ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Saturday night, facing its in-state rival and two straight losses, the Michigan football scored a badly needed win Saturday night. In arguably their cleanest, most balanced game of the year, the Wolverines took down Michigan State, 24-17.
So how did Michigan grade out in the game, and what phases were leading the charge for the Wolverines? We break down what worked and what didn’t for Michigan in our weekly postgame grades.
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Passing offense
It won’t win Michigan any awards, but the Wolverines’ passing offense did enough to help Michigan win Saturday — arguably for the first time all season. Davis Warren completed 13 of 19 pass attempts for 123 yards and a touchdown. Semaj Morgan and Tyler Morris had some of their first downfield receptions all season. Colston Loveland had six catches for 67 yards and two touchdowns, including a 23-yarder thrown by Donovan Edwards.
Michigan dug deeper in the playbook to shake players open, with flea-flicker, halfback passes, play-action and more. Most importantly, Warren found open players downfield, and got the ball to them. No interceptions and no sacks taken, either.
Also important, Michigan had its best pass-blocking game of the season, allowing three pressures on 21 drop backs. Michigan State isn’t a great or committed pass-rushing defense right now (just one pressure against Iowa last week, three against Oregon two games ago, and just four against Ohio State before that), but Michigan also looked cleaner in that phase.
The total result was a team passer efficiency of 164.32. That’s not only far and away Michigan’s best rating this season (previous high was 119.8 against Arkansas State), but actually beats out Boston College’s 156.6 for best passer rating the Spartans have allowed all season. Michigan didn’t touch the Spartans, but will take that kind of efficiency given how things have gone this fall.
Grade: B
Season GPA: 1.63
Rushing offense
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