Michigan Football reached the pinnacle of college football for the 2023 season, winning their first National Championship since Charles Woodson led them to a co-championship during the 1997 college football season.
Losing 13 players to the 2024 NFL draft, which was the most from any team and 4th most all time, combined with Coach Jim Harbaugh leaving to take over the Los Angeles Chargers has many Ohio State football pundits expecting the Wolverines to take a big step back in 2024.
As Lee Corso would say though – “not so fast my friends”. Let’s look at some of the reasons the Michigan football in 2024 will remain a major factor in determining who will be crowned the Big Ten Football and National Champion in 2024.
Experienced Superstars and Leaders: Michigan will have some of the highest rated potential NFL players across multiple positions. Not only are these players extremely talented with great NFL potential but this kind of production and experience almost always leads to these players offering great team leadership for their coaches and teammates which can help create strong team chemistry resulting in the teams sum being greater than their individual parts. Here’s a list of those impact players.
Defensive Tackle Mason Graham – the 6’3, 318 lb Junior is the #1 rated player across any position in the Pro Football Focus rankings for the 2024 college football season. In Michigan’s 2023 Championship season he was a wrecking ball, consistently having a huge impact on the Wolverine’s highly rated defense and especially during their playoff run. In 2024, opponents will have to gameplan against Graham to prevent him from ruining their offensive gameplans.
Defensive Tackle Kenneth Grant – the perfect compliment to Graham on the interior of the Michigan defense, Grant does not get near the publicity of Graham but at 6’3”, 340 lbs he is very highly rated ranked #18 overall in Pro Football Focus season rankings and a strong candidate to be an early pick in the 2025 NFL draft. Given the important of who wins the battle in the trenches, these two highly touted Defensive Tackles will have a big say in Michigan’s hope to return to the playoffs again in 2024.
Cornerback Will Johnson – the 6’2”, 202 lb Junior has been a mainstay in the backend of the Wolverine defense and has started since his freshman year matching his ballyhooed 5-star recruiting rankings. He is a consensus player to be selected in the first round of the 2025 NFL draft and Pro Football Focus has rated him #2 across all positions for the 2024 college football season. Johnson has 7 lifetime CFB interceptions and is counted on to guard the opponent’s best receiver.
RB Donovan Edwards – with Blake Corum moving on to the NFL, the program will look for the 6’1”, 210 lb Senior Edwards to be the featured back in 2024 and need him to emerge as a true star. In his first year in 2022, Edwards was exactly that running for 991 yards and averaging a gaudy 7.1 yards/attempt and 7 TDs. Last year that production dropped to 497 yards and just 4.2 yards/attempt with 5 TDs. Pro Football Focus has him as the 12th highest rated running back entering the year and #97 player overall.
TE Colston Loveland – This Michigan Junior class is stacked and adding to it is Loveland, at 6’5”, 245 lobs and the #1 rated Pro Football Focus Tight End for 2024 and #14 rated across all positions. With a first-year starter at Quarterback for Michigan, having a talented and reliable TE target could pay huge dividends as a game plan focus and bail out option to keep the Wolverine offense moving.
Player Development: Michigan has shown a very good consistency in developing players for the NFL which should mean despite losing so many players to the NFL, their depth will likely be better than people expect.
In fact, the table in Exhibit 1 below shows that over the last 10 years Michigan has been the 5th best program in producing NFL draft picks with 69. Only Ohio State is better from the Big 10 with 76 players and ranking second. Over the past two years Michigan ranks #1 with 22 players drafted.
Exhibit 1: Top 10 College Football Team NFL Draft Picks (2015 to 2024 NFL Draft)
| Rank | Team | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 7 | 7 | 10 | 12 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 7 | 10 | 10 | 92 |
| 2 | Ohio St. | 5 | 12 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 76 |
| 3 | Georgia | 5 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 15 | 10 | 8 | 73 |
| 4 | LSU | 4 | 5 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 14 | 7 | 10 | 6 | 6 | 70 |
| 5 | Michigan | 3 | 3 | 11 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 8 | 5 | 9 | 13 | 69 |
| 6 | Florida | 8 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 58 |
| 7 | Clemson | 5 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 55 |
| 8 | Penn St. | 3 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 54 |
| 9 | Oklahoma | 7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 51 |
| 10 | Notre Dame | 1 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 47 |
This is especially impressive since Michigan typically does not have Top 10 recruiting classes which really speaks to the ability of their coaching staffs to successfully develop talent.
This assume of course that development continues on the same track now that Sherone Moore has taken over for Jim Harbaugh but it would be surprising if it doesn’t. The result should be despite losing so many good players, Michigan likely has better depth to replace those players than most people think.
Tougher but Manageable Schedule: Michigan has been criticized in the past for a very soft non-conference schedule which has been mostly true the past few years. Lasts year’s teams were East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green. None of those teams was a marquee team but this year UM has blue-blood Texas at home Sept 7, but then manageable games vs Fresno State and Arkansas State.
Despite the overall tougher schedule, Michigan’s most difficult games are mostly at home including that Texas game, USC and Oregon. In fact, 8 of the 12 games are at home. Michigan catches a break playing a rematch of the CFP Championship game vs Washington on the road but the Huskies were devastated by graduation and transfers with head coach Kalen Deboer leaving, making the game very manageable.
The toughest test will be Ohio State in the Horseshoe to finish the season but with the expanded playoff field to 12 in 2024 that game no longer becomes a must-win game. Michigan could lose 2 games and still likely make the 12-team field.
Michigan is in Ohio State’s Head: Speaking of that last game at Ohio State. Michigan has flipped the script from going 0-8 vs the Buckeyes since Urban Meyer was named Ohio State head coach before the 2012 season, in winning the last 3 contests.
Yes, this year the Buckeyes are clearly the more talented and experienced team, including at the all-important quarterback position, but the current situation reminds me of back in the 1990’s when John Cooper’s Buckeyes typically had equal if not better talent than Michigan and yet still found a way to lose “The Game”. Cooper went 2-12-1 vs. Michigan and that led to his dismissal after the 2000 season.
Bottom line is for the toughest and most important game of the year, Michigan will really have the mental edge, and ALL the pressure will be on Ryan Day and the Buckeyes.
In sum, the Wolverines have some strong factors in their favor to remain one of the top teams in the new Big Ten and not have a big drop-off in 2024. Quarterback is probably the biggest question mark that could derail Michigan’s season. It’s not easy to replace a first-round draft pick and all-time great QB in J.J. McCarthy, but Michigan has enough star power at key positions that could overcome this.
2024 Big 10 Football Title Odds – Big Jeff’s Football (bigjeffsfootball.com)
