Life comes at you fast. One day, you’re high on the hog, talk of the town, and celebrating historic success while the rest of your peers are reduced to either tepid applause or envious sneers. Approximately 300 days later, you’re fighting to maintain your grasp on the power conference that you’ve been the big bad bully of for the last three years – while new faces enter the field with ambitions of stealing your spot.
We’re midway through the season, and the Michigan Wolverines need to come up with answers to some pretty big questions, fast.
After falling 27-17 to the Washington Huskies in a rematch of last year’s National Championship Game, the Wolverines are coming off a bye as they look to right the ship against a 5-1 Illinois team. Michigan is 4-2, and that record isn’t as concerning at face value as the state of affairs at large, especially considering that one of those losses came against top-ranked Texas.
So why, then, are the Wolverines a tenuous 3-point favorite against an Illini side whose two wins over conference opponents both came in overtime, with the more recent being against a 1-5 Purdue?
Well, it’s simple. To this point, we have no evidence that Michigan can produce a dependable passing offense. And while that limitation wasn’t dire enough to derail them during out-of-conference play, or against a USC team that has proven to be susceptible to physical, trench warfare-minded offenses, it’s not a sustainable framework for a team that’s setting its sights on a four-peat with the Big Ten Title (and don’t let Iowa try to convince you otherwise).
And if you think that was my way of comparing this year’s Michigan team to the Iowa offenses of years past under Kirk Ferentz…it was. Like I said, life comes at you fast.
In a lot of ways, the matchup this Saturday is about much more than whether or not the Wolverines can bounce back in a road environment against a Fighting Illini team that, six games in, appears much closer to their equal than many would have guessed going into the season. The result of this game will tell us a lot about whether it’s time to close a door that Michigan had firmly planted its foot in for the last three years – we compete for championships. Big Ten Championships. National Championships.
But, believe it or not, there’s an even bigger picture than that. When you exit the bubble of teams competing for the top spot in your conference, you enter a different bubble: teams in need of rebuilding. It’s no secret that the Wolverines need better production at the quarterback and receiver positions, but how long in a post-Harbaugh world will Michigan Athletics be satisfied with coaching and recruiting that has been outpaced in both those departments by Ohio State (and, to a lesser degree, Michigan State) for the better part of two decades?
Nothing can fully remove the taste of an undefeated season from one of college football’s most storied programs…especially when it happened last year. But the real question is, once you give a junkyard dog his first taste of ribeye (or Buckeye) after getting by on scraps for so long, how quickly will they lash out after returning to their regular diet?
If the Wolverines get past Illinois, they’ll hold on to a glimmer of optimism that this program isn’t ceding too much ground to Ohio State and Oregon. But that’s a projection, and projections feel a lot different after you’ve played the teams you’re intent on competing with (and beating) for the foreseeable future, and Michigan will do just that when they meet the Ducks and Buckeyes in November.
This isn’t a season for Michigan that will be defined by their record – or championships. But come January, we’re all going to look back at what the Wolverines put on the field this year in all three phases and ask one question: is this sustainable for a program that wants, no – needs to be gunning for the top of the Big Ten year in and year out?
Until then, it’s time to see if Jack Tuttle – a seventh-year QB who entered the Washington game with less than 200 passing attempts in his collegiate career, can give Michigan momentum through the air in a season where they’ve been desperate to find it.
#24 Michigan travels to face #22 Illinois this Saturday. Kickoff at 3:30 pm EST.
