Michigan Football: Winning more games in 2018 won’t be easy
Michigan football might have a better team in 2018, but the Wolverines will also face a brutal schedule that will make winning more games difficult to do.
Following the loss by Michigan football to South Carolina in the Outback Bowl on New Year’s Day, the sentiment coming from the Wolverines was the best is yet to come.
Not only did head coach Jim Harbaugh offer those thoughts to his team and the media, senior defensive tackle Maurice Hurst said the same thing. To paraphrase, he said 2018 will be the year Michigan football finally turns it around.
While Hurst has a lot of reasons to feel that way, the schedule in 2018, isn’t one of them.
Compared to 2018, this season was a walk in the park. Not only will Michigan open the season at Notre Dame, but the Wolverines also have to play at Michigan State, at Northwestern and at Ohio State.
In case you weren’t counting, that’s four road games against teams that won at least 10 games in 2017. All four of those teams will finish the season ranked in the AP top 20.
Certainly, the road games against the Irish, Spartans and Buckeyes will get the most attention. But don’t forgot about Northwestern. The Wildcats knocked off Michigan State this season and also gave Penn State quite a scare. Pat Fitzgerald and that program are for real and winning there won’t be easy.
On top of four tough road games, the home schedule isn’t easy either. The non-conference slate features Western Michigan and SMU. Those games aren’t too terrifying. However, home games against Wisconsin and Penn State definitely are.
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Michigan football beat both of those teams at home in 2016, yet lost to each school on the road this past season. Beyond those games, the Wolverines will also host Nebraska, which will be much improved under Scott Frost. The other three games are Maryland, Rutgers and Indiana. Winnable yes, but outside of Rutgers, which is on the road, none are cupcakes.
Michigan has beaten Maryland handily the past three seasons, but they have also went to overtime against Indiana twice. The other game was also close in Ann Arbor in 2016.
Assuming Michigan is able to beat SMU, Western Michigan, Rutgers, Indiana and Maryland that’s five wins. From there, the Wolverines should also be able to beat the Huskers, although it won’t be as easy as it was under Mike Riley. That’s six. After that, it gets dicey.
If Shea Patterson is ruled eligible and takes over as starting quarterback, then sure, Michigan will have a great chance of winning nine of 10 games. But if it comes down to Brandon Peters or Dylan McCaffrey, double-digit wins seems less likely.
Even if Michigan splits the road games against Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Northwestern, it would need to sweep Wisconsin and Penn State at home to get 10 wins.
Yet, giving the Wolverines two road wins against top-20 caliber teams might be a stretch. Michigan has beaten two ranked teams on neutral fields since Harbaugh arrived. But both wins were over Florida, first in the Citrus Bowl, then in the 2017 season opener.
Other than that, Michigan football hasn’t beat a ranked team on the road in more than a decade. The last time was back in 2006, when the Wolverines, coached by Lloyd Carr, beat Notre Dame 47-21. That’s a span of 11 years and 16 straight losses.
There is a lot of talk about Michigan being back next season. Well, if the Wolverines really want to be back, they need to find a way to beat good teams. Not only at home, but also on the road.
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And thanks to the difficulty of the 2018 schedule, UM will have plenty of chances to do that. If it can, then maybe, finally, Michigan football can say its back.