ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Final thoughts on Michigan’s 24-17 victory against Michigan State and a much-needed break from the hand-wringing:
1. As Michigan was driving for a touchdown in the third quarter, the Wolverines lined up in a funky-looking formation that seemed to be missing one important piece: the quarterback.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Michigan was playing a joke on everyone or if the Wolverines had gotten their signals crossed while rotating quarterbacks. The confusion quickly dissipated as Semaj Morgan motioned into the backfield and took a direct snap, but that brief moment was an amusing commentary on Michigan’s season so far.
Michigan had a glaring hole at quarterback. Saturday, the Wolverines finally filled it.
Davis Warren didn’t do anything spectacular, but he avoided the killer mistakes that have been Michigan’s undoing and kept the offense moving. After the game, he got a passionate and unprompted endorsement from running back Donovan Edwards.
“That’s somebody in our huddle that we respect because of the resilience he’s had,” Edwards said. “He deserved the game that he had, especially being able to get his start back and be able to lead his team to victory. Y’all better stop counting him out, man.”
2. Warren’s play in the first three games has aged pretty well relative to what we’ve seen since then. Aside from the interceptions — and that’s a big aside — he played OK, and OK is about the best Michigan can hope for this season.
When Warren lost the job, it crossed his mind that he might not get another chance. He handled his situation gracefully and five games later, it was his turn again.
“It’s not my job to have a perspective on if getting benched was the best thing that ever happened to me, the worst thing, if it was a learning opportunity, if it was something I’ll always regret,” Warren said. “It was just my job to stay ready.”
Warren said his iPad was just as full of notes in the weeks after he lost the job as it was when he was starting. Sometimes he’d go to Oosterbaan Field House on his own to walk through plays to make up for the reps he wasn’t getting in practice. Meanwhile, the offense stalled with Alex Orji as the quarterback, and Jack Tuttle stepped in for a game before he was sidelined again with an injury.
When the wheel of fortune came back around to Warren, he was ready. Michigan and Michigan State entered the game with 15 turnovers, most of those at the quarterback position, and it was a solid bet that the quarterback with the fewest turnovers was going to come out on top. Aidan Chiles didn’t throw an interception but coughed up the ball on a strip sack by Josaiah Stewart near the end of the first half, leading to a Michigan field goal. Warren’s stat line had zeroes in all the right places: 0 sacks, 0 penalties, 0 interceptions, 0 fumbles.
“The quarterback, he holds the ball the most,” Warren said. “It was on me to protect the football. When I’ve got the ball in my hands, I’ve got the whole program in my hands.”
3. After an abysmal start for the offense, Michigan was sitting at 37 total yards late in the first half. At one point, coach Sherrone Moore lit into the offensive line for getting manhandled up front.
“I can’t really say exactly what I said, if you get my drift,” Moore said. “The message was that we’re not operating to the standard we needed to, especially to the offensive line. The precedent we set, wearing that helmet, wearing that uniform, there’s a standard. I didn’t feel like we were upholding that standard.”
The rhythm of the offense changed noticeably when Michigan went up-tempo late in the first half. Perhaps that’s something to file away for the next time the offense gets stuck in a rut.
“That was huge for us, getting into that no-huddle, two-minute offense, just being able to get in a rhythm and just roll,” Warren said. “I knew what plays coach (Kirk) Campbell was calling before they rolled off his tongue. With the type of relationship we have, I knew what was coming.”
4. One of the biggest plays of the game was Stewart’s strip-sack and Kenneth Grant’s fumble recovery with 14 seconds left in the first half. The ball was at the 34-yard line, just inside field goal range, and Grant had open field in front of him. Wisely, he pounced on the ball instead of trying to scoop it, remembering what happened when he tried to return a fumble against USC.
“I learned my lesson from last time,” Grant said.
Michigan picked up 15 yards on a pass to Edwards, setting up a 37-yard field goal that gave the Wolverines a 9-7 lead at the half.
5. Michigan’s quarterback-by-committee approach worked better than it had all season. Michigan State was bringing extra defenders into the box and did a nice job containing Kalel Mullings and Edwards, who combined for 42 yards on 22 carries. The run threat came primarily from getting an extra blocker on the field and running the ball with Orji, who rushed for 64 yards and one touchdown on six carries.
Michigan also got a touchdown pass from one of the most efficient passers in school history. In his career, Edwards is 4-for-4 for 131 yards and two touchdowns. His first TD pass was a 75-yard bomb to Roman Wilson in the 2021 Big Ten Championship Game, and his second came Saturday night on a 23-yard toss to Colston Loveland.
“It’s a tremendous honor for the coaches to be able to have confidence in me to do something like that,” Edwards said. “Dono has a perfect QBR rating, too.”
6. If this is Loveland’s final season at Michigan, no team will be happier than Michigan State. Loveland caught two touchdowns last year in East Lansing and had two more Saturday night. He was right in the middle of everything, including the postgame scrum at midfield. Moore said Loveland got head-butted, but upon closer review, Loveland was the one who did the head-butting after Michigan State’s Anthony Jones gave him a shove in the facemask during the final kneel down.
A fight breaks out after Michigan takes the knee to seal the win vs Michigan State 😳 pic.twitter.com/xHedEDaBLB
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 27, 2024
Loveland earned the right to talk, and he exercised it by dropping three “Lil’ Bro” references in about five seconds in his postgame Big Ten Network interview. The Michigan-Michigan State rivalry always walks a line between intense and dirty, a line that’s been crossed several times in recent years. One of the notable parts of the past week was how muted the hatred seemed to be. Neither team said anything inflammatory, and Michigan fans seemed too preoccupied with their own team’s struggles to have much vitriol for Michigan State.
I’m not going to say it was good to see the teams going at it after the game. “Good” is definitely not the right word. But it was … familiar.
7. A question I was pondering in the press box Saturday night: Which program would you rather be right now, Michigan or Michigan State? It might seem obvious to pick the team that won the national championship last season over the team that finished 4-8, but it’s more complicated than that.
Both programs have first-year head coaches. Remarkably, Moore is the first Michigan coach since Bennie Oosterbaan in 1948 to win his first matchup against the Spartans. Counting his games last year as acting head coach, he’s won his first matchups against Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State and Minnesota, arguably Michigan’s four biggest rivals. Not bad.
Then there’s Jonathan Smith, who took over a program at rock bottom and has the Spartans on track for a bowl game. Michigan State plays unbeaten Indiana at home next week, which could be an interesting game with or without Indiana QB Kurtis Rourke in the lineup. After that, Michigan State goes to Illinois and closes the season with Purdue and Rutgers at home. A six-win season is well within Michigan State’s grasp.
The first two drives showed what makes Smith’s teams so tough. He’s a great offensive coach who can marry up the run and the pass as well as anybody. His teams tend to punch above their weight, and that’s been the ethos forever at Michigan State. He’s got a young quarterback in Chiles who’s only going to get better and a freshman wide receiver Nick Marsh who’s a star in the making. I’d buy stock in Michigan State right now if I were playing the markets.
A six-win season seems like the most likely outcome for Michigan, too, but the Wolverines are trending in the other direction. Yes, they won the game, and that’s something to celebrate. Losing to Michigan State in what might have been the final MSU game for Loveland, Edwards, Stewart and Mason Graham would have been a real downer. But the issues that have plagued Michigan all season didn’t disappear — they just receded a bit.
8. One of those issues, an inability to get off the field on third down, surfaced again. Michigan lined up in some unusual fronts on third down, and Michigan State took the dare and ran the ball in situations that usually would be passing downs.
Here’s one example from Michigan State’s fourth-quarter touchdown drive. It’s third-and-10, and Michigan has Graham lined up wide on the edge. Graham and Stewart are going to cross paths, with Graham looping around and rushing up the middle. There’s nobody lined up over the left guard, and Michigan State takes the free yards and runs for a first down.
Not to sound like a broken record, but it still feels like Michigan’s defense is trying to do too much at times instead of letting its best players do what they do best.
9. Credit where it’s due: Michigan’s defense stepped up and got a stop when it needed one. The game came down to a fourth-and-5 play at Michigan’s 16-yard line with 2 minutes on the clock. Michigan’s defensive line collapsed the pocket and forced Chiles to scramble. He could have tried to run for the first down, though Grant had an angle. Chiles elected to force a throw to the end zone, and Quinten Johnson was there to break it up.
“You live for moments like that,” linebacker Ernest Hausmann said. “Rivalry game, we need a stop, it comes down to fourth down. I’m really proud of our guys. The coaching staff put us in a good position with the call, and I thought we did a really good job executing.”
10. On the question of which program you’d rather be, one reason to side with Michigan is the recruiting potential. Michigan State is No. 54 in the 247Sports Composite and doesn’t have a commitment from a four- or five-star prospect. Michigan is No. 14 and just landed a commitment from five-star offensive tackle Andrew Babalola, giving the Wolverines four top-100 players in their 2025 class.
The Wolverines might not be done, either. Georgia commit Shamari Earls, a four-star cornerback and the No. 87 prospect in the composite rankings, was among the notable visitors at Saturday’s game.
Michigan flip target, Georgia CB commit Shamari Earls pic.twitter.com/I0QykUgte1
— Isaiah Hole (@isaiahhole) October 26, 2024
No one’s going to be fooled into thinking that Michigan solved all of its problems on Saturday night. The goal at this point is to make sure the problems of this season don’t bleed into the offseason and beyond. This was a win Michigan needed to stabilize the season and quiet the discontent that had been brewing after back-to-back losses.
Next up: No. 1 Oregon. People around the country who tuned out on Michigan a few weeks ago are going to be watching this game, and the Wolverines will be hoping for a better showing than they had in their last top-five matchup against Texas.
“Bring ’em on,” Warren said. “Bring the No. 1 team in here. I know we can handle it.”
(Photo of Davis Warren: Junfu Han / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
