Michigan Football: Wolverines aren’t elite but they closer than you think

Michigan football isn’t an elite program, even ESPN had a hot take saying so, but the Wolverines are closer to making it happen thank you might think.

When it comes to Michigan football, it seems that just about everyone throws out the world elite in one way or another.

With losses this season to Ohio State and then again to Alabama, the top has arisen again, as it always does and it got a little boost from an ESPN article, titled “bowl overreactions” which addressed the topic of it being a second-tier program.

While I’m not sure second-tier is the word I would use with Michigan football, because then we need to call teams like Wisconsin, Iowa, Notre Dame, Penn State and others second-tier.

If being elite means being able to win a national championship and realistically win one, not just make the playoff and get blown out, then there really are four or five — Clemson, Bama, Ohio State and LSU or Georgia — take your pick.

Does Oklahoma deserve to be on this list? Maybe. But the Sooners haven’t really been competitive outside of one playoff game, so are they really national title contenders? Is any program in the Pac-12 considered elite?

The answer there is no.

Oregon could work its way into the mix. But just like Michigan football, most of the time, it’s on the outside looking in.

But this year, the Ducks won the Pac-12 and if not for an upset loss, they likely would have played Clemson, not the Sooners. What did the Ducks have that Michigan didn’t?

Michigan Wolverines Football

Well, it’s the same thing as LSU — an elite quarterback.

We all thought Shea Patterson was going to be that, but he wasn’t. Just like Jim Harbaugh, he has been a disappointment. Harbaugh hasn’t been a failure, in fact, quite the opposite.

Harbaugh rebuilt Michigan football into a top-15 program and that’s not insignificant, especially remembering where things stood before his arrival. The Wolverines recruit and win as well as any Big Ten program not named Ohio State and the whipping U-M put on eighth-ranked Notre Dame, a team that went on to win 11 games, should remind everyone what is possible.

If for now, that’s second-tier, then so be it. But the writer for ESPN was also correct in saying that also Michigan football needs is a Joe Burrow.

LSU is right where the Wolverines were not long ago, seemingly with no hope of catching Alabama or even Georgia. But when Burrow happened, the Tigers finally realized their potential.

Michigan isn’t LSU, even before it got Burrow and made this run, the Tigers were much closer to being considered elite than the Wolverines.

But that doesn’t change the fact that one elite quarterback and I mean truly elite, could change everything. Maybe it will be J.J. McCarthy or possibly someone else.

Yet, until the Wolverines find that guy, they will be stuck in that second-tier world.