98 days until Michigan football: Sharing a cautionary tale
There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 2 opener against East Carolina. We’ll discuss current Michigan events, the upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.
Expectations are rightfully high in Ann Arbor for the 2023 football season. Michigan has a legitimate shot at winning its third-straight Big Ten title and winning a national championship. It’s titles or bust around these parts, and it should be.
And yet, sometimes things do not always work out coming off some of the best seasons in program history.
Michigan’s 1997 national title might be the gold standard in program history. The squad finished 12-0, won the conference outright and grabbed the program’s first and only national title since the 1948 season to this point. Even with plenty of stars moving on, expectations were high heading into the 1998 season. The Wolverines were ranked No. 5 in the country with junior quarterback Tom Brady getting his shot, but with Drew Henson looming behind him. Steve Hutchinson, a future Pro Football Hall of Famer, Jon Jansen and Jeff Backus held things down on the offensive line. Larry Foote and Dhani Jones led on defense. The cupboard was far from bare.
What followed was a frustrating pair of losses to start the season at No. 22 Notre Dame and at home vs. No. 19 Syracuse. Both were double-digit defeats and a dose of reality. It is hard to win at a high level and then sustain it. Michigan would win 10 of its last 11 games but lost the big one to Ohio State in Columbus.
The team finished 10-3 and finished the season No. 12 in the land. It was able to salvage a decent enough finish, but a bitter pill to swallow with expectations as high as they are at Michigan.
The 2007 team was much more talented and returned a ton of talent from a 2006 squad that went 11-2. The sky was the limit for Michigan that year, which then came crashing down with season-opening losses to Appalachian State and Oregon. Both embarrassments came at home. The preseason No. 5 team in the land had its season end with a 9-4 record, albeit with a nice victory over Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow in Lloyd Carr’s final game with the program. What followed was a seven-season tailspin Jim Harbaugh had to pull the program out of.
Harbaugh teams have gotten out to rough starts, too. The 2018 team dropped a winnable game at Notre Dame to start the year and the 2019 squad barely beat Army before getting embarrassed at Wisconsin in game three. They were favored to win the Big Ten that season with returning stars from a 10-3 2018 team.
The intent here is not to be a debbie-downer, but the reality of college football is that success is not a given no matter the talent that returns on paper. By all metrics, Michigan should be improved this year after going 13-1 last season and getting most of its key players back. But there has to be buy-in. There has to be a re-commitment to their goals and a realization that there is more meat left on the bone. Current members need not look back that far to see examples of seasons that went awry because a tone was not set from the jump.
The good news for Michigan is that it feels like it has the player leadership and the buy-in to be everything it sets out to be this season. Success is earned, not given. Entitlement will serve nobody well, even with all of the success of the last two seasons. The schedule sets up to hit the ground running early, start hitting a stride in October and hammer home a strong regular season finish into the playoff. From there, the challenge is finding ways to keep the momentum going into bowl season. Harbaugh’s 1-6 mark in bowl games is by far the biggest mark against him now. Time to turn that narrative around.
***
Michigan football countdown to kickoff
The post 98 days until Michigan football: Sharing a cautionary tale appeared first on On3.
