After months of waiting, the Michigan football team will return to the Big House on Saturday night to open the 2025 season against New Mexico.
The Lobos are 34-point underdogs. They have a new head coach in Jason Eck and almost an entirely new roster with 75 new players. That's the most of any team in the FBS. 48 of those players are transfers, including 42 from the D-1 ranks.
Eck built a successful program at Idaho. He brought some of those players with him, but in total, the Lobos have five returning starters and 31 others who have started games for other programs.
One of the players Eck brought with him from Idaho is starting quarterback Jack Layne, a 6-foot-2, 206-pound signal-caller who threw 14 touchdowns compared to four interceptions last season for the Vandals. Layne has 215 career pass attempts, which are 215 more than Bryce Underwood, the starting quarterback for Michigan football.
Looking ahead to Saturday night, here are three keys for the Wolverines to avoid a major upset at the hands of New Mexico.
Don't let Bryce Underwood do too much
It would be easy to get distracted by the shiny new toy that is Bryce Underwood and try to do too much with the true freshman quarterback.
Chip Lindsey is an experienced offensive coordinator. He knows the drill, but building the confidence of Underwood early will be important. A turnover-free game is the most important thing to me.
With Underwood's ability to run and throw, big plays will come. The offensive will have explosive elements. Yet, if Underwood is able to protect the ball as well as J.J. McCarthy, that will lead to lots of wins this season and Saturday is the first test against a defense that will be hard to scout, just based on all the personnel turnover.