At the end of the 2024 season, Michigan football was the most dominant team in the nation and went into the playoffs undefeated. Thirteen Wolverines continued onto the National Football League after the season including J.J. McCarthy, Kris Jenkins, Mike Sainristil, Junior Colson, Blake Corum, Roman Wilson, Zak Zinter, AJ Barner, Trevor Keegan, Michel Barret, LaDarius Henderson, Jaylen Harrel, and finally Cornelius Johnson. (Puleo, NY Times) Before being drafted, they were the number one seed going into the College Football Playoff and had not won a championship since 1997. Michigan was 4.5-point favorites in the CFP Championship against The Washington Huskies. (Associated Press). Former Michigan head coach, Jim Harbough announced before the game he would be moving up to coach the Los Angeles Chargers in the NFL. Michigan went on to win the CFP Championship game in a dominant fashion 34-13.
This year the Wolverines came into the season with some doubts, but with confidence. Alex Kirshner from Slate.com said, “Michigan was due for a significant step back. Everybody in college football knew it, including the Wolverines’ millions of fans. The team won all 15 games last year en route to a national championship, then lost 13 draft picks and head coach Jim Harbaugh to the NFL. Some regression was inevitable.” Michigan won their first game on August 31 against Fresno State fairly easily by a score of 30-10. The next week would not be as easy for the Wolverines because they would be going against the third-ranked University of Texas. The Longhorns were in control all game and defeated the Wolverines 31 to 12. After this game fans and players really realized what they had lost last year and people began asking if Michigan would still be able to compete with top ten teams anymore. New head Michigan Coach Sherrone Moore had this to say in the post-game press conference, “For us, that’s a loss. We haven’t had one of these in a long time, so you definitely feel it. We just got to get better at the fine details, and can’t have penalties and turnovers. So those are the things right now. We have got to keep working.” (Hole, USA Today)
The week after, Michigan played Arkansas State and won 28-18. In week four, Michigan played its first conference opponent, The University of Southern California (USC), one of the new members of the Big 10 expansion. Michigan barely snuck past USC winning 27-24. USC came into the game ranked higher than Michigan so the win was a huge confidence boost for the Wolverines. This week they will stay at home and play the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
In conclusion, Michigan football was the best college football team in the nation a year ago, now people are questioning if they can compete in the same games they used to win. Can they win the iconic Ohio State rivalry game for the third year in a row? Michigan does not have an easy schedule coming up with Illinois, Oregon, and Ohio State on the schedule, and a rematch of the National Championship against Washington. People are going to see how good of a team Michigan University is…
