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 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, precisely timed throw deep down the left side to Ty Scott with under a minute left in the half to make it 37-19. Ta’amu, a product of Ole Miss, was named the game’s MVP.
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.
“Obviously, it’s tough,” Perkins said. “We came in very confident, but we didn’t get the job done and they played real well.”
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 Defenders finished with 580 yards of total offense.
“Our offense gave us a chance to win,” Nolan said. “I don’t have a problem with our offense. But our defense just didn’t get the job done. I don’t think they punted the ball the entire football game. If we’d played some defense, I think we would have been in this football game. But we just couldn’t find a way out of it. We did a lot of good things this year and we can be proud of that, but it’s disappointing to lose in the way we did.”
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.