Final thoughts on Texas as Michigan turns page on season
The Michigan Wolverines are facing a bit of an identity crisis coming off a 31-12 loss to the Texas Longhorns, who moved up to the No. 2 spot in the AP Poll this week following the lopsided victory in Ann Arbor.
For U-M, all of the focus now turns to moving forward with a ton of showdown games left on the schedule. In the grand scheme of things, a non-conference loss to a national title contender does not prevent any of the long-term goals, but there’s obviously a ton of work to do in Ann Arbor.
TheWolverine.com’s Anthony Broome, Chris Balas and Clayton Sayfie discussed the weekend effort and how Michigan can move forward and establish an identity for the rest of the season.
“It was disappointing,” Balas said on the Monday night show. “The lack of attention to detail, the fundamentals that were lacking, the lack of communication. It would have been one thing to play this team toe to toe and get beat physically and just have a really good hard-hitting fundamentally sound football.
“Overall, I sensed a lack of leadership, whether it was the coaching staff, whether it was players, that’s what really bothered me the most. This did not look like a Michigan football team. Even in the first Jim Harbaugh game at Michigan, they looked like they belonged there. They did not look like they belonged this time. And in fact, there were some flashbacks of 10 years ago pre-Harbaugh that really bugged me. Now that does not mean they can’t improve. Maybe it was an anomaly. USC is going to tell us a ton, fellas. That is going to be the opportunity, whatever happens against Arkansas state. That’s going to be the opportunity for this team to prove that it’s not as bad as it showed.
“And as Moore said today, he didn’t think they were that far from Texas. I don’t know if I agree with him, but if they can clean up the basics, they will be a much better football team.”
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