I'm always a bit on the fence about writing a Best and Worst column before the season starts. Not because I struggle to find random wrestling GIFs or links to esoteric Youtube videos, but because most people who consume this site have undoubtedly already had their fair share of season reviews, previews, and prognostications. Hell, there's a free PDF to your right that does an amazing job of breaking down this year's team, the schedule, and everything that goes into preparing for the 2019-2020 season. But at the same time, there are topics to discuss beyond the X's and O's and I figured at this point most people should sorta know if they want to read 3k words or so from me. Plus, Florida-Miami and Hawaii-Arizona were bonkers and the season hasn't even started yet for most people.

As always, this column is based on the much funnier Best and Worst series written by Brandon Stroud over at UpRoxx.

Worst: Right AND Wrong

So last year apparently I wrote a season preview. I honestly forgot I did, but then again I thought I wrote a post-season Best and Worst for Florida 2019 before realizing that, no, one was from 2016 and the other was from 2017. As has become perhaps a sad refrain for Michigan these past, oh, 20 years, the seasons all sorta look the same. Hell, my predictions for last year's season weren't close at the micro level: they lost to ND, Wisconsin and PSU were blowouts on the good side, OSU was...um...not as close as I expected. They didn't actually lose to any mediocre Big 10 West team, though I guess they tried somewhat hard with Northwestern, and Notre Dame got the best 19 minutes of Brandon Wimbush's season and suffocated Michigan's overwhelmed offensive line. But at the macro level everything sorta held to form: they won 10 games, missed making the playoffs by a couple of plays (at least if we follow Don Brown's definition of discrete units), and fielded a team a step behind the elite programs in the country. Stop me if you've heard this one already.

And I guess that's what is infuriating about following this team; on the macro level Harbaugh has gotten Michigan back to what has historically been their "peak", at least in the S&P era.

Michigan's S&P+ history. National titles are a dumb legacy measurement anyway... pic.twitter.com/BvzNL2YRxQ

— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) August 15, 2019

And yet, for all of that consistency it's still a team that's gone 1-3 in bowl games and hasn't beaten OSU since 2011. In a game played by college students trying to corral an oblong ball, some randomness is to be expected, some inches given and others denied due to the vagaries of space and time, but at some point you'd have hoped Michigan could have broken through a bit.

And that's why I can't shake the sense that "10 wins and a dispiriting loss to at least one rival" is the steady state for my expectations. Michigan's probably the second-most talented team in the conference; maybe PSU can make a claim here based on recruiting but like Michigan they also suffered a significant number of transfers this off-season, including at positions (like QB and defensive back) where depth/options are always welcome. They are rather clearly behind an Urban Meyer-led Ohio State, and even with that hypocritical goblin now plaguing a sound stage near you, it's unlikely the wheels fly off in year 1 despite some dubious signs.

Michigan is clearly not in the weight class occupied by Clemson, Alabama, or Georgia; we sorta know what it takes to get there and I don't (a) see Harbaugh being willing or able to change his approach that dramatically, nor do I (b) see a culture shift/buy-in necessary to get there. Hell, I didn't necessarily expect Georgia (the state as well as the university) to give Kirby Smart as much freedom as they did to reshape how the university's athletic department functioned. And until the NCAA changes the rules such that the money cannons can be fully unleashed, it's unlikely the corners Michigan already cuts would be sufficient to catch up.

And yes, there are dozens of fanbases that wish they had Michigan's troubles. After a decade in the relative wilderness of college football mediocrity, Michigan is again expected to be a national contender more often than not; since Harbaugh's first year Michigan has been ranked the following in the AP top 15:

• 2016 - #7
• 2017 - #11
• 2018 - #14
• 2019 - #7

In the decade before Harbaugh arrived Michigan had been ranked in the top 15 preseason exactly 3 times:

• 2006 - #14
• 2012 - #8
• 2006 -

 

So Michigan is in a much better space than it has been basically since Carr manned the sidelines, and some of the moves Harbaugh made shaking up his staff points to a self-awareness and need for change that you don't necessarily see on other ships barreling toward icebergs. With the shake-up at OSU and their friendly schedule, Michigan is as likely as any team to compete for a conference title and a shot in the playoffs; odds makers certainly see them near the top. But this still feels like a season with the check engine light blinking silently, and at some point that's going to go from a light warning to very real problem.

Best: Worth the Seat License

On paper the schedule looks quite tractable; MSU, Iowa, ND, and OSU come to Ann Arbor, and each of those teams have enough question marks to fill a variable-sized basket or, in the case of MSU, a video-rental Kiosk outside of a CVS. Army will be annoying because by law all service academy games have to give you a series of micro-aneurysms as you watch them average 3 yards per play for an 18-play scoring drive that eats up a quarter. But it's mostly a home slate full of killer and little filler. The two toughest road games are probably Wisconsin and Penn State, though both look like shells of the dominant teams we saw in past seasons. Hell, Indiana might be the biggest road test simply because it's sandwiched between home games against MSU and OSU, even if the Mike DeBord stink still isn't fully out of the cushions.

Comparing it to the 2017 schedule, of course, brings back memories of a scuttling offense, getting motor-boated by Penn State, and generally looking overwhelmed by the prospect of scoring more than 13 points against anyone with a pulse. But this season doesn't feel like that even with the most negative spin possible; the offensive line alone is light-years ahead of what (unsuccessfully) tried to slow down human-sized missiles aimed at various Michigan signal-callers. With the Onwenu-Ruiz-Bredeson combo, Michigan probably has the best collection interior line in the conference, if not the country, and it's John Runyan III who's the one returning all-conference performer at tackle. Jim Harbaugh will strap on the pads again in order to throw more than the 9 TDs the QBs managed to produce that year, and while there are questions on the defensive side of the ledger it's still a Don Brown defense with enough talent to hold up against most of the offenses they'll see.

And beyond the slew of big names, Michigan even gets to welcome a service academy to Ann Arbor like they did in 2017, and I see no reason why that should freak anyone out at all.

Worst: Always a Bit Off

And yet, I can't shake the feeling that Michigan can't quite get their stars aligned. The past couple of years the big concern was the offense; while Michigan's offense was never as bad as you probably imagined (35th per S&P+ in 2016, 49th in 2017 despite starting 3 QBs, and 25th last year), it still never really clicked the way it had with Harbaugh at Stanford. Case in the point: the last time Michigan had a top-15 offense per S&P+ was 2011, Hoke's first year. That team was still coasting off the fumes of Rich Rod's spread transition and combined it with a metric ton of good luck. While I expect there to be some transition costs moving to the "Speed in Space" offensive system favored by Josh Gattis, I fully expect Michigan to improve throwing the ball and, as a result, inch their way up to one of the top 15 offenses in the country. And before you scoff, understand that in 2018 the 12th through 15th offenses per S&P+ were Wisconsin, Washington State, Memphis, and Florida. So it's not like they have to become a Big 12 team in order to have an efficient offense.

But perhaps for the first time since Harbaugh arrived on campus, there are real concerns about the defense. Both Devin Bush and Rashan Gary were drafted in the top half of the first round, and Chase Winovich going to the Patriots in the 3rd round seems destined to be another shrewd pickup by a franchise that tends to get these things right. David Long, probably the most complete corner Michigan has had in years, was widely considered a steal in the 3rd round. On top of that, key contributors like Tyree Kinnel and Bryan Mone graduated, while the transfer portal saw the departure of Aubrey Solomon, one of the few defensive tackles on the roster with any game experience.

Yes, there is still talent on this defense, and even a slight step back would simply give Michigan an excellent defense, not an elite one. But you look back at 2016 and 2018 and can't help but wonder what a team capable of putting up points quickly (as seems to be the promise with Gattis) would look like with a defense that could stifle opponents. Maybe it keeps up with Notre Dame's initial explosion last year so Michigan weathers the Wimbush storm better, or it scores more than 13 points at Iowa or finds a way to take advantage of OSU's struggles to end the year. You see other teams find ways to bridge these gaps more effectively, of fielding dynamic offenses as well as dominant defenses, and so it feels extra weird that Michigan struggles to do so.

Again, if you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm more pessimistic about this season than I expected. The offense should be really good; Brian and co. joked on WTKA that Patterson may well put up numbers good enough to get him a front-row seat to witness the Heisman given to Tua or Trevor Lawrence. The offensive line is by far the biggest Michigan has had in recently memory and probably the best since Carr's heyday; 2011 was really good but that was also a hodge-podge of schemes insulated a bit by Denard being a better athlete than the vast majority of guys trying to tackle him. The wide receiving corps has, legitimately, 3 guys who could be the #1 receiving option on most teams. The running game has a lot of depth if no foregone stars, and it's likely someone like Turner or Charbonnet will provide the home-run threat to supplement the mobility offered at the QB spot.

But the defense has holes, and when the most common refrain I hear is that Michigan may well go small/try out a 3-3-5 at times in order to maximize the talent they have at end and LB and to cover up deficiencies at tackle, visions of teams just methodically wearing Michigan out race through my head. I'm sure guys like Hinton and Smith will be great linemen at Michigan down the line, but the fact they've basically been pencilled in as key contributors as true freshmen doesn't bode well for depth, Carlo Kemp's surprising maturation into an all-conference-level player be damned. Michigan probably won't lose a game 14-13, but I wouldn't be shocked to see them lose a game to Iowa or Wisconsin 31-28, as the defense can't quite get enough stops and the offense fails to cover up the gap completely.

It just feels like Michigan is stuck in this cycle they can't quite escape, where one side of the team has to cover up deficiencies for the other. To an extent that true for most football teams; even Alabama and Clemson have, in the past, relied on their offenses to carry them when their all-world defenses falter, or vice-versa. But I can't shake the feeling that even if Michigan's offense takes that step forward, the defense will take a similar step back.

Best: Offensively Excited

Tons of electrons have been spilled discussing Michigan's offensive issues under Harbaugh; I'm not going to rehash them here. There was some merit to issues with playcalling, especially in the passing game in the past couple of years, and in particular pace getting the playcalls out. There were multiple instances last year where Michigan would waste a ton of time getting to the line needing to score, and even then be called for delay of game. I'm always a bit of an apologist for playcalling because I tend to assume the guys paid money to do this job have a better idea of how to utilize their talent than I do, but between the slow play and limited offensive ceiling it wasn't a surprise that significant changes were made. And Josh Gattis should, at the very least, open up the playcalling a bit and, if not exploit #speedinspace, at least loosen up what had become a pretty staid gameplan.

At the same time, a big reason why the offense struggled was because there were issues along the offensive line basically since Harbaugh arrived. Most of them have had to deal with depth; Hoke's offensive line recruiting turned out to be massively suspect and included only 7 guys combined his last two full classes. Harbaugh took a couple of fliers his first class, with one hitting (Runyan), and in subsequent classes picked up a couple of multi-year starters in Onwenu, Bredeson, and Ruiz. There are still questions about depth after those guys, especially with Stueber out with an ACL tear, but for the first time in what feels like forever there isn't a flaming trashcan trying to block edge rushers or pick up a double-A gap blitz. Because when Michigan has competent line play, they've got the playmakers to hurt teams. And if you want a reminder of how much an overwhelmed offensive line can submarine an offense, look no further than that Miami-Florida game and the 10 sacks the Gators picked up.

Patterson should break the single-season passing TD record of 25, which remains one of the more inexplicable records I've seen in college football. To put that in perspective, 31 (!!) players threw 25 or more TDs last year, including such noted flamethrowers as Nate Stanley at Iowa, Bryce Perkins at Virginia, and David Blough at Purdue. 25 TDs is Rutgers's season record as well, so let that stew in your head for a second.

Anyway, barring injury Patterson should etch his name into the record books this year. He's got a slew of big targets in Black, DPJ, and Collins, and even with Zach Gentry's departure guys like Sean McKeon, Erick All, Giles Jackson, and Mike Sainristil should provide more than enough targets. And while the departure of Karan Higdon leaves a substantial hole to fill running the ball (his 1176 yards was the most non-Denard rushing yards since Mike Hart in 2007), guys like Tru Wilson, Christian Turner, and top recruit Zach Charbonnet should be able to pick up most of that slack. And honestly, an offensive line can paper over a lot of issues in your running game if it can deliver backs 3-4 yards downfield before first contact.

Will there were stumbles along the way? Most likely. Michigan has been one of the slower teams in the country for some time, huddling after most plays and generally displaying the same urgency parents at Disney World show as their kids scatter to the wind. Gattis practically took offense to the idea of huddling, and while all reports out of camp point to the team openly embracing that change I wouldn't be shocked if we saw guys get out of position or false start when in game conditions. I do believe Harbaugh when he says he's comfortable allowing Gattis to call the game, but if Gattis does struggle (this will be his first solo OC job) it'll be interesting to see how that's handled.

All that said, I'm pretty confident Michigan's offense will look as dynamic and dangerous as it has in recent memory, making the spectre of a shootout far less scary.

Worst: Fire Everything!

Now, off the bat it's not that I think Michigan's defense will be "bad" this year; Don Brown hasn't fielded a non top-10 defense since 2014, his second-to-last year at BC. They still have one of the better corners in the country in Hill, solid ends and linebackers in guys like Ross, Danna, Paye, Uche, and Hutchinson, and Hudson is poised to have a great final year at Viper. Daxton Hill looks all the way like the #1 safety in last year's class, and him seeing early playing time says more about him than the quality of guys like Hawkins and Metellus. And there are a number of young guys waiting in the wings to grab the assorted snaps here or there.

At the same time, there's nobody on the defensive line who looks to be as disruptive at Winovich or as stout as Gary. I know Rashan Gary remains a polarizing figure to many as a guy who never quite lived up to the top recruiting ranking, but he's still a guy who consistently held up against some pretty stacked blocking setups. You don't need to be reminded how great Devin Bush was, and it would be insane to expect that type of player to emerge this year. And while I really like Carlo Kemp and believe he's made legitimate strides as a tackle, he's still likely to be a non-entity as a pass rusher/pocket collapser and after him it's either guys who can't stay healthy (Dwumfour), unknowns (Jeter), or freshmen.

And so, the question is what are reasonable expectations this year and how should Michigan's defensive approach evolve, at all, given the personnel available. Brown likes to be aggressive, and in years past he tended to throw blitzes at problems. Last year, due in no small part to the quality of player he had at both ends, he wound up holding back a bit on blitzing and it allowed Michigan to disrupt passing lanes pretty effectively. But when Michigan couldn't get home with a four-man line (like against OSU and ND), the team struggled to contain receivers. My guess is he'll try to ramp up the pressure from his front 7 in unique ways and hope that will also let them handle the run; luckily there aren't a ton of teams on the schedule beyond Wisconsin and maybe OSU able and inclined to run the ball at their tackles consistently.

But it's hard for me to see this defense being able to maintain the stranglehold recent vintages had on offenses; they just don't have that level of disruptive capability. I hate the term "bend don't break", but that feels like the most reasonable characterization for this team's defensive outlook. And it's not without precedent, as they only gave up 119 plays of 10+ yards last year, which was 2nd in the nation, though they were more middling at 20+ and 30+. If they can keep the longer plays down and force teams to put together long drives, they'll more likely than not be able to boot teams off the field with minimal damage. And with a more high-octane offense that could be enough, as teams could find themselves having to throw more/take larger risks to keep up. It certainly couldn't hurt; Michigan only generated 17 turnovers last year (tied for 90th), and only 11 picks. I remember the 2011 defense benefitting from some turnover luck, netting 29 turnovers (including 20 fumbles), and that helped to cover up some issues in the defensive backfield.

My completely uneducated guess, then, is that the defense will be statistically worse on standard downs but have more variance than in years past, ultimately settling in that top-15/20 range. For perspective, OSU last year finished 26th overall per S&P+ and had the type of boom-or-bust numbers (69th on standard downs, 100th on passing downs, 26th in Havoc) that you can survive with if your offense can keep up. I don't expect Michigan's offense to be quite as dynamic as the fully-functional OSU battle station was in 2018, but a better-coached version of Auburn or Purdue with a defense wouldn't be unrealistic. And if you told me Michigan would be a rich man's version of 2018 Purdue, well, that ain't half bad.

Meh: Questions Not Needing Answers

Tell me if you've heard this one already: Jim Harbaugh spoke about a controversial issue, perhaps inelegantly, people who should probably know more about the nuances of the underlying situation overreact, and it becomes a Referendum (tm) on Harbaugh and his tenure at Michigan. Suddenly he's not the guy who simply pointed out that Urban Meyer is a sleazy asshole who's good at coaching football and bad at giving a shit about domestic violence, but he's the head coach who is 1-9 against Top 10 teams and hasn't even beaten OSU and all the gristle that powers ESPN and Fox Sports in between stupid people yelling segments. Because at it's core, the issue is never about doing right by college athletes or trying to curb the worst tendencies of (mostly rich) men who want to keep the spoils for themselves. Instead, it's about continuing this fiction that the billions of dollars the NCAA generates each year is just the inevitable runoff of amateurism, the happy product from men who direct teenagers to smash themselves into each other while they prattle on about loyalty and comradery.

By the way, Harbaugh is no saint. His comments about the difficulty beating the "cheaters" in recruiting, even if manipulated and amplified for optimal headline generation, are still, at best, tone-deaf and at worst hypocritical. Do I think Michigan (and similar high-academic schools) adheres to more to the spirit of student-athlete rhetoric than others, and (because they've been caught before) tried to keep it's nose relatively clean when it comes to the more egregious recruiting tricks? Sure. But it's naives to believe Michigan pulls in top-10 recruiting classes purely based on Harbaugh's charm, the prettiness of the campus, past success and the amorphous value of a "Michigan degree". Plus, the highest-paid head coach at one of the richest athletic departments in the country shouldn't be crying poverty or disadvantage; when you're already standing on third base from the jump don't draw the attention of everyone still trying to scratch out a single or double.

And Harbaugh absolutely takes the bait with these exchanges; you aren't going to "win" against Paul Finebaum or Luke Fickell because the game is so ill-defined and irrelevant that it might as well be Calvinball. The only way to win is not to play, and you'd think even the most stubborn and competitive guy in the world would have learned this by now. And the bigger problem is that when he engages in these petty tiffs, all that noise obscures real points he's making. His proposal to allow a no-fault transfer for every athlete is the exact type of progressive policy we should see from college coaches. He's also spoken out about compensation for players, medical facilities at stadiums, and other topics that show a general awareness of larger issues beyond gameplans and roster depth. That isn't to say these are completely altruistic beliefs, but at least Harbaugh (and a couple of other high-profile coaches like Nick Saban) is talking about them.

But ultimately the criticism seems to come down to winning and losing. James Franklin seems like a putz but he's got a Big 10 title on his resume and has beaten OSU, so everyone sort of gives me a pass. It says something about something that Mark Dantonio's questionable handling of sexual assaults doesn't get discussed all that much, and my guess is his handful of conference crowns and a single, disastrous playoff appearance has something to do with it. And the less said about Urban Meyer and the halo that was set around him until the bitter end the better.

Expectations are extremely high for Michigan this year, and if the team can somehow reach them my guess is a lot of these criticisms will shift to some other perceived underachiever. But until then, this feels like a ride fans can't get off, and it's getting pretty tedious.

Predictions

So if you've gotten this far, what I'm about to say probably won't surprise you. I think Michigan wins 10 or 11 games this year. MSU and PSU both feel like one-dimensional teams with questions at enough spots that Michigan should be able to win even if they're closer than you'd like. Wisconsin is, I don't know, Wisconsin. My guess is they'll be a better defensively than last year (they had a ton of injuries) but that offense was janky and now they're rolling out a new QB and have some changes to the offensive line. Notre Dame is good, full-stop. It's a home game and by that point in the season you'd hope most of the rust and uncertainty for both sides has been knocked off, but we'll see. I've given up trying to predict Ohio State games, and while I think the Buckeyes are going to entering a (relatively) fallow period under Day it probably won't matter this year. Justin Fields will likely struggle this year throwing the ball until he faces Michigan, at which time he'll throw for a billion yards and win 2 Heismans.

But who knows; at some point teams have to change and your luck swings back. There are enough questions defensively to make me worry, but if Michigan fully gives itself over to the idea of sometimes just having to outscore your opponent, it'll likely be an exciting and (possibly) spectacular year. And for all the consternation about the rankings, other top-10 teams like Florida, Texas, and LSU aren't necessarily known for their consistency, and at some point Oklahoma's offense won't have a Heisman winner at the helm and then the wheels may come off a bit. So I'm entering the year with cautious optimism, and am excited for Michigan to start the year against MTSU, a school known best for, oh nevermind.

Go Blue.