The Wolverines traveled out west and dropped their second game of the season, falling to the USC Trojans, 31-13. At the end of the day, a lot went wrong for Michigan and there’s a lot to pick apart in this one.
Here are this week’s winners and losers.
Composure — Loser
If you want to win games on the road, you need to be ready to play from the beginning, and that just wasn’t the case. The Wolverines didn’t look like they had it together on USC’s first drive, allowing them to get into the end zone right from the start.
On offense, Michigan had momentum on multiple drives and hurt itself with a few false start penalties. It wasn’t that the Wolverines took that many, but they came at times that really impacted any progress they were making.
Wide Receivers — Winner
It’s easy to pick apart Michigan’s performance in a loss like this, but you’ve got to hand it to Andrew Marsh and Donaven McCulley in this one. They each had some impressive blocks on the outside when it came to the run game and accounted for both Michigan touchdowns. The receivers received a lot of criticism early on, and rightly so, but there were finally a few more connections between Marsh and McCulley in this game. Marsh finished the game with 138 yards and a touchdown on eight catches.
Special Teams — Loser
We’ve got to talk about Michigan’s punting again. Hudson Hollenback did not have a great game, and had at least one punt that barely flipped the field. Thankfully, Joe Taylor made a shoestring tackle on one of the punt returns, or else USC may have gotten a pretty big return. When you don’t have a team coming out ready to go from the start, struggles on special teams can really come back to hurt you, and they certainly didn’t help in this one.
Takeaways — Winner
Michigan’s defense did come up with a few turnovers when it really needed to slow down the Trojans. Jyaire Hill forced a fumble, recovered by Derrick Moore, and Zeke Berry came up with an interception. These are the kinds of things that make it easier to dig out of a hole. While the Wolverines weren’t able to use them to their advantage, they still are bright spots on this season’s team.
Tackling — Loser
This had to be one of the worst defensive performances for the Wolverines in a while, especially when it comes to the basics. Michigan gave up some huge chunk plays because of missed tackles. If we’re looking for things to worry about in the weeks ahead, this is one of them. USC only had to punt the ball two times in this game, and that’s not a good look.
We know the team wins and loses together, but who would you say won the day, and who could use some improvement heading into next week? Let us know in the comments!
