In January of 2023, Michigan Football accomplished the one thing every college program dreams of: A National Championship. The 2023 season was one of the highest points in Michigan Football history and even after losing their head coach and 13 players to the NFL, a program record, the expectations were still fairly high for the 2024 season. Most Michigan fans were severely let down with a very average 7-5 regular season record, their lowest since 2014. Even though the team ended the season on a high note, beating Ohio State and Alabama, the 2024 season was still widely considered a disappointment.
After this subpar season (at least to Michigan’s standards), the Michigan fanbase was holding onto one thing from 2024, their recruiting class which had a consensus ranking between 15th and 17th in the nation. This included the number one recruit in the country, quarterback Bryce Underwood.
Fast forward to August 30th, 2025, when Bryce Underwood makes his first career start at Michigan. Fans were eager to see how he did against college competition, and he delivered. He passed for 251 yards and a touchdown on only ten incompletions, which is impressive for a true freshman. Alabama transfer Justice Haynes also had an impressive game, rushing for 159 yards and 3 touchdowns. All of this was a big step up from the previous season, where Michigan averaged only 129 passing yards per game.
Although the 34-17 win against New Mexico was promising, week 2 was the real test, when Michigan went on the road against Oklahoma, who was ranked 18th in the country. Unfortunately, Michigan was unable to keep up with potential Heisman candidate quarterback John Mateer and Oklahoma, losing 24-13. This was a bit of a reality check for Michigan and its fans, showing they have improved from last season, but still nowhere near where they were in the 2023 national championship season.
Michigan was dropped to 22nd in the rankings but continued to show they were a top 25 program by destroying Central Michigan 63-3 and handling Nebraska 30-27, doing both without head coach Sherrone Moore because of a leftover suspension from 2023.
Looking at the rest of Michigan’s schedule, they have three remaining games that could cause them to lose. These include: AT University of South California (USC) on Oct. 11th, AT Michigan State on Oct. 25th (while not a very good team, it is a rivalry game that can be tricky), and versus Ohio State on Nov. 29th. If Michigan can manage to win the rest of the easier conference games and win 2 out of 3 of these important games, they will finish the regular season 11-1 and will likely make the playoffs easily. If they have a rough second half of the season and lose three games or more, they will have a very tough time making the playoffs.
While it is tough to tell how Michigan will continue to play the rest of the season, if Bryce Underwood continues to develop and not commit turnovers and running back Justice Haynes continues to play as well as he has been, I would expect them to be in contention for the playoffs, as would many other people, including the playoff selection committee. Michigan Football is more than capable of making the playoffs this year, but they need to continue to progress and deliver the latter part of the season.
