Michigan Football: Wolverines take cupcake route in 2022 with UCONN additon

Michigan football finalized its non-conference schedule for 2022 and wrapped it up with another game that should be an easy win.

Putting together a non-conference schedule has become a very tricky process, especially for programs like Michigan football, which are attempting to compete for the College Football Playoff.

There is a line of thinking that argues teams should schedule tougher opponents. Supposedly, the playoff committee will reward that. The only problem is that never seems to come to fruition.

Otherwise, why would the SEC routinely be rewarded for playing cupcakes in non-conference play and only eight conference games. Many SEC teams play FCS opponents, some even in November, while Big Ten teams like Michigan are slogging through a nine-game schedule that sometimes also includes teams like Notre Dame and Washington.

Over the past two seasons, Michigan football has played Notre Dame during the non-conference part of the schedule. The start of the 2017 season also included a neutral game against Florida.

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While those early-season wins do help, just look at LSU beating Texas, they can hurt too and the fact is that the committee doesn’t seem to really weight strength of schedule as much as it should.

So as the Wolverines finalized their 2022 schedule with a challenging non-conference opponent, I didn’t have a problem with it. Not at all.

Michigan already had Colorado State and Hawaii on the schedule, two teams from the Mountain West conference and Thursday, the University announced the third game in 2022 would be against UCONN of the American Conference.

The last time Michigan played the Huskies was in the Brady Hoke era and it was nearly an embarrassment. The Wolverines went into the game ranked and barely escaped with a win after rallying from behind.

It may be a bit harsh to call UCONN, Colorado State and Hawaii cupcakes, but we all know that those games are scheduled with Michigan fulling expecting wins. Not guaranteed but as close as you can get.

The three home games in non-conference play will also give Michigan eight total home games that season. On top of that, it keeps the lingering question open of when the Wolverines will take their trip overseas for a game as Jim Harbaugh said they would.

We will see. But in the grand scheme of things, this is a solid schedule in terms of wins, even if it’s not as exciting as playing Notre Dame.