ATLANTA – Once again, Michigan was embarrassed.

Once again, the Wolverines ended a football season, searching for answers.

“I thought they were ready,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said after the Wolverines were annihilated by Florida in the Peach Bowl, 41-15, on Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

But the Wolverines weren’t ready.

They were outcoached and outplayed once again.

Just like at Ohio State.

And this once promising season ended with a total collapse after two horrible losses.

Where does that leave this team?

In the end, this season was nothing but a mirage. When Michigan was ripping off 10 straight wins, it was considered one of the top teams in the country. Even the oddsmakers in Vegas were buying into it. The Wolverines were favored against both Ohio State and against Florida.

But that was nothing but an illusion.

Those two losses revealed everything about the state of this program.

Michigan has a good team.

Not a great team.

Far, far from a great team.

Michigan played three games against teams ranked in the top 10 this season, and it lost all three. The last two were blowouts.

“My feeling about the team is we're right there to the top, but we have to put it over the top,” Harbaugh said. “Especially in the big games at the end of the year."

But can they?

With this offense?

Michigan has talent, tons of talent at wide receiver, but the Wolverines haven’t figured out to how utilize it. The game has changed but Harbaugh hasn’t changed with it.

Harbaugh now is 1-9 against top-10 teams in his four years at Michigan. He never has coached in a conference title game, and the man who was hired to resurrect this proud program is just 1-3 in bowl games and 0-4 against Ohio State.

After the game, Harbaugh was asked whether he anticipates making any changes to the coaching staff.

“No,” he said.

And the hearts of countless Wolverines fans just sank.

[Blame starts with Jim Harbaugh for Michigan's Peach Bowl debacle]

Good, but not great

To be fair, the Wolverines were missing four players.

But that doesn’t explain this.

Florida was creative and found ways to use its speed.

Michigan was plodding and kept some of its speed on the bench at curious times.

Including Tarik Black, who finally is healthy but didn't have a catch in the first half. Why wasn’t he in the game, all of the time?

There was no sense of urgency, even when the Wolverines fell behind.

Harbaugh was unable to make adjustments. Unable to find ways to put his playmakers in positions to make plays. Unable to get the Wolverines to bounce back after the Ohio State debacle.

Unable to find a spark. Unable to be creative.

Michigan couldn’t run the ball, although that hardly was shocking considering the Wolverines were missing team captain Karan Higdon, the team’s leading running back, and tackle Juwann Bushell-Beatty.

Still, they tried to run. Over and over, averaging just 2.6 yards per carry.

The Wolverines' vaunted defense gave up big plays, at the worst possible times.

Sure, they were missing defensive end Rashan Gary and linebacker Devin Bush Jr., both of whom, along with Higdon and Bushell-Beatty, opted to skip the bowl to get ready for the NFL combine. Then, several defensive players went down with injuries, leaving the Wolverines in a precarious position.

“Yeah, it hurt us,” defensive end Chase Winovich said.

But it doesn’t explain this blowout.

Some of it was scheme.

When the Wolverines expected a run up the middle, the Gators countered with a jet sweep around the corner.

When the Gators put in four wide receivers, stretching out Michigan’s defense, quarterback Feleipe Franks ran right up the middle on a draw.

Give all kinds of credit to first-year Florida coach Dan Mullen.

“Ever since coach Mullen got here, man, he (has) put me in the position to, like, make plays and he does that for everybody on the offense,” Florida running back Lamical Perine said, after rushing for 76 yards and scoring a touchdown.

You don’t hear Michigan players say things like that.

Instead, quarterback Shea Patterson was talking about trusting the process.

And linebacker Josh Ross insisted this team is on the rise, even though it crashed spectacularly over the last two games.

“We are definitely going up,” Ross said. “After this, we start work in a couple of weeks.

[Michigan football grades: Everything's a dud in Peach Bowl loss]

We have to regroup, rebuild and get ready for next year. It takes hard work and consistency, but I can assure you (that) we are going up.”

Clearly, Michigan didn’t learn anything from the Ohio State loss. The Wolverines failed to make big plays in that game, and they didn't make big plays against Florida.

At halftime, Florida held a 13-10 lead and I was thinking: "Man, they need to open up this offense."

Take off the governor.

And just let Patterson let it rip.

With all the talent Michigan has at wide receiver and with the Wolverines missing their top running back, it just didn’t make sense why Michigan didn't try to utilize them more often.

At halftime, Donovan Peoples-Jones had four catches but for just 32 yards. Nico Collins did have one long catch, and Zach Gentry caught a 27-yarder. But those were the exceptions.

“We were moving the ball at times and close to getting into a rhythm, but we didn't get the run game going effectively enough,” Harbaugh said. “Or the passing game, the protection, and the rhythm in that area to make it — we got outplayed, really, on that side of the ball. Florida did a nice job defensively.”

Going forward, defensive coordinator Don Brown will have to retool his defense, because he will be losing several star players and also because other teams have figured it out.

At least, the top teams have.

“For the most part, they had us figured out,” Winovich said. “They knew what we were in and how to manipulate it.”

Yes, some of that is probably because of the players Michigan was missing on defense. Bush is an All-American linebacker, and Gary can be a disruptive force along the defensive line when healthy.

But the same thing happened against Ohio State.

And that is the theme of this season.

Against the toughest competition, when the bright lights came on, everything was revealed.

Good, but not great.

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel/.