Michigan Football: 4 teams you should root for during the bye week

Penn State vs Iowa

This should be pretty obvious, but for the strength of the Wolverines resume, they could use a Nittany Lions win over Iowa Saturday. 17th-ranked Penn State is hosting 18th-ranked Iowa in an important Big Ten game.

Penn State is going to have a hard time winning the Big Ten East, but if it could run the table, a Rose Bowl berth isn’t out of the question. So it will be plenty motivated and so will Iowa now that it is one Wisconsin loss from controlling its own destiny to reach the Big Ten Championship game.

Why this matters for Michigan is that it would look better for Michigan to beat a two-loss Penn State team still ranked in the top 20, than an unranked team that already has three losses. If Penn State wins this game, Michigan will be part of another top-20 matchup next week and that’s a good thing when it comes to impressing the committee.

At this time of year, you want as many quality wins as you can get and if Penn State beats Iowa, it will only look better for Michigan if it can win next week.