The Michigan Wolverines After a loss to Washington, we head into a bye week that has some in the program looking in the mirror.

Quinten Johnson returned for the sixth time this year, not only to stabilize the safety position within the program, but also to be an experienced voice that head coach Sherrone Moore could lean on.

The relatively young Wolverines needed a veteran presence heading into their first week of the season, especially in a secondary that hasn’t lived up to the hype so far. Through six games, UM ranked 114th in passing yards per game, 133rd in passing yards per completion and 107th in total first downs allowed.

The 27-17 loss to Washington and the long plane ride home gave Michigan an extended break to reflect on its first six weeks.

“It was a moment of reflection, and it led to a week of reflection,” Johnson said Oct. 8. “And it’s about how we can endure this loss, this adversity, and come out of it better.” So it wasn’t a moment where we all had to sit back and cry or think about what was going on, but it was just something, in which we took up the idea, we absorbed everything and after 24 hours we rinsed it and we became better because of it.

The message inside the building is pretty simple. Will early setbacks against Texas and Washington define or fuel the Wolverines? That’s the core of what Johnson is urging players to make a decision.

“Rest,” Johnson said. “Are you a fighter or not? The only way is forward, so the only way to really move forward is forward. So at the end of the day, I could ask you a lot of “What if?” Scenarios or how you react to this and that. They examine who you are as a person. You look in the mirror and see what you can do to get better.”

The Wolverines have been through adversity before, whether it was necessarily reflected on the field or not. Johnson believes the program can benefit from this as it navigates through the tumultuous first half.

“The only difference is there’s more adversity this year,” Johnson said. “I mean, all of our goals are still ahead of us and we have to make sure we don’t lose sight of that. At the end of the day, everything we want is still attainable and adversity is something you shouldn’t crave as a man, but when it happens, the way you respond to it will define you. That’s why we don’t run away and we appreciate it. We have the opportunity to show the world what we can do.”

Michigan is back in action against Illinois on October 19th at 3:30 pm ET on CBS.