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.
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, adding two TDs and a field goal to make it a 52-34 game with more than five minutes left. But the Defenders defense finally stymied Michigan’s third fourth-and-12, and that was pretty much that.
Defenders quarterback Jordan Ta’amu, a former Detroit Lions practice squad player, threw for 320 yards on 16-of-20 passing in the half, with three touchdowns. Ta’amu continually burned the Panthers’ defense on long bombs, including a 73-yard, perfectly -timed throw deep down the left side to Ty Scott with under a minute left in the half to make it 37-19.
That score came just minutes after Michigan receiver Malik Turner caught a 71-yard TD pass from 2025 UFL MVP Bryce Perkins that cut D.C.’s lead to 31-19. That TD catch by Turner established a new UFL record for longest TD reception in championship history, but it lasted only until the Defenders’ next possession.
Ta’amu set an all-time UFL record for passing yards in a game, regular season or playoffs. With about two minutes left in the third quarter, he had already eclipsed the former record of 369 yards, and he finished with 390 yards on 21-for-28 passing and four TDs, and added 29 yards and a TD on seven rushes.
The true turning point for Michigan was a fumbled kickoff by Xavier Malone at the Panthers’ 19 midway through the second quarter. It was recovered and run to the Michigan 7 by William Drew Jr. The Defenders got a 1-yard scoring lunge from Ta’amu that turned a 15-13 game into 23-13 after a 2-point conversion. After a three-and-out for Perkins and the Panthers, D.C. rumbled right back down the field and made it 31-13 after a 5-yard Deon Jackson run.
With 8:13 left in the third quarter, the Defenders extended their lead to 46-19. By then, the Panthers’ defense could only sit dejectedly on the bench, not having forced a single punt by D.C. to that point.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan Panthers’ UFL title hopes scorched by D.C. Defenders, 58-34