What Michigan Football should learn from 2022 national championship

After watching the 2022 national championship game, here are some lessons that Michigan football needs to take away to beat teams like Georgia and Alabama.

If you happened to stay up to watch the 2022 national championship game, you missed a snooze-fest for the majority of the game. Both teams were unable to get much going offensively for the majority of the night, as the two teams traded field position and field goals, but Georgia converted a few long plays late to win the game.

So Michigan football lost to the national champions, which at least has to make it feel a little better about itself. No crap talking from rival fanbases.

So, why am I talking about this? What does this have to do with Michigan football?

Well, everything to be honest. If you’ll recall, Michigan got the snot kicked out of them a few weeks ago by Georgia, the team with the historic defense, in the college football playoff semifinals.

I’ve already covered why Michigan football lost that game, but watching the SEC Championship Game Part II (aka national championship game) really made me think about some things.

Mainly, why Alabama was able to contain Georgia’s offense for the better part of the game, and how Alabama was able to score on Georgia.

First off, I just want to say that the Michigan team we saw in the playoff semifinal was not the team we had seen throughout the vast majority of the ’21-’22 season. Michigan football did not play its best game of the season at all against Georgia. Maybe even their best game wouldn’t have been enough, but it is still a “what if” moment that fans will always think about.

Talent means a lot in the game of football, but if that was the case every time, Michigan would’ve been blown out to Ohio State this year (as I’ve already discussed in previous articles ad nauseum).

What Michigan football needs to do to hang with elites

In order to hang with teams like Georgia and Alabama, Michigan needs faster players at key positions on the field. What pops out to me immediately watching Alabama and Georgia play is their linebackers. Listen to these names: Nakobe Dean, Christian Harris, Nolan Smith, Will Anderson Jr.

All of those linebackers are fast, rangy athletes that can fly around the field, making tackles behind the line of scrimmage, cover in space, and get to the quarterback. Michigan maybe had one linebacker from the ’21-’22 team that could do that in Junior Colson, but he is just a freshman, and you can’t often ask a freshman to be able to do all of that in their first season.

The rest of Michigan’s linebackers were either slow or couldn’t cover in space. Georgia and Alabama showed that to be successful on defense you need fast linebackers that can do everything. Michigan needs to focus on acquiring more Junior Colson’s (a freshman All-American). I know that Michigan got Jimmy Rolder and Raylen Wilson, but that has to be the standard from now on. No more slow linebackers that can’t cover in space.

The next thing that Michigan needs is better defensive line play overall. For the majority of the season, Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo were relied on heavily to cover up a semi-weakness for Michigan which was the defensive tackle play.

Michigan’s defensive tackles were not that impactful this year if we’re being completely honest. I don’t want to rain too much on Chris Hinton and Mazi Smith because their personalities are awesome, they play hard, and they are just fun to listen to, but their play left something to be desired in most games.

Aidan and David covered up a lot of the defensive line’s weaknesses, but if those two weren’t around, I would consider Michigan’s defensive line a major weakness.

Michigan was pretty good against the run for the majority of the season, but the interior very rarely generated any push up the middle, and against bigger and more athletic offensive lineman, got bullied in the trenches. Georgia and Alabama both recruit huge defensive lineman who are space eaters, but they also have some pass-rushing juice to them as well.

For the future, Michigan needs to recruit more of those type of defensive lineman. Enough with just the pure nose tackles. Michigan needs to get more athletic and faster overall on the defensive line. Having nose tackle specialists is fine, because those are always needed (like a Jordan Davis-type) but overall, the defensive line needs to be faster and more athletic.

Last but certainly not least, Michigan needs their QB to at least be a threat to run. I won’t talk about the secondary because Michigan has a potential elite class coming in with the class of ’22 but Michigan needs to make the transition to J.J. McCarthy for next season.

I have always been a Cade supporter, and if you’ve read any of my past articles, I was one of the few people that took his side whenever people got too harsh on Cade, but next season, for Michigan football to build on this past season (assuming Jim Harbaugh stays) JJ needs to start.

McCarthy has gotten enough snaps throughout last season for him to start every game next fall. He still has spring ball and fall camp to build on his CFP semifinal showing (which was not awesome but it was still really good in limited action).

Michigan’s offense will be fully unlocked with JJ under center next year. While I will always love what Cade did for Michigan, it’s time for fresh young blood to come in and make an impact.

Georgia and Alabama both had QBs who were actual threats with their legs if needed. There were various times last year where Stetson Bennett and Bryce Young shook off sacks to buy time to find an open receiver or ran for a first down just with their legs.

If you’ve paid attention to the college football playoff through the years, almost every single team that has made the playoff had a QB that could run the football if needed. Names like Jalen Hurts, Deshaun Watson, Tua Tagovailoa, Desmond Ridder, Marcus Mariota, Ian Book, J.T. Barrett (yes I know he got hurt before the 2014-15 playoff), Justin Fields, and the list goes on and on and on.

All of those teams had QBs who were at least threats to extend plays with their legs at any given moment. Michigan can be one of those teams with McCarthy but they can’t let themselves get wrapped up in trying to please Cade McNamara.

Michigan needs to go with the best QB and leave it at that. The offense can unlock a whole other gear with JJ in at QB. He has shown leadership qualities himself, has way more arm talent that can make any throw on the field, and most importantly, can extend plays with his legs when needed.

All of these qualities are what Michigan needs to finally compete with the best of the best in the Alabama’s and the Georgia’s of the world. They’ve proven that they can beat OSU, but the SEC is a whole other beast, as we’ve already seen so many times in the playoffs.

One of these issues can be solved immediately with McCarthy, but the bigger question is the defensive qualities that Michigan needs to fill.

Michigan isn’t as far off from the SEC elites as one might think, despite an obvious talent gap. Recruit way better in certain areas, and that can close the gap rather quickly. Will Michigan take this strategy? Only time will tell.