While it has been overshadowed by Penn State’s collapse, the first half of Michigan’s season hasn’t exactly gone to plan.
The Wolverines’ 31-13 loss last week at Southern California dropped them to 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the Big Ten, which means they’ll probably have to win their last six regular-season games to have a shot at qualifying for the College Football Playoff.
Step One in that task comes Saturday when Washington (5-1, 2-1) visits Ann Arbor, Mich., for a conference clash.
Not much went right for Michigan in Los Angeles. The defense gave up 489 total yards and missed 14 tackles, while the offense averaged only 3.5 yards on 31 rushes and converted just 2 of 11 third downs.
Second-year coach Sherrone Moore passed on a simple message to his team Monday.
“We got to go back to work,” he said. “There’s no pouting. There’s no worry about it. There’s no making excuses for it. That’s all we got to do. They’re trying to fix all the problems and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The Wolverines defense will get a stiff test from Huskies quarterback Demond Williams Jr. In a 38-19 win last Friday against Rutgers, Williams set a school record with 538 total yards of offense as he threw for 402 yards and rushed for another 136.
Williams, who set career highs for passing yards, rushing yards and rushing touchdowns, fired two scoring strikes and ran for two touchdowns. He became the 16th player in FBS history to throw for at least 400 yards and run for at least 100 in the same game – joining a club that features Lamar Jackson, Taysom Hill and Johnny Manziel.
On the season, Williams has accounted for 2,010 yards of offense — 1,628 in the air. He has completed an impressive 74.1 percent of his passes with just one interception in 158 attempts.
“He made great decisions with the ball,” said Washington coach Jedd Fisch. “Everything that he’s continuing to do, he’s doing it at a high level. It was fun to watch.”
The Huskies won last year’s meeting with Michigan 27-17, which cut the Wolverines’ series lead to 9-6.
