Michigan Football: 3 best reasons Wolverines are the Big Ten favorite

Michigan football is being picked by just about everyone to be the Big Ten champs in 2019 and here are the three best reasons why.

The start of the 2019 college football season is still more than a month away, however, the silly season continues this week as Michigan football and the rest of the Big Ten head to Chicago for the annual Big Ten Media Days.

The annual gathering of coaches, players and the media will begin Thursday and just prior to it, the Big Ten Media voted on their preseason picks. When it was all said and done, Michigan football was selected as the preseason favorite in the league for the first time in seven years.

A total of 33 writers predicted who would win the Big Ten conference this season and 17 of them gave the nod to the Wolverines. 14 others picked the Ohio State Buckeyes to win the title for the third year in a row, while Nebraska and Northwestern each got a vote.

As far as the East was concerned, Michigan football emerged as the favorite, with 220 points in the preseason poll, as well as 20 first-place votes among the East teams. Ohio State was second with 214 points and 14 first-place votes. In the wide-open Big Ten West, Nebraska was selected as the favorite, with 198 points, compared to 194.5 for Iowa.

The media picked Michigan State third and Penn State fourth in the East while putting Wisconsin third in the West, as well as Northwestern, then Purdue and Minnesota in the West.

While it’s the first time the writers have predicted Michigan football will win the Big Ten in seven years, they aren’t alone. Here at GBMWolverine, we predicted a 12-0 record not long ago and others like Phil Steele have offered the same 12-0 assessment.

Of course, no one truly knows what will happen this season, but here are the three best reasons why everyone is picking Michigan football as the preseason favorite in the Big Ten.