What they're saying about Michigan's 27-24 win over Minnesota

The Michigan Wolverines grabbed a 27-24 win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers on Saturday, giving themselves another in the early stages of Big Ten play, but not without its share of question marks and concerns.

There were plenty of takeaways from the local and national media. Here’s a sampling of what they had to say following U-M’s fourth victory.

Ryan Van Bergen, The Wolverine Postgame Show

Michigan vs. Minnesota reactions: Uneven effort hangs over Little Brown Jug win

“Played good, solid football in the first half, and I don’t think too many people would probably disagree with that,” Van Bergen said. “I like that we tried to get Orji to be a little bit more dynamic, or at least have the appearance of being more dynamic and having a couple first down passes, getting him going with some easier throws. And for the most part, especially just breaking it down by half, I thought he played a pretty good first half of football. Defensively, I thought we played really solid. We had some takeaways that we’ve been looking for. I think our defense has played relatively decent for the majority of the year so far, but I thought you saw that next step being taken.
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“Credit to Minnesota for continuing to battle and fight. But I hope they had the alarms ring that you’re going to have to play four quarters of good football to win some games this year. I don’t have any alarms going off to the same degree that some people do, because I think that the damage was self-inflicted. Minnesota didn’t do anything special. We just kept screwing up and shooting ourselves in the foot. And I don’t want either of those things to happen. But when you’re shooting yourself in the foot, you can always take your finger off the trigger and stop doing it. I have some trust and some faith that we can get some things cleaned up from the second half. But I understand the concern with how the second half of football played out.”

Chris Balas, The Wolverine

Michigan 27, Minnesota 24: Notes, quotes, and observations – ‘back to the drawing board’

Let’s get this out of the way first — yes, Michigan was fortunate to escape with a 27-24 win over an average Minnesota team, thoroughly outplayed in the second half. A questionable offsides penalty on a Golden Gophers onside kick (though it looked offsides to us, and we sit right on the line in the press box) negated a recovery that would have put the other U-M deep in Michigan territory. The way they were moving the ball at that point, with touchdowns on each of their last three possessions … well, the momentum was in their favor.

But — that’s football, and we said as much when Michigan defensive tackle Mason Graham was flagged for a phantom “hands to the face” penalty with U-M up 24-3. The fourth quarter, fourth down play was a turning point when Minnesota scored a few plays later. Teams need to buckle the chin straps a bit tighter and overcome, and Graham pretty much said as much.

“It was just kind of a football play. They saw something that they thought they saw,” Graham said, shrugging it off. “I was just trying to rush, at the end of the day, and stuff happens. It’s the cost of doing business.”

The cost of the blown call Saturday wasn’t a loss, and that’s all that really matters. Yes, you want to improve each week in all phases — at this point in the season, some of the mistakes they’re making should have been corrected — but you never apologize for a win.

At the same time, it doesn’t mean you have to like the way it went down. If you were perturbed at the end of that one (one fan said it felt like he’d just undergone a colonoscopy), you weren’t alone. Head coach Sherrone Moore clearly wasn’t thrilled, either.

Isaiah Hole, Wolverines Wire

Five takeaways from Michigan football’s win over Minnesota

Colston Loveland returned which did help in the passing game, marginally, but outside of the first drive of the game and that aforementioned gotta have it moment, there was pretty much no offense.

Close to nothing worked. The run game was subpar, with Michigan running 43 times for just 155 yards and two touchdowns. The pass game was slightly better in some regards compared to last week, but still far below average, with Alex Orji throwing 18 times with 10 completions for 86 yards, a touchdown and an interception.

Michigan was in a position to run away with the game but the ineptitude of the offense allowed Minnesota to creep back into a game it had no business being in.

Austin Meek, The Athletic

Can Michigan keep winning like this? Final thoughts on Alex Orji and more after Minnesota

The turning point in the game was Orji’s interception on a play that easily could have been a touchdown to put Michigan on top 31-3. The consensus afterward was that Orji’s reads should have led him to throw the ball to Donovan Edwards, who was wide-open on a rail route. Instead, Orji threw the ball to Colston Loveland, who was open in the seam. It still could have been a big play, but Orji’s throw took Loveland back toward the middle of the field where Ethan Robinson was able to make the interception.

“At the end of the day, Donovan was open,” Orji said. “I’ve just got to be better at the quarterback position there. I definitely owe him one there. A better ball would have been a completion to Colston. I’ve just got to stay true to my training and find Dono on that one.”
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When Michigan switched from Davis Warren to Orji, Moore made it clear that he didn’t want to be flip-flopping quarterbacks for the rest of the season. The hope was that Orji would take the job and run with it. Michigan is 2-0 since then, but the offense has been stagnant outside of Mullings, who had another productive game with 111 yards on 24 carries.

It’s time for Michigan to think about getting another quarterback involved. Jack Tuttle wasn’t listed on the injury report this week, which presumably means he was available to play. If Tuttle’s healthy, rotating him with Orji could give Michigan other ways of prolonging drives when the running game isn’t working.

John Niyo, The Detroit News

Niyo: Warning signs aplenty for uninspired, unbalanced Wolverines

Half-measures will only get you so far.

Sherrone Moore surely knows that, a handful of games into his tenure as Michigan’s head coach. And if his team didn’t already know it, too, they’ll find out soon enough. Maybe as soon as next weekend, when they venture away from home for the first time this season, heading to the West Coast for a rematch of last year’s national title game at Washington.

But the fact that they came so close to finding out Saturday, escaping with a 27-24 victory over Minnesota — and perhaps needing a friendly flag in the final minutes to do so — should be the final warning here.

If this is the best Michigan can do offensively — with a half-hearted gameplan and some half-witted play-calling and execution — they’re going to have a whole lot of problems going forward.

As exhilarating as last week’s thrilling win over USC felt, this result — with an identical score, a familiar script and some redundant issues — felt decidedly different. And not simply because the opponent, a mediocre Minnesota team that just got hammered by Iowa, had no business hanging around the way it did Saturday.

No, it was because this “tale of two halves,” as Moore described it afterward, too easily loses the plot. And so do these Wolverines, apparently.

Jared Ramsey, Detroit Free Press

Ground-and-pound style leading to wins, but Michigan football knows it needs more balance

Michigan only had three offensive drives that lasted at least five plays and went 40 yards or more and all of them led to points. They had 59 combined yards on the remaining nine drives. Two of those drives were short touchdown drives thanks to a Zeke Berry forced fumble and a Kechaun Bennett blocked punt that led to touchdown drives that were 16 yards and 11 yards long. Orji threw his second touchdown this season on the 11-yard touchdown drive when he hit an open Tyler Morris in the flat on play-action and he fought into the corner of the end zone.

But that short flip into the flat and run after the catch was one of the only passing highlights for Michigan. Orji started completing three of his first four passes, including hitting Loveland on a speed out and short crosser. Michigan’s star tight end was Orji’s top target, coming down with four catches for 41 yards in his return after missing last week’s win over USC with an upper-body injury.
“Having Colston on the field is like jumping into water with a life vest on,” Orji said.
But those were the lone highlights for Michigan’s passing attack. Outside of that, it was another steady dose of the running game led by new lead running back Kalel Mullings, who finished with 111 yards and two touchdowns on 24 carries. It was Mullings’ second career start and first at running back after supplanting Donovan Edwards through the first four weeks of the season.

Heather Dinich, ESPN

Projecting the College Football Playoff top 12 after Week 5

Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon are all undefeated and continue to find ways to win — and so does Indiana. Michigan is undefeated in league play. And USC has a win and head-to-head tiebreaker against LSU. Heck, even Rutgers is 4-0. The reality is Ohio State looks like the best team in the conference — and might be the best team in the country — but the Buckeyes haven’t been tested yet. That will change on Oct. 12 when they travel to Oregon, which earned a legitimate nonconference win against Boise State. And Penn State just defeated an undefeated, ranked Illinois team. Much like the SEC, the Big Ten is going to beat itself up during the heart of conference play. But the strong September start for multiple teams has allowed for some wiggle room as it relates to the at-large bids.