Michigan Football: 5 reasons to embrace Wolverines as playoff contenders

Michigan football was recently projected to be a playoff team by college football analyst Phil Steele and here are five reasons why he could be right.

Just about every Michigan football fan is probably tired of hearing about the hype. Yet, when it comes to the 2019 season, the Wolverines can’t get away from it.

Just about everyone that knows college football expects big things from the Wolverines next season and Phil Steele, a long-time analyst, projected Michigan football to make the playoffs along with Alabama, Clemson and Georgia.

Steele made his prediction on a radio show Wednesday morning and explained part of his reasoning for including the Wolverines to AL.com.

"“When you look at Michigan, they’ve never gotten past Ohio State. They’ve got five starters back on defense, so it’s going to be your typical nasty Michigan defense. Shea Patterson and the offense will be “explosive” and getting Ohio State at home gets Jim Harbaugh in the Final Four. I’ve got Michigan favored in all their games,” he said. “I think Michigan can run the table and make the playoffs.”"

Steele makes some good points but the Wolverines have been projected to do great things before and it didn’t happen. 2016 was a great example and last year, when Michigan went to Ohio State on a 10-game winning streak, we all thought the time had come to end the streak.

We all know how that worked out.

But 2019 could be different. In fact, it should be. There are a bunch of reasons why and here are the top five.