US LBM Coaches Poll: Texas falls out of No. 1 spot after loss to Georgia
The latest US LBM Coaches Poll is here and Texas no longer sits at the top after losing to Georgia in Week 8.
Sports Pulse
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Free Press sports writer Tony Garcia breaks down winners and losers for Michigan football after its 21-7 road loss Saturday to Illinois in Week 8 at Memorial Stadium:
At this point, the names on the positive side of the ledger are not a surprise. It feels like Loveland is essentially the entire passing attack. The projected 2025 NFL draft first-round selection caught a team-high seven passes for 83 yards on Saturday and picked up four of Michigan’s eight first downs through the air. Jack Tuttle’s first two attempts toward Loveland fell incomplete, but seven of the final eight connected, which included a 29-yard downfield strike up the right sideline on fourth down to temporarily keep hope alive in the final quarter. Loveland also had consecutive catches for 16 and 10 yards on U-M’s lone scoring drive, and Pro Football Focus had him graded as U-M’s top rated offensive player with more than 15 snaps (75 grade).
The next highest graded player with more than 15 snaps? Of course it was Mullings. Michigan’s standout running back was once again impressive, running 19 times for 87 yards and the team’s only touchdown. Mullings picked up Michigan’s only two first downs through the first four drives, and accounted for nine of the team’s 11 first downs on the ground throughout the day.
Michigan’s best drive came in the second quarter when it went 12 plays and 72 yards which ended with a Mullings’ 1-yard dive into the end zone on fourth down. It’s no coincidence he carried the ball on eight of the 12 plays, including the first four which helped set up a play-action pass. Even when factoring in the amount of short-yardage carries he got — seven came when U-M had two yards or fewer to gain for a first down — he still averaged nearly five yards per carry and 3.21 after contact.
The box score never does justice to just how much of a game-wrecker Mason Graham is. He likes to tell reporters to “turn on the film,” and he backed it up vs. Illinois. U-M’s star junior interior lineman and projected first-rounder graded out as U-M’s top defender (86.2) in the game. He was third on the team with six tackles, which included a 5-yard tackle for loss on quarterback Luke Altmyer in the fourth. On the six plays where Graham made a tackle, Illinois amassed 4 total yards. He also made a big play on an early fourth-and-1, when he submarined the interior of the Illini front, which allowed Josiah Stewart and Jaishawn Barham to come around the edge, wrap up the tackle for loss and create a turnover on downs. Graham was also credited with four quarterback pressures, three hurries and one hit on 46 snaps.
Moore’s Wolverines (4-3, 2-2) are off to their worst seven-game start in a season since Brady Hoke’s 5-7 campaign in his final year in 2014. Yes, this was never going to look like 2023, not after losing 18 players to the NFL.
But to look like that after a bye week, feels like malpractice. Michigan lost the turnover battle to Illinois, 3-0, committed six penalties for 61 yards, got burned by a fake punt and missed a field goal for the first time all year among many issues.
U-M is back at a quarterback crossroads, something Moore must answer headed into a rivalry game against Michigan State. Moore says a lot of the right things. His players told athletic director Warde Manuel “you know who we want” when Jim Harbaugh ventured to the NFL, and Moore has seemingly worked well with players, coaches, donors, alumni and NIL collectives in the new era of college sports.
But the on-field product hasn’t worked. Before the games began, Moore implied there would be little-to-no falloff moving into this next chapter of Wolverines football. Clearly, that has not been the case.
REQUIRED READING: Sherrone Moore has a lot to prove in final 5 weeks of Michigan football’s season
Tuttle’s No. 1 job was to protect the football. Instead, he has turned it over four times in the past five quarters, which included a fumble in the second quarter which led to an Illini field goal, and then a red-zone interception in the fourth which sealed the defeat. For the second time in as many appearances, Tuttle was the lowest graded Michigan player according to Pro Football Focus (28.7 overall), which included the worst passing grade for any U-M quarterback on the season (30.1).
The seventh-year signal caller completed 20 of 32 passes for 208 yards, but was 9 of 14 for 73 yards entering the final quarter down two touchdowns. It didn’t help he was under a lot of pressure and got sacked five times which lost 37 yards. Still, Tuttle took ownership for what happened postgame — namely an early attempt in the first quarter where he overthrew an open Loveland on a corner route.
“Can’t happen,” Tuttle said. “Terrible, it’s embarrassing … that changes the game, that’s one that gets you in your sleep at night.”
Michigan has started three quarterbacks through seven games, and looks no closer to the answer.
In a game where 14 Illinois points came off a turnover or via a special teams trick play, every yard mattered and Doman didn’t help Michigan flip the field nearly enough. He punted three times, with a net average of 32.7 yards per attempt. His first, after an opening three-and-out, traveled 33 yards and Illinois began on its 40. His next, a shank, went 29 yards before his final attempt traveled 36 yards as Illinois began at its own 45. Its average field position was its own 36. For comparison, Illinois’ punter Hugh Robertson had four punts which averaged 46.2 yards per attempt, and three times U-M had to begin a possession inside the 20.
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris will attend a church service in Detroit and rally young voters at Michigan State University as part of a campaign swing through Michigan on Sunday.
Two days before Tuesday’s presidential election, Harris is planning to make four stops in Michigan, according to a senior campaign official who declined to be identified in order to provide information on the yet-to-be-announced details of the trip.
The Democratic nominee will speak at a church and visit a restaurant in Detroit, a Democratic stronghold and the state’s largest city. Harris also will stop in Pontiac before the evening event in East Lansing, where MSU is located, the official said.
Harris held a large rally at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Monday night.
Turning out college students in East Lansing and Ann Arbor could be key to Harris’ hopes of winning Michigan. Also, East Lansing is located in the hotly contested 7th Congressional District, where former state Sens. Curtis Hertel, an East Lansing Democrat, and Tom Barrett, a Charlotte Republican, are vying for an open seat in the U.S. House.
Harris is locked in a competitive race for Michigan’s 15 electoral votes with Republican former President Donald Trump. Michigan is one of seven battleground states that are expected to decide whether Harris or Trump leads the country for the next four years.
Trump is visiting Michigan on Friday and will hold a rally at Macomb Community College in Warren.
A late October poll of 600 likely Michigan voters, commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4), found Harris was beating Trump by 3 percentage points, 46.7%-43.7%, with 7.3% of the participants saying they planned to vote for a third-party candidate. Another 2.1% said they were undecided.
The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Four years ago, Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in Michigan by 154,188 votes or 3 percentage points, 51%-48%.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
We desperately need rain in Michigan. By the end of the weekend we will get into a three-day rainy period.
We start the weekend very cold Saturday morning compared to these past few days. Many of us will drop to near freezing or below at sunrise.
Saturday will be a dry day with light winds and cool temperatures in the normal range.
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MSU football: Video analysis of the Spartans’ 24-17 loss at Michigan
Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch and Detroit Free Press MSU beat writer Chris Solari break down the Spartans’ 24-17 loss at Michigan.
EAST LANSING — The loss to Michigan cost Michigan State football one of its best defensive players for 45 minutes of football
It’s an inopportune loss at an unfortunate moment — with No. 13 Indiana’s high-powered offense up next.
Linebacker Jordan Turner will miss the first half of Saturday’s game against the Hoosiers (3:30 p.m., Peacock), leaving the Spartans without their leading tackler in the heart of their vastly improved and swarming defense.
“Very unfortunate. A little bit of a crazy call, in my opinion,” fellow linebacker Jordan Hall said Wednesday. “But we gotta keep pushing on, keep moving on. We’ll miss him in the first half, but we’re going to keep preparing out through the week and get ready for him to contribute like he always does in the second half.”
On the final play of the third quarter in Saturday’s 24-17 loss to the Wolverines, Turner crashed down as U-M’s Alex Orji took a shotgun snap and faked a handoff. Turner met Orji in the hole, with the running quarterback spinning off the initial contact for a 3-yard gain.
During the TV timeout between the quarters, replay officials reviewed the hit and cited Turner for a targeting penalty. He was ejected from the game, missing the final 15 minutes. U-M scored four plays later, with running back Donovan Edwards throwing a 23-yard touchdown pass to tight end Colson Loveland as the Spartans’ linebackers and safeties overplayed the run with Turner out of the game.
“We practice making the right form tackles, so it’s not something that I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m going into a tackle,000 like, I need to keep my head up.’ It’s just something that we practice and it becomes routine,” Hall said. “Sometimes in the heat of the moment, depending on the angles and whatnot, stuff happens. Which I think happened in JT’s case in the slightest bit.”
MSU coach Jonathan Smith on Monday said the school challenged the call to the Big Ten after the game, and league officials denied MSU’s appeal. Turner will be eligible to play in the second half for the Spartans (4-4, 2-3 Big Ten) against the Hoosiers (8-0, 5-0), per NCAA targeting rules.
That likely will move Hall, a sophomore, into Turner’s spot next to Cal Haladay in the middle of Joe Rossi’s defense, which held U-M leading rusher Kalel Mullings to just 18 yards on 13 carries Saturday and limited Iowa star Kaleb Johnson to 98 yards (75 of which came on one late touchdown run) on 14 attempts in an win a week earlier. It also will expand the already-growing role of senior Darius Snow and Wayne Matthews III.
Turner leads the Spartans with 48 tackles, with five of them coming in Saturday’s game at U-M. The 6-foot-1, 231-pound fifth-year senior, who transferred to MSU from Wisconsin in the offseason, also has three sacks, an interception and two QB hurries.
“He’s really important. Obviously, you’ve seen the plays that he’s made,” Snow said of Turner. “He’s not just a good football player, but he’s a great leader and vocal. We’re just gonna have to play, and we’ll get him back in the second half, which is cool. But I have confidence in Jordan Hall, I think he’s a great player.”
MSU ranks 45th in the nation in run defense, allowing 129.6 yards on the ground, and is tied for 23rd nationally in giving up 315.9 yards per game. The Spartans will try to continue that trend against Indiana’s high-powered offense that ranks sixth in the nation in total offense (487.6 yards), 24th in rushing yards (200.6) and second in the Football Subdivision in scoring (46.5 points)
Hoosiers starting quarterback Kurtis Rourke suffered a thumb injury on his throwing hand during a game two weeks ago and sat out Saturday’s 31-17 home win over Washington. Rourke had surgery last Monday but, according to ESPN, the Ohio University transfer is expected to try and play against the Spartans.
Backup Tayven Jackson was 11-for-19 for 124 yards with an interception along with passing and rushing TDs against the Huskies, while running back Justice Ellison, a Wake Forest transfer, ran 29 times for 123 yards and a score.
“The only thing I know is they’re going to have a quarterback,” MSU secondary coach Blue Adams said Wednesday. “My approach is the guy that they put in is going to be the guy to give them the best chance of winning. And I think in college football, especially at the level that we we play on, I think every quarterback is a legitimate quarterback. They can throw the ball well, and they can call plays and manage the game well.
“So the only thing I can kind of prepare for is that dude is going to be a good player, and so we kind of attack it that way.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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