ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The past two weeks, Michigan football has done just enough in order to win, all with some help from the other phases in the game.
The USC game in Week 4 was huge, but with a 2-2 Minnesota team coming to town and nearly pulling off the upset, the Wolverines and their fans are left scratching their heads.
Though the offense wasn’t lighting things up in the first half, it was good enough, driving the field early in the game to score a touchdown and capitalizing off of the Gophers’ mistakes. But in the second half, it looked much like it did in Week 4, with three-and-out after three-and-out. And despite attempting to throw more downfield with Colston Loveland back in the lineup, it really didn’t look much better for quarterback Alex Orji in his second start.
But if you think he’s going to deflect or not take accountability for his shortcomings, you’ve got another thing coming.
“All we work for throughout the week is just trying to get a win. And so we came out here on a Saturday, Big Ten play, and accomplished our No. 1 goal,” Orji said after the game. “I think that we all know that the end of the game, especially the second half, wasn’t up to the standard the Michigan football has set in passing through previous games. So we just got to find a way to put together a four-quarter game and just build on the things that we that we put on tape.”
Mullings had a decent day, all things considered, managing to rush for 111 yards on 24 carries, with two touchdowns. But even with him, there were a lot of moments where he was getting only small gains, rushing into loaded boxes.
In his first career start on the offensive side of the ball (he has started a game at linebacker), Mullings echoes Orji in his estimation that there’s some killer instinct missing from this team at the moment and that they need to find ways to be better, extend drives and be more complementary to the defense. Noting it was a tale of two halves, the offense still has a lot of work to do in order to hold up its end of the bargain, Mullings says.
“Just piggybacking off of Orj, we just have to find a way to be able to strain in that second half and strain to finish teams like Orj said,” Mullings said. “Strain to play a four-quarter game and complete the game. It felt like we were rolling pretty good in that first half and really let them back into it. And got lucky with some things at the end of the game, too. So we just have to strain to be better and to execute for all four quarters.”
There is still a lot wrong beyond just the quarterback in terms of the pass game, given that the receivers and pass protection isn’t doing many favors. But the Wolverines have a good chance to right the wrongs of this week when it travels to Seattle to take on a Washington team that’s struggling — albeit not in pass defense, where it’s No. 13 in the nation.