Night game at Washington is pivotal test for Michigan football

Michigan football travels to play the Washington Huskies on Saturday, kicking off at 7:30 PM inside Husky stadium. The game will be broadcast nationally on NBC and the Wolverines opened up as a 2.5-point underdog.

This is the first road game for Michigan football all year and the first road game Alex Orji has started in his career.

Why this has the feel of a pivotal matchup

Michigan football finds itself sitting as the #10 team in the nation with a record of 4-1 heading into this game. The only loss on the season so far is to arguably the best team in the country, Texas. However, if you took the pulse of college football fans (a lot of Michigan fans included), you would think that Michigan has a losing record.

The Wolverines are being severely doubted by a lot of people and I do not think it is unwarranted but it is also something that they are not used to. They are the defending national champions coming off a rivalry win and a win vs 11th-ranked USC, yet they are an underdog against a 3-2 Washington team who just lost to Rutgers.

Alex Orji will be facing the most hostile environment he ever has as a starter for this program. Husky Stadium only holds about 70,000 people but it gets LOUD because of the structure. It is critical that Orji starts this game off strong with some easy completions to try and quiet the crowd. It will also be critical for Michigan to stay ahead of the chains in this game and give themselves third and manageable opportunities.

The coaching staff can not be afraid to play the field position game and punt it away to pin the Washington offense deep. Michigan's offense will almost certainly be put into uncomfortable positions in this game, even more so than the USC game.

That is something that comes with playing on the road in a place like Husky Stadium. If the Wolverines can be successful more times than not when they are faced with these situations, their confidence is going to grow tremendously.

However, if they fail to be successful, it is going to create even more doubt about the offense. The other problem that is going to continue to be brought up if the offense cannot sustain drives is how it affects the defense's stamina. This defense has an elite starting 11 but it struggles with depth. If the offense can stay on the field, the confidence of the team grows as well.

A fork in the road for Michigan football

I believe this game puts Michigan football on a trajectory one of two ways based on the outcome. They will either be 5-1 inside the top 10 or 4-2 ranked probably somewhere in the 20's, heading into their bye week. After the bye week, they still have to play Illinois, Indiana, Michigan State, Oregon, and Ohio State.

Those will all be tough games for this team and if you're playing the odds, they will most likely drop at least one of them. If Michigan can go into a hostile Washington environment and come out with a win as an underdog, the chip on their shoulder grows even more.

For a team that has dominated the Big Ten over the last three-plus years, they sure have been doubted a lot. This will add to their resume of proving the doubters wrong. A huge week for Alex Orji and this team awaits Saturday and I for one, can not wait!