ANN ARBOR, MI – As the game clock continued to tick down Saturday night Washington found no answer to slow down the Wolverines run game.

Michigan entered halftime with a 10 point lead and 165 yards combined between sophomore Blake Corum and senior Hassan Haskins, with the former scampering for a 67-yard run to notch the only touchdown of the first half.

The second half wasn’t much different.

Corum ran in for his second score of the game with 10:52 to go in the third quarter to push the lead to 17-0. It jolted UW into its first scoring drive in 20 consecutive offensive drives later in the quarter and early in the fourth, but it came when the team had already lost the battle.

“We started off slow,” head coach Jimmy Lake said after the defeat.

“Now late we had some plays here and there that were positives. But it was too little, too late. It was too little, too late. There will be some positive things that we can take from this, but bottom line is we didn’t get it done to win the football game.”

In the fourth quarter alone UW gained twice as many yards (145) as the offense did in the third quarter (72) and out-performed their first half total number of yards (126). Statistical numbers do little to move the needle when the only factor that matters is whether or not it resulted in a win.

Sophomore quarterback Dylan Morris finished the game with a career high 293 yards passing on 20 of 37 attempts, nine fewer throws than he made in the season opener against Montana, which were also a career high, at both the high school and college level.

After the loss to the Grizzlies, Lake felt the volume of throws wasn’t a problem for Morris. It was his lack of protection, and a productive run game, and the fact that he missed his mark on a number of throws.

It was a rinse and repeat performance against the Wolverines in week two.

Sophomore Cameron Davis and junior Richard Newton combined for 22 rush attempts for a total of 46 yards, 16 fewer than Newton racked up on his own in the opener. Neither running back had a catch against the Wolverines, though on a decent amount of plays one of the two were open for a check-down completion.

Absent from the box score, but still standing firm on the sideline wearing his gold UW helmet, senior Sean McGrew went without a snap for a second consecutive game. The same can be said for fellow senior back Kamari Pleasant.

Pleasant was back on kick return unit with sophomore Giles Jackson, but he did not receive a carry in the game nor did he appear in any way, shape or form in the final box score.

“Playing time is always earned in practice, throughout spring football and training camp. In our practices those are the two guys that we’ve leaned on for the first couple of weeks,” Lake said, when asked why UW stuck with Davis and Newton while leaving McGrew on the sideline.

“That can always change. That can always change. But right now, those are our two top running backs and those are the guys that receive the carries.”

Lake went on in his press conference to say that looking back to last season with all of the same offensive coaches on staff they proved the unit is capable of scoring points.

However, when the Huskies had success on the ground in 2020 it was against Oregon State and Arizona the first two games of the season.

Both McGrew and Pleasant not only played in each game but made significant contributions that, through two games in 2021, hasn’t come from the backs getting touches.

Against the Beavers and Wildcats combined Newton, McGrew and Pleasant each totaled over 100 yards and scored a pair of touchdowns while none of the three had more than 23 carries.

This season through the first two games against the Grizzlies and Wolverines neither Newton or Davis has 100 yards or a rushing touchdown, yet the next highest Husky in carries is a transfer wide receiver, Giles Jackson, who has five carries for 28 yards combined this season, two yards less than Davis.

Of the small number of positives to come from the trip to Ann Arbor, junior receiver Terrell Bynum made his 2021 debut and recorded his first career 100-yard receiving game.

He finished with 115 yards and the only touchdown of the game for UW, a 22-yard catch with 12:04 to go in the game that brought UW within two scores, 24-10.

However, that would be as close as the Huskies came Saturday night. Corum scored his third TD of the game with less than two minutes remaining to seal the 31-10 victory for Jim Harbaugh and Michigan.