You don’t get games of this magnitude very often in the second week of the season. And when you did, they were rarely played in Ann Arbor.
But no game on the schedule in September is primed to reshape the college football playoff landscape more than the Texas Longhorns coming to the Big House to face the Michigan Wolverines on Saturday.
The Longhorns will descend on Ann Arbor after starting their 2024 campaign off with a 52-point shutout against Colorado State, boasting an offense led by quarterback Quinn Ewers and bolstered by a skill position group that can challenge any defense in the nation with their explosive speed. Which is good, because they’re about to face off against what many regard as the best unit in the country on that side of the ball.
Ups and downs
The Wolverines’ first performance of the season, held in primetime last Saturday, wasn’t quite the same smooth-sailing affair that their next opponents enjoyed over the weekend.
With ten minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Michigan was holding onto a 6-point lead over Fresno State. But in the crucial moments, the defending national champions rose to the occasion, with quarterback Davis Warren logging his first touchdown pass of the season — connecting with his star tight end Colston Loveland for the 18-yard score. While the drive ended through the air, it was carried by the performance of running back Kalel Mullings, who put 42 yards on the ground over three consecutive plays to get Michigan into the red zone.
“Everyone was telling me, ‘Just keep throwing gut punches. You know the guys are gonna soften up eventually,'” said Mullings after the game. “Fourth quarter on that drive, you know, it didn’t seem like guys really wanted to tackle as much as they did earlier, so we were able to take advantage of that and score.”
On the ensuing drive for Fresno State, the Bulldogs made it all the way to the Michigan 10-yard line, but Will Johnson, who had an up-and-down day by his standards, demonstrated his ballhawk prowess as the highest-rated defensive back in the country — taking an interception 86 yards the other way for the game-sealing pick-six. This week, he gets to square up with Isaiah Bond in one of the most anticipated 1-on-1 matchups of the year.
New-look offense
The pivotal matchup heading into Saturday’s premier game will be the new-look Wolverine offense against the Longhorns’ budding defense. In last week’s outing, Davis Warren went 1-5 on attempts that traveled at least 10 yards through the air — and the lone completion traveled 10 yards on the dot. In no uncertain terms, Michigan will need to find more success getting the ball downfield if they expect to keep pace with Texas.
Per PFF, last season, the Longhorns notched an impressive 93.4 coverage grade on passes that traveled less than 10 yards through the air, but an abysmal 27.9 coverage grade on throws of 10 or more yards through the air.
It’s worth noting that the Texas defense unveiled a new dime package in last week’s performance against Colorado State, which was introduced by the program’s new co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Johnny Nansen. Nansen had previously deployed a dime package last season as the DC for Arizona, managing to hamper the aerial attack of heavy-pass offenses, including Washington and USC.
New era
When asked about how, unlike in previous years, the current playoff format doesn’t resign the loser of this matchup to be starring down a barrel for the rest of the season, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian praised the change and expressed enthusiasm for Saturday’s big game.
“Because of the new format, I like this matchup even more,” the Texas coach said on Monday. “Because I think this is why you come to a Texas or you go to a Michigan — is to play in games like this. We get to go play in a marquee game on the road in a great environment for college football — and on the same token, if you win it, it’s great. If you don’t, it isn’t gonna kill you. This game isn’t gonna define our season. If we win, it doesn’t automatically declare that we’re gonna be this great team, and if we don’t win, it doesn’t mean that the season was a failure. There’s a lot of football left to be played.”
No. 9 Michigan (+6.5) hosts No. 3 Texas this Saturday. Kickoff at Noon ET.
