Adrian Dater
| Special to Detroit Free Press
ST. LOUIS — The over-under set for the United Football League championship game on Saturday, June 14, was 52.5 points. By halftime, the over was obliterated, and the Michigan Panthers were on the wrong side of the scoreboard.
Try as they did, the halftime deficit was too much for the Panthers to overcome as they lost, 58-34, to the D.C. Defenders at The Dome at America’s Center. Michigan’s quest for its first title since it won the inaugural championship of the first iteration of the now-defunct United States Football League in 1983 remains unfulfilled.
After a first quarter in which Michigan played well enough to lead 13-6, it all went bad in the second. The Defenders (8-4), who were soundly beaten by 24 points by the Panthers on May 4, could do no wrong in the second quarter, scoring 31 points to take a 37-19 lead into the half.
“We broke some fundamental coverages, and we just didn’t play very good assignment football,” Panthers coach Mike Nolan said. “You got half the field, you need to be deep and not let guys get behind you. They did that several times today. We’ve had that problem a few weeks now. We gave up a lot of explosive passes. That’s something we’ll rectify in the offseason and come back next year and do a much better job.”
The Panthers (7-5), down 52-19 in the fourth quarter, made it interesting in the end, as they took advantage of the UFL’s unique rule that, after a touchdown, the trailing team can get the ball back by converting a fourth-and-12 situation from their own 28. Michigan did that twice after cutting it to 52-25, adding a TD and a field goal to make it a 52-34 game with more than five minutes left. But the Defenders…
Source link : https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2025/06/14/michigan-panthers-ufl-championship-score-game-recap-dc-defenders/84211172007/
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Publish date : 2025-06-15 03:34:00
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