ESPN's Way-Too-Early Top 25 puts Michigan #5
Apparently ESPN isn't worried about departures from Michigan, estimates it will be #5 next season:
1. Bama
2. tOSU
3. Georgia
4. A&M
5. MICHIGAN
6. Notre Dame
Also 10. Staee 15. Iowa; 24. Wisconsin
January 11th, 2022 at 11:16 AM ^
Seems too low.
Go Blue!
January 11th, 2022 at 11:17 AM ^
Name a single player on ND’s team next year
I can’t and I’m much happier because of it
January 11th, 2022 at 11:19 AM ^
ND will be ranked high early in order to hype up their matchup with OSU.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:20 AM ^
Jesus. But he is on the team EVERY year...
January 11th, 2022 at 11:32 AM ^
I heard dude makes the water on the sideline fancy.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:57 AM ^
That guy was a real godsend for them, but I’m not sure he’ll be on the team next year. I think I heard he got nailed pretty bad on a crossing route? Lots of people seem to have faith that he’s going to return, but we’ll see.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:34 AM ^
Rocco Spindler, Josh Burnham, Tyler Buckner, the really good TE Matt Maher (something like that) and the safety who just transferred from Northwestern.
That is everyone I can name off the top of my head.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:18 AM ^
OSU ranking is undeserved until they can prove their defense won't get blown over by a light breeze.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:58 AM ^
It's fun though to see them start the year hyped and then lose their momentum at the end of the year.
January 11th, 2022 at 2:03 PM ^
But, but, but....their WRs caught a bunch of passes against Utah's running backs.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:22 AM ^
Unrank us. This season should have taught us that early rankings really does NOT matter.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:33 AM ^
You're right that early rankings don't matter about next season.
And this season of Michigan jumping from unranked to the playoffs was great fun.
However, the early rankings DO matter because they mostly repeat the previous season's ranking.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:24 AM ^
TOO LOW Fuck those idiots.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:26 AM ^
A&M at 4 is a joke.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:37 AM ^
I think they are another year out. 15 Under Armor All Americans or not, those guys are still all freshmen next year. Also Jimbo's best year (at A&M) was 2020, and if you are not named Alabama or Ohio State, I'm calling your 2020 season suspect.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:47 PM ^
Texas A&M bought ESPN prior to this ranking.
January 11th, 2022 at 2:01 PM ^
The ranking definitely don't account for the fact that aTm doesn't have the SoS to maintain a high ranking.
Other than Alabama, what is their hardest game?
January 11th, 2022 at 11:27 AM ^
I honestly prefer it when we are ranked lower to start the season.. It seems our best seasons are when no one sees us coming.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:31 AM ^
According to ESPN, we are returning only 6 starters on offense. Outside of two OLs that we are losing, I cannot think of another starter leaving.
Edit: How could I forget about Haskins? So, we have starters 3 leaving and 8 returning.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:34 AM ^
A lot of roster watchers think Haskins is our only back and don’t realize the running back room will be excellent next year. A lot don’t realize Bell is coming back and we should have the second best receiver room behind Osu in the conference. Defense will be a work in progress, but the floor of the offense is really really high
January 11th, 2022 at 11:35 AM ^
A RB?
they of course are still wrong, but we did have a couple other departures that “started” games, but we also bring back guys who started games on both sides that might not have been considered starters… we are bringing back a lot.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:23 PM ^
One of those two OL will be replaced by a Rimington finalist so there's that....
January 11th, 2022 at 11:37 AM ^
Seems a bit high since we have to replace half our defense but we'll see...
Also these rankings mean next to nothing, their reasoning for placing MSU at 10 is they're "losing 2nd leading rusher in FBS" and "returning most of their (FBS worst pass) defense".
January 11th, 2022 at 11:37 AM ^
If I was neutral I'd put them around 8-10 just with the concern on the defense. I believe this is a top 5 team in the country and if they execute and have the focus and work ethic of last year they can finish in the top 3 again.
I love that this team has four games to start the year at home that should all be winnable. You've got to find a way to win that game at Iowa. I truly believe that will determine if next year is an elite year, like this was, or a very good year.
10 wins should be the floor...they can win all 12. Go Blue.
My wild card is MacDonald works his ass off this offseason and takes a massive leap forward, which makes up for some of the talent loss.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:45 PM ^
Your MacDonald wild card view is spot on. Where did he come from just one year ago? Obscurity and a glimmer of hope and compare that to what he accomplished. Yes, he had Hutchinson coming back but Ojabo was not expected to play as well as he did.
As in 2021, the 2022 Michigan defense will improve quickly as they did this past season. My concern on defense would be protecting against the pass in 2022. I think the Michigan defense will do very well in 2022.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:38 AM ^
NIL, Jim get the admin on board. Warde support yer coach.
or it will never change.
January 11th, 2022 at 11:49 AM ^
I hate preseason rankings with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:01 PM ^
I feel like we're losing too much on defense to justify Top 5, or even Top 10. But maybe MacDonald can prove me wrong.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:28 PM ^
Feels like this is a bit high considering we have to replace 7 starters on defense.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:35 PM ^
5 seems about right, although I don't get aTm at 4. They beat Bama, but they also lost to ho-hum Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss State, and LSU teams and they don't have an unusual number of returning starters.
MSU at 10 seems too high. Walker was their only difference maker, and the 20-25 range seems more likely for them unless someone blows up the way Walker did this year.
Oklahoma at 17 seems too low, and SC at 22 too high. I don't expect Lincoln Riley's presence or absence to make that big a difference in the first year.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:39 PM ^
I'd say this is way too high unless they are assuming Michigan plans to take the shackles off the offense. The offense we saw this year is not going to carry a team losing so much on defense.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:48 PM ^
Please, start us unranked and ignore us all year. We do better when we’re unranked.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:49 PM ^
Starting #5 will allow Michigan to be in the CFP hunt much sooner than last season, provided they win all the games they are expected. Beating a ranked MSU along the way will help, as long as they don't stumble beforehand.
It will boil down to the final game against the buckeyes. Who knows; that could be a 1 vs 2 matchup by then.
January 11th, 2022 at 12:55 PM ^
I'd put UM #4, and OSU #5. After all, UM trashed OSU, and UM is expected to have an even slightly better team in 2022.
January 11th, 2022 at 1:40 PM ^
ESPN always does a shit job with these lists. They're so poorly researched. We return more than 6 starters on offense, and we don't need to "identify Haskin's replacement." It's probably gonna be the guy who split carries with him this year.
January 11th, 2022 at 4:28 PM ^
Personally I don't like being ranked this high with the overhaul required on D. The weight of expectations is tough with again what will be a young team. No one expected us to do anything in 2021 and we made the CFP. Puts us at 15-25 and let the season play out.....just my 2 cents.
January 11th, 2022 at 6:38 PM ^
January 11th, 2022 at 5:30 PM ^
We get some semblance of pass rush and we’re going to Ohio to get that W next season. Beat Ohio!
January 11th, 2022 at 10:35 PM ^
Help me remember. Was there another year when UM football was ranked #5 preseason, with a mostly returning offense but major losses on defense? Did that go well?