The never too early 2013 College Football Top 25
1. Alabama - Big surprise
2. Oregon
3. Stanford
4. Ohio State
12. Notre Dame
18. Wisconsin
20. Nebraska
22. Northwestern
23. Michigan
The Wolverines are hoping they'll make the same improvement other recent teams have made in their coach's third season. Michigan went 8-5 in coach Brady Hoke's second season and never really seemed to recover from its 41-14 loss to Alabama in the opener. The good news is juniorDevin Gardner got some experience at quarterback after Denard Robinson was injured midway through the season. Gardner went 3-2 as a starter, completing 59 percent of his passes with 11 touchdowns in the five games he played under center. The Wolverines might have to replace four starting offensive linemen if junior left tackle Taylor Lewan leaves for the NFL draft. Six starters are coming back on defense, but they'll miss cornerback J.T. Floyd and safety Jordan Kovacs. Michigan's schedule won't be easy in 2013, with games at Penn State, Michigan State and Northwestern and home games against Notre Dame, Nebraska and Ohio State.
January 8th, 2013 at 4:38 PM ^
which seems likely considering that he is projected to get drafted at top 10. Michigan will lose their entire starting OL. Fitzgerald Toussaint is an unknown factor because of his gruesome injury and the RB is a huge question mark considering that they have a lot of trouble running this season. Luckily, they have Devin returning with starting experience.
On defense, they return players with experience, but no true pass rusher. Frank Clark have the potential, but haven't showed it yet. Losing Kovac hurts from the leadership standpoint, but they are replacing him with a better athlete at S. The CBs aren't terrible, but they're not great either. One must step up and become a true #1 CB, but we won't know until next season so secondary is still a concern. I expect the defense to be solid which won't be a concern with Mattison at DC.
Michigan have not beat anybody great and their best win is NW in which they were lucky to win thanks to Roundtree's miracle catch. However, they lost to every team who are good(not sure Nebraska would qualify as good). They have a pretty tough schedule with NW on the road, ND coming home(but Golson should improve and return key starters from a tough defense), PSU on the road, MSU on the road because of their defense, and OSU at home.
January 8th, 2013 at 4:49 PM ^
As to ND's returning players...they're also losing 4 starters on the O-line, plus Eifert, 2 WRs and their RB. Yeah, 8 starters on offense. Only 4 starters on D, but Te'o is a huge loss.
January 8th, 2013 at 7:31 PM ^
Throw in Golson who has improved leaps and bound and will be a quality QB next year. ND is still a good team but not nearly as good as last year
January 9th, 2013 at 10:51 AM ^
They'll certainly have remaining talent on D, but they lose their best players. And, we'll see about Golson (who doesn't really impress...he's ok, but nothing special) with a new O-line, no RB and no TE. It's hard for a QB (even a good one) to perform without a supporting cast.
January 8th, 2013 at 4:39 PM ^
January 8th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^
January 8th, 2013 at 5:53 PM ^
ND not only loses Manti Te'o, but also Tyler Eifert is leaving. Eifert didn't amass great stats against Michgan, but he did catchone crucial pass each of the last two years, and he did win the John Mackey Award for 2012. A victory over ND, which should enter the game as a top five team, would go a long way toward helping the Wolverines have a better season.
January 8th, 2013 at 6:50 PM ^
January 8th, 2013 at 8:09 PM ^
Sorry, Bennet is an idiot if he thinks Michigan is #5 team in Big Ten. Just from the easier schedule alone, we will win 2 more games next year. The defense will better than last year and you can argue that offense will as well as long as Devin stays healthy the entire year. Anybody who thinks Michigan will have worse record next year than this year has no clue how college football works.
January 9th, 2013 at 8:12 AM ^
Earlier posters have IMO correctly ID'd the 2013 tossup games as PSU,MSU, NE, and NU. Could the presence of Derrick Green in the backfield make a difference in any of these games? I would guess MSU, NE, NU because they're later in the season, when hopefully the new (post-Lewan, probably) OL has had some time to gel. Green could be a major factor in turning a couple of those games from TUs to Ws.