Michigan football preview: Are Wolverines Playoff-bound in Sherrone Moore’s first year? (2024)

In a Michigan locker room hazy with celebratory cigar smoke, Zak Zinter was on a mission.

Zinter, a star right guard who broke his leg against Ohio State and didn’t play in Michigan’s national championship rout of Washington, had a game ball and was looking for someone to give it to. That person was Sherrone Moore, Michigan’s play caller and offensive line coach.

Moore spent the past six seasons working in the trenches as Michigan built itself into a program capable of winning a national championship. No position group exemplified Michigan’s identity better than its offensive line, the unit Moore coached. To understand what’s different at Michigan with Moore as the head coach, start with that: Jim Harbaugh was a quarterback and ran the program with a quarterback’s swagger. Moore was an offensive lineman and, much like the players he coached the past few seasons, loves the toil and the camaraderie more than he loves the spotlight.

“All I care about is the players,” Moore said this week. “I don’t think about myself.”

Moore is the last person who’s going to pontificate about the significance of his official debut as Michigan’s head coach. Saturday’s season opener against Fresno State won’t be Moore’s first time in that role, as he went 4-0 last season as acting head coach when Harbaugh was suspended. But Michigan is his program now, and people will be watching closely to see if he can maintain the level of excellence Michigan achieved the past three seasons.

That comes with pressure, even if Moore doesn’t talk much about it.

“It’s a tough position to walk into, following coach Harbaugh and everything he’s accomplished,” edge TJ Guy said. “I think he’s done a great job. He’s kept it pretty similar for us, nothing too different. He’s a different guy, different coach, but he’s really doing a good job.”

Moore rejected the idea that he’s entitled to a honeymoon year after last season’s national championship coronation. The Wolverines insist they’re hungry for more and eager to prove that they’re still a team to be reckoned with on the national stage. The arrival of the 12-team College Football Playoff and the expanded Big Ten will provide ample opportunity for Michigan to do just that, starting Saturday night against Fresno State.

“We’re going to be flying around like our hair’s on fire,” Moore said. “We’re going to play fast. We’re going to play physical, play tough, play through the whistle. We’re going to do everything we’ve done in the past, but we’re going to try to play up to the next level.”

The big picture

Michigan is still one of the most talented teams in college football. Cornerback Will Johnson enters the season No. 1 on The Athletic’s 2025 draft board, and defensive tackle Mason Graham is No. 4. For Michigan to lose 13 draft picks from last year’s roster and still have four players ranked in the top 30 is a testament to a great run of development and evaluation.

For all the noise about recruiting and NIL, few programs have outperformed Michigan when it comes to optimizing a roster. The Wolverines sign top-15 recruiting classes, retain and develop talent as well as anybody and use the transfer portal to target instant-impact players who can fill needs. The Wolverines have another batch of transfers stepping into key roles this season, starting with linebacker Jaishawn Barham, safety Wesley Walker and offensive lineman Josh Priebe. Those additions should help the Wolverines make up for some of the experience they lost from last year’s team.

The past three seasons established Michigan in the upper echelon of college football alongside Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State. Staying there is hard work, but the expanded CFP will create opportunities for teams outside the top four to matter. Michigan, ranked No. 9 in the AP poll, has the talent to earn a fourth consecutive CFP bid.

Five jobs still up for grabs

Quarterback: Moore declined to name a starting quarterback at the beginning of the week and said the battle between Alex Orji and Davis Warren would continue. Though Orji has been viewed as the frontrunner, Warren showed in the spring that he’s a capable challenger and continues to push for the job. Michigan is in no hurry to declare a winner and could use both quarterbacks against Fresno State.

Safety: Makari Paige has one safety job locked down. The other could come down to a choice between Walker, who transferred from Tennessee, and Quinten Johnson, now in his sixth year at Michigan. Defensive backs coach LaMar Morgan has said Michigan will lean on Paige and Johnson to take on the leadership responsibilities of Rod Moore, who is sidelined with a knee injury. But the Wolverines have other talented safeties, including Walker, Zeke Berry, Brandyn Hillman and Michigan State transfer Jaden Mangham.

Center: This competition is down to Greg Crippen and Dominick Giudice, a converted defensive lineman who distinguished himself in camp. Crippen battled Drake Nugent last year in camp and has been viewed as the next in line, but Giudice hasn’t made it an easy choice.

Right tackle: Like Giudice, Evan Link is a player who came from off the radar and played his way into contention for a starting job. Link, a top-300 prospect from the Class of 2023, is in a battle with Andrew Gentry, a top-100 player from the Class of 2020 who joined the program last season.

Third wide receiver: Tyler Morris and Semaj Morgan are the undisputed leaders of Michigan’s receiving corps. It’s less clear who the third wide receiver will be when the Wolverines line up in 11 personnel. Fredrick Moore, Amorion Walker, Kendrick Bell and C.J. Charleston have been mentioned in that role, and the Wolverines could rotate heavily early in the season until someone seizes the job.

Player everybody’s talking about

That would be Barham, the transfer from Maryland who made his presence felt — and heard — in camp. He doesn’t say much, but when he delivers a hit, everybody hears it.

“Once or twice a game, he’s going to make a hit and the crowd’s going to go ‘Oooo’ because he’s going to light somebody up,” defensive line coach Lou Esposito said.

On a defense with so much NFL talent, it’s notable that Barham is the player who’s stood out to teammates and practice observers. Not all of Michigan’s returning stars have been practicing at full speed — Mason Graham, for instance, was limited at times in camp — but Barham has established himself as one of the most impactful defenders on Michigan’s roster and one of most talented linebackers to pass through Schembechler Hall in recent years.

“I can confidently say he’s the most physically gifted second-level player we’ve had here in my time,” offensive line coach Grant Newsome said. “Probably the closest was Devin (Bush), but he’s bigger than Devin by quite a bit. We may see a guy who’s as good as that, maybe, across the country, but we won’t see one who’s better. I would stand on the table right now and say there’s not a better linebacker in the country than that guy.”

Three keys to the season

Stability at QB. There are two possible explanations for Michigan’s reluctance to name a starting quarterback. Maybe the Wolverines want to make Fresno State prepare for a dual-threat athlete in Orji and a pocket passer in Warren, or maybe they genuinely don’t know which quarterback gives them the best chance to win. The worst-case scenario is that Michigan gets stuck toggling between two quarterbacks because neither can win the job outright.

Health of Michigan’s stars. Michigan’s depth was a huge key to the program’s success the past three seasons. When somebody went down, Michigan usually had a replacement-level starter waiting in the wings. This year’s team needs Graham, Will Johnson, Kenneth Grant, Colston Loveland, Donovan Edwards and others to stay healthy. The Wolverines already lost one key player in Rod Moore, and if injuries start piling up, Michigan could end up with inexperienced players in major roles.

How does Michigan handle a loss? Michigan’s last regular-season loss came against Michigan State in 2021. That means the third-year players — Graham, Grant, Johnson, Loveland and others — have never experienced walking into the facility on the Sunday after a loss and trying to get the team ready to play a week later. It’s hard to imagine this year’s team getting through the schedule unscathed, and Michigan’s ability to bounce back will be paramount.

Schedule breakdown

Michigan’s schedule can be divided into four tiers. Tier 1 is the three games against preseason top-five opponents: No. 4 Texas on Sept. 7, No. 3 Oregon on Nov. 2 and at No. 2 Ohio State on Nov. 30.

The games in Tier 2 are winnable but potentially tricky. Those include USC on Sept. 21, at Washington on Oct. 5 and at Illinois on Oct. 19.

The Tier 3 games are all at home against teams that could hang with Michigan for a while: Fresno State on Saturday, Minnesota on Sept. 28 and Northwestern on Nov. 23. The Tier 4 games are the ones that shouldn’t be close: Arkansas State on Sept. 14, Michigan State on Oct. 26 and at Indiana on Nov. 9.

Michigan’s CFP path

Michigan’s clearest path is to go 1-2 or better against the Tier 1 teams and 9-0 against everybody else. That would give the Wolverines at least 10 wins and might be enough to put them in the Big Ten championship game.

A third loss is likely to put Michigan squarely on the CFP bubble. If the Wolverines go winless against Texas, Oregon and Ohio State, the rest of the schedule doesn’t offer many opportunities for marquee wins. Conversely, the Wolverines might be able to survive a loss somewhere (at Washington or Illinois, perhaps) if they can knock off one of the three top-five opponents.

Here’s how Austin Mock’s model assesses Michigan’s chances, with an expected wins average of 8.6:

The Wolverines are one of the first five teams out of the model’s bracket, firmly in bubble territory.

Prediction

Michigan gets pressure on Quinn Ewers and wins a defensive battle against Texas. Orji gets the starting nod but struggles with turnovers the first three weeks before solidifying himself as the starter against USC. The Wolverines start 8-0, lose to Oregon on a last-second field goal and fall by 10 to Ohio State in Columbus to finish the regular season 10-2.

They earn the No. 7 seed, win a Playoff game at Michigan Stadium and advance to face … Ohio State in the CFP quarterfinals.

(Top photo: Jaime Crawford/ Getty Images)

Austin Meek covers Michigan football and basketball for The Athletic. He previously covered college sports for The Topeka Capital-Journal and served as sports columnist at The Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon. Follow Austin on Twitter @byaustinmeek