ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The Texas Takeover included cowboy hats and burnt orange blazers, fleets of black SUVs and dozens of orange and white balloons lining the staircase inside a swanky hotel where a suite for Saturday night went for north of $2,900.
On Michigan football weekends, it’s not uncommon for Ann Arbor’s Graduate hotel to be filled with deep-pocketed alumni of both schools. Michigan fans saw just how deep those Texas pockets go when they walked into the Graduate and saw it decked out floor to ceiling in Longhorns decor.
Coincidence or not, the company behind the Graduate hotel chain, AJ Capital Partners, lists Cooper Manning as its director of investor relations. Cooper’s son Arch — you might have heard of him — is the backup quarterback at Texas. The hotels market themselves to fans of the hometown team, but at least on this weekend, the visiting crowd had the advantage.
Dignitaries spotted at the hotel included Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who ventured out Friday evening flanked by a security detail. “Gov. Abbott, how are you, sir?” a Texas fan called from the sidewalk. Down the street, a crowd of VILs (Very Important Longhorns) munched appetizers and sipped wine at Sava’s, where approved guests were ushered to the front of the line and escorted through an opening in a giant paper mache football.
For one weekend, Michigan fans saw what happens when the SEC’s newest high-rollers come to town. It was shocking, and not just for the fans who spent $2,000 on a hotel room. When the scene shifted to Michigan Stadium on Saturday, the Texas gala kept right on going.
The No. 3 Longhorns waltzed into Ann Arbor and handed No. 10 Michigan a 31-12 defeat, officially slamming the door on the Wolverines’ era of dominance. Nothing, not even the afterglow of last season’s national championship, could make Michigan’s performance look better. Texas fans were the ones partying in the streets, and Michigan was the team cleaning up the mess.
“It’s a loss,” coach Sherrone Moore said. “We haven’t had one of these in a long time. You definitely feel it. Our kids feel it. They feel it more than anybody.”
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Many times, Michigan has been the team that commandeered someone else’s stadium for its own private party. Saturday, Texas and its fans did the same to Michigan Stadium, where the Wolverines had won 23 games in a row prior to Saturday’s defeat.
As Longhorn fans filtered into the stadium’s lower bowl, Texas players gathered in the corner of the end zone to sing “The Eyes of Texas.” Once they finished, linebacker David Gbenda made a valiant but ill-fated attempt to plant a Texas flag at midfield. The flag immediately fell to the ground, but the Longhorns made their point.
“That was awesome,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “What an environment. What a moment for our players and staff to sing ‘The Eyes of Texas’ there at the end with the amount of orange in the stands.”
The 2024 season brought a new world order in college football. Texas and Oklahoma joined the SEC, the Big Ten added four schools from the Pac-12 and the College Football Playoff expanded to 12 teams. With so many changes, games like Saturday’s were destined to have a different feel.
For Michigan, “different” doesn’t begin to describe it. This is a program that’s gotten used to cruising through easy September schedules, bullying the other teams in the Big Ten and playing deep into the postseason. The Wolverines hoped they could continue to do those things, minus the easy schedule.
Playing Texas in Week 2 was a litmus test to see how Michigan would fare in replacing so many key figures from last year’s national championship run, including coach Jim Harbaugh, quarterback J.J. McCarthy, running back Blake Corum and a slew of difference-makers on defense. The results are in, and they don’t look encouraging.
“It sucks, because you come into this game and know there’s a lot on the line,” quarterback Davis Warren said. “We’ve got to take a long, hard look in the mirror at what type of team we want to be, who we want to be.”
Moore was dealt a tough hand in his first season as Michigan’s head coach. He lost 13 draft picks and a bunch of assistant coaches but inherited the high expectations that come with winning a national championship. Michigan fans distraught about Saturday’s performance can console themselves by thinking about that championship trophy, and surely many of them will. But that only lasts so long. Pretty soon, fans will want to see signs that Michigan is still a Playoff-caliber program.
The team that took the field Saturday didn’t resemble a CFP contender. The offense looked overmatched, at least until the fourth quarter when the game was already decided. A defense that was supposed to be among the best in college football, matched against a Texas offense with similar credentials, didn’t live up to its billing.
Michigan fans were spoiled by their team’s discipline and consistency the past three years. The Wolverines were rarely out of position on defense and always took care of the ball on offense. Saturday, Michigan threw two interceptions, lost a fumble and gave up seven plays of 20 yards or more. Moore said many of those mistakes are easily correctable, but anyone who watched the game saw issues that could linger.
Quarterback is one of those issues. Warren’s final stat line doesn’t look bad: 22-for-33, 204 yards, a touchdown and two picks. But in the first half, when the game was still within reach, Warren threw for 49 yards. He’s doing everything that can be expected of a former walk-on, but a few years of recruiting misfires and a lack of quarterback help from the transfer portal have put the Wolverines in a bind.
We’ve all been reminded many times that a September loss isn’t a dealbreaker in the era of the 12-team CFP. That can be true, but this one still felt definitive for Michigan, which fell to a 12 percent chance to make the CFP, according to The Athletic’s projections. Until further notice, the Wolverines are more likely fighting for a decent bowl game. The fast track to the CFP is reserved for Texas, Georgia, Ohio State and perhaps a few others.
Michigan fans can live with that after all the good times they’ve had. They’ve been in the shoes of those Texas fans who swarmed Ann Arbor this weekend, and they know what it takes to build a team capable of having the kind of moment Texas had Saturday at Michigan Stadium.
It’s not cheap, but it sure is fun.
(Top photo: Aaron J. Thornton / Getty Images)
