Sherrone Moore makes clear statement on what Michigan has left to fight for this season

Three-time defending Big Ten champion Michigan just lost to league and national front runner Oregon. A 38-17 home loss to the top-ranked Ducks dropped the Wolverines to 5-4.

Michigan wasn’t expected to repeat as national champions this season. The Wolverines had a program-record 13 players drafted this year, and several more left for the transfer portal, plus they lost head coach Jim Harbaugh and defensive coordinator Jesse Minter to the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers.

Except, despite the roster and staff turnover, Michigan was still considered a College Football Playoff and Big Ten Championship candidate. Not anymore.

At this point, whether Michigan will finish the regular season over .500 is up in the air. The Wolverines’ last three games are against No. 8 Indiana, Northwestern and No. 3 Ohio State — and both of those dates with top-10 opponents are on the road.

First-year Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore was asked postgame this past weekend about what the Wolverines can rely on as motivation right now.

More succinctly, he was asked, “What is there left to fight for?”

“The motivation is that you’re at Michigan, that you wear the winged helmet, that you have the ‘Block M’ on your chest, and that you gotta play really good teams the rest of the way. So these guys have a lot of pride.

“No one’s more disappointed about the losses than these kids and these coaches. So they’re gonna continue to fight.”

Michigan showed some fight in the second half against Oregon.

The Wolverines went into intermission trailing, 28-10. They made it an 11-point game midway through the third quarter.

“It was awesome to watch those guys in the second half: the energy, the excitement that they brought,” Moore said. “But we got to start that way.

“The defense went out there, we said, ‘We’re gonna go for a three-and-out,’ they stopped them. Offense went down, 10-play drive, scored. … So you felt that momentum, but we got to finish.”

Following that 10-play touchdown drive, which culminated in a Davis Warren touchdown pass to senior wide receiver Peyton O’Leary, the Wolverines were dinged with an offsides penalty on 4th-and-4 at the Oregon 42-yard line as well as an illegal substitution penalty that negated a 2nd-and-6 incompletion on the Michigan 37-yard line.

Michigan gave up three points on that series and then went three-and-out. Its next offensive possession ended in a failed trick play. A pass from wide receiver Semaj Morgan to backup quarterback Alex Orji fell incomplete, and the Wolverines’ 11-play, 70-yard drive came to an abrupt conclusion.

Oregon countered with an 11-play drive of its own, only that one spanned 90 yards and wrapped with a touchdown.

Michigan couldn’t play spoiler over the weekend.

But the Wolverines have two more chances to do so in the regular season. This year, that’s their best shot at leaving their mark on the Big Ten Championship and, in turn, the CFP.