Michigan Football is, by all definitions, a completely new team from last year’s National Championship team. The Wolverines only return five starters from last season, including every skill position on the offense. They are also being led by Sherrone Moore, who has proven to be successful as an interim head coach but has never been a full-time head coach.
In other words, the team that raised the National Championship trophy last January is no longer the team that will be suiting up next month.
Michigan Has a Much More Difficult Schedule in 2024
Michigan was a great team last year; nobody can deny that. However, they did have a very favorable schedule. They only played three ranked teams all year (Penn State, Ohio State, and Iowa), and those games took place late in the season when other teams were beat up and worn out, while Michigan met no real competition until the 10th game of the year.
The Wolverines played ECU, UNLV, and Bowling Green in the non-conference. They followed that up with games against Rutgers, Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan State, and Purdue. In other words, it would have been a disappointment for any Michigan team not to start off the season 9-0.
Even against their tougher competition, they hosted Ohio State and Iowa. Their only true road test all year was against Penn State. This year, that all changes.
First, the Big 10 eliminated divisions, meaning that playing Rutgers, Indiana, and Maryland is no longer an annual guarantee. Additionally, with the new West Coast schools, the Wolverines travel to Washington and host USC and Oregon.
The non-conference features Texas, a team that was one play away from playing against the Wolverines in last year’s National Championship team, and Fresno State, which Michigan shouldn’t overlook, especially considering they will have an entirely new team.
Finally, they travel to Colombus, Ohio, this year to face Ohio State, which will be a much tougher challenge than playing in the Big House.
ESPN’s Heather Dinich Predicts Wolverines to Lose 3 Games
Heather Dinich is one of the country’s most respected college football reporters, and she had interesting comments about what she believes the Wolverines will do in year one under Sharpe.
While on ESPN’s ‘Get Up’, Dinich shared the following on her outlook on Michigan Football:
“Well, let’s be clear here, Michigan is not going to fall off of a cliff because Jim Harbaugh left, right. But to be fair, this is real. They return 23% of their offensive production from last year. That’s 123rd in the FBS. So there are a lot of new faces and new places, particularly a quarterback. When I look at this team, I see three losses… at home against Texas, at home against Oregon, and… against the Buckeyes. “
The biggest question would be whether a 9-3 record would be good enough to make the College Football Playoff. The first assumption would be that the answer would be yes since even with a 9-3 record and losses to only those teams, the question would then become whether they would have enough quality wins.
People forget that Michigan isn’t playing Penn State this year. Aside from the three games that Dinich predicts they will lose, the only other “quality” teams they play all season are USC and Washington. Is a 2-3 record against top-quality teams good enough to get into the CFP over a Big 12 or ACC team sitting at 10-2 or a G5 conference champion sitting at 12-1?
That is where things get very interesting, and the real debate begins.
