter after UM appeared to have gotten to a stop and was set to get the ball back with a chance to cut the lead to four against the nation’s No. 1 team.

That, in itself, was a win — taken in a vacuum anyway. The Wolverines were making it interesting against Oregon.

If each of the past four games — including this one — is in part an audition for what kind of program Moore imagines, then hanging with a title favorite deep into the fourth quarter counts for something.

Hey, no big-brand college football program wants to be judged on a sliding scale. Yet that’s where we are with these Wolverines, who don’t reload like Georgia or Ohio State or Alabama.

Lose 18 starters and all that NFL talent at the most elite programs and 18 more playmakers take their place, or something like that. Not so much in Ann Arbor.

And so, season this was always going to be about a few fundamentals: Is the team disciplined? Is it physical? Does it play with grit? Yeah, yeah, that’s Dan Campbell’s word, and no one is confusing the leadership in Ann Arbor with what’s happening in Allen Park.

But Campbell’s tenets are football tenets, and when a team isn’t as talented as the best teams on its schedule, how is it going to fight? Especially when its College Football Playoff aspirations have been gone for more than a month?

UM gave itself a current chance here at Michigan Stadium against the explosive and physical Ducks. The Wolverines lost 38-17.

Trust me, it wasn’t as lopsided as the final score, although the yardage difference was. Still, UM had a shot to make Oregon nervous — a lot more than nervous, actually, and if not for a couple of formation penalties, might have actually scared them.

A moral victory?

You bet, and if that’s an insult to Wolverine Nation’s pride, it’s also the reality. Consider that, for a moment not so long ago, this season looked like it might get a whole lot worse.

A loss to Michigan State a week ago and the narrative changes. Losses to USC and Minnesota? It changes even more.

Nine losses were out there for this program. Find a way to beat Northwestern and it won’t be more than six.

Not ideal, sure. But that’ll get them a bowl game, and then the real work begins in the winter. They’ll need to find a quarterback as the first order of business. They could use some threats at receiver, too.

Davis Warren, who played his best game of the season — yes, it’s relative — relied on future NFL draft first-rounder Colston Loveland, as he should’ve. But when the all-world tight end wasn’t running a route over the middle (and Warren was looking over the middle), he almost never had a place to go.

That the Wolverines couldn’t run didn’t help. No wonder Davis looked for Loveland anyway. And no wonder his coaches dialed up a flea-flicker in the second half that eventually led to a touchdown.

A touchdown, by the way, that made the score 28-17. The Wolverines were in it, and when they stopped Oregon on third down the next possession and the Ducks sent their punt team out, the momentum in the stadium was… real?

Yeah, realeven if it didn’t feel real, and even if the crowd was happily stunned. The Ducks dotted. The Wolverines were set to field it. Then a flag flew.

Trey Pierce had lined up too far over the ball on the line of scrimmage. He was called for illegal formation — not a call you see much on defense, and it was only for 5 yards, but Oregon only needed 4 for a first down.

You could see shoulders sagging on the UM sideline. And you could see the Ducks giddy on theirs.

They got the ball. Kept moving it. And converted again on third down to get into the red zone. The Wolverines did well to hold them to a field goal.

That kept them within two scores. Twice they got the ball with a chance to cut it to seven. The first time ended when Loveland couldn’t quite hold onto the ball on third down as he fell out of bounds after making a spectacular, leaping grab.

The second came in the red zone, after UM had driven the length of the field. Warren missed a throw on first down. Kalel Mullings got stuffed. Alex Orji ran on third-and-long and got a few. Then Moore OK’d a trick play, where Orji pitched to Semaj Morgan who tried to throw it back to Orji in the end zone.

It was a curious sequence that took the ball out of Warren’s hands; Although the creativity was interesting, it made little sense not to read on Loveland and Warren.

Neither is likely to be on the field for UM next season. Loveland will head to the NFL. Warren may come back, but Moore will almost certainly open the QB competition again.

And he’ll need to.

He’ll need to do a lot more than that, obviously, to start beating teams like Oregon and Texas again, and closing that gap will determine how long he gets in Ann Arbor.

But for at least one Saturday in the late fall during what has been a mostly dismal season, his team stopped what looked like an ugly blowout and found a way to give itself a chance. That matters. Maybe not this season, but it will be at some point in the future.

Oh, and Ohio State is still out there. …

Contact Shawn Windsor: [email protected]. follow him @shawnwindsor.

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Michigan football can build off this loss to No. 1 Oregon