{"id":3385,"date":"2025-10-29T03:49:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T03:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/29\/no-trust-lost-in-semaj-morgan-for-michigan-amid-slump\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T03:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T03:49:07","slug":"no-trust-lost-in-semaj-morgan-for-michigan-amid-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/29\/no-trust-lost-in-semaj-morgan-for-michigan-amid-slump\/","title":{"rendered":"No trust lost in Semaj Morgan for Michigan amid slump"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Entering the season, junior wide receiver Semaj Morgan was looking to make a bigger <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/after-down-year-semaj-morgan-ready-for-more\/\">impact<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Much was made of Morgan\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/semaj-morgan-anticipating-showing-off-speed-in-new-offense\/\">speed<\/a> and how that would correlate with the velocity of freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood\u2019s passes. After a mediocre season in the passing game as a whole last season and having a limited role in his freshman year, the 2025 season was supposed to be a proving ground for Morgan as the starting slot receiver for the No. 21 Michigan football team.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from the offense, Morgan was an All-Big Ten honorable mention return specialist in both of his first two seasons. He averaged 15.5 kick return yards on 12 returns his freshman year and 11.1 punt return yards on 10 returns his sophomore season and was looking to make even greater strides this year.<\/p>\n<p>Eight games into this season, though, Morgan hasn\u2019t shown much growth in any of the categories he was hoping to improve upon \u2014 and has even taken a backslide on special teams.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cHe practices at a high level, practices hard, practices with energy, but we challenge him,\u201d Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said Monday. \u201cWe challenge him just like we\u2019re gonna challenge everybody else. So there\u2019s constant competition with him at punt returner. There\u2019s constant competition with him at receiver. So we\u2019ll constantly do that to put the best product on the field we can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite his regression, the Wolverines haven\u2019t wavered in their confidence in Morgan, still retaining his starting slot receiver and punt returning jobs through the first eight weeks \u2014 two spots loaded with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/depth-chart-shaking-up-as-michigan-wide-receivers-work-on-drops-during-bye-week\/\">competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI trust in him with all I have,\u201d sophomore running back Jordan Marshall said Monday. \u201cI trust in every single guy on the offense. I\u2019ve seen him make plays in practice. I\u2019ve seen him catch balls. I think it\u2019s just in his head, and he\u2019s going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morgan has proven to his teammates and staff that he\u2019s putting in the work to deserve a spot on the starting lineup during practice. But whether he\u2019s in his head or in a slump, the execution on Saturdays hasn\u2019t lived up to his precedent in previous seasons, leading to the continuous competition for his two starting spots.<\/p>\n<p>As a receiver, Morgan has found success on quick swing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/semaj-morgan-becoming-a-reliable-connection-for-bryce-underwood\/\">passes<\/a> where he catches the ball in motion, racking up 214 yards on 19 receptions total. But he\u2019s also dropped many passes beyond the line of scrimmage as he leads the team with six, including one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/no-25-michigan-takes-down-michigan-state-31-20-on-the-back-of-justice-haynes-revitalizing-second-half-performance\/\">against<\/a> Michigan State Saturday.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Morgan\u2019s punt-return woes against the Spartans have also highlighted the year-long issues he\u2019s experienced on special teams. He had just 2 return yards on two attempts, one of which he ran laterally all the way across the field for no gain and on another attempt, he caught a punt at the 5-yard line.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSemaj is a great player, and I\u2019m excited to see how he takes the things that have been thrown at him and takes him out on the field and just plays,\u201d Marshall said. \u201c\u2026 You either can take it as motivation or you can hang your head on it. \u2026 You got to be yourself. Be you at the end of the day, rely on what you\u2019ve done your training and we\u2019ve all seen it. Semaj can make plays.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morgan has proof of concept in previous seasons as a successful returner and promising receiver. So as he works through his slump in a season that has left much to be desired, the Wolverines are keeping their trust in Morgan.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-container newspack-popup hidden  newspack-inline-popup      \" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" style=\"background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000\" id=\"id_162162\" data-segments=\"\" data-frequency=\"0,0,0,month\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Please consider donating to The Michigan Daily<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Entering the season, junior wide receiver Semaj Morgan was looking to make a bigger impact. Much was made of Morgan\u2019s speed and how that would correlate with the velocity of freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood\u2019s passes. After a mediocre season in the passing game as a whole last season and having a limited role in his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[3446,222,433,996,3447,3445],"class_list":{"0":"post-3385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-lost","9":"tag-michigan","10":"tag-morgan","11":"tag-semaj","12":"tag-slump","13":"tag-trust"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3387,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385\/revisions\/3387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}