ANN ARBOR >> Michigan’s flight home from Washington was a quiet one, some players sleeping after the night game and during the long travel, while others considered the first half of the season.

The Wolverines, ranked No. 10 heading into their first road game of the season, had not lost a Big Ten game since Oct. 30, 2021 at Michigan State. Since then, they won three straight Big Ten championships and the 2023 national championship.

But this Michigan team, with a new head coach and mostly new coaching staff and different personnel, is not that version of the Wolverines. The Wolverines are now ranked No. 24 after losing 27-24 to Washington and are 4-2, 2-1 Big Ten with this weekend off. They return to play at Illinois next Saturday.

Their focus is how to rebound in the second half of the regular season. Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore, in the aftermath of the Washington loss, told the players they still control their destiny and need to win out. The Wolverines have games against Oregon and Ohio State in the final six games, and also at Illinois and Indiana, which has had a resurgence this season.

“It was a moment of reflection and that led into a week of reflection, and it’s all about how we can go about taking that loss, that adversity and get better from it,” safety Quinten Johnson said of the Wolverines’ flight home. “It wasn’t a moment where we all had to sit back and weep or overthink what was going on. It was something, we took it all in and after 24 hours we flushed it and got better from it.”

Johnson was asked if it’s hard not to overthink the first six games and what has gone on with Michigan. The Wolverines are now on their third quarterback, as Jack Tuttle is projected to start at Illinois, and while their pass game has struggled — they’re ranked 129th averaging 115.0 yards passing a game — their pass defense also has been problematic. Michigan ranks 114th defending the pass yielding 259.8 yards.

“It’s as hard as you want to make it for yourself,” Johnson said. “It’s not something that nobody in this building just doesn’t think about or shy away from. At the end of the day, the facts are the facts. We’re 4-2, but it’s how you’re going to respond to it.

“Are you going to use it an opportunity to grow and develop and find ways you can get better, or are you going to allow it to ruin the season? That’s something Coach Moore said in the meeting Monday, he said, ‘Don’t let Washington beat you twice.’ That’s the step a lot of guys took, and that’s how we’re gonna attack the rest of the season.”

The stakes are different this season with the expansion to a 12-team College Football Playoff. Another loss likely dooms Michigan’s chances, so it is about winning out. That’s the big picture, though, and the mantra for this team has been to approach each game as looking to go 1-0.

“I think the one piece is that all we can worry about is tomorrow,” Moore said Monday night on the “Inside Michigan Football” radio show. “All we can worry about is really today, and get better today, and then it’s a one-week season every week. Don’t worry about the next week, because as you look at college football, it’s chaos everywhere. Everybody’s gotta play everybody, and these games will go all over the place. The Vandy-Alabama game, nobody would have ever thought that. For us, it’s literally just worry about the game we gotta go play, and then worry about the next one and put everything we can into this game, and then it’ll work out in the end.”

Defensive lineman Rayshaun Benny said the plan this week was about hitting the reset button. Moore said after practicing earlier in the week he was giving players Friday and Saturday off before returning for game-week preparations.

“It’s a whole new fresh start to the season,” Benny said. “Just roll after this. … Not necessarily a new season, but more so our season is not over no matter what everybody else wants to say or how they want to look at it. We know our season is not over. Anything can happen. We’ve just got to keep playing good football.”

For a program that hasn’t experienced a lot of losing the last three seasons, Benny said it’s important not to let this spiral.

“The biggest thing is trying to keep everybody focused because everybody is not used to losing,” Benny said. “So trying to get everybody back on board to where we can regain focus that they can understand we have more games to play.”

Edge rusher Josaiah Stewart, who leads the team in sacks, said no one on the team is doubting the Wolverines’ resolve and ability to snap back for the final half of the season.

“We’re not walking around sad with our heads down,” Stewart said. “We have a lot of football left to play. Just working on getting better.”

The way forward isn’t simple, but Johnson said it starts with spending more time in the football facility and focusing on details. That means watching more film and working harder. He also said this is a time for self-evaluation and determining what each player can do to improve the team as a whole.

What the Wolverines know is they have to find a way to recover from two losses with six regular-season games remaining.

“You’re a fighter or you’re not,” Johnson said. “The only one way to really go is forward. At the end of the day, you can get a lot of what-if scenarios and how you respond to this and that. You check who you are as a person, you look in the mirror and see what can you do to get better.

“It’s a lot of looking within to see what we can do as a team to get better as opposed to looking at the opponent, which we would do further down in the week. It’s the same strategy going in this week as it was two years ago, last years, three years ago, four years ago, it’s all about looking in and how you can get better from it.”