ESPN Sees Michigan As A .500 Team
The national opinion of Jim Harbaugh and Michigan seems to be trending down on a daily basis. Earlier today, ESPN updated its preseason Football Power Index and the Wolverines are sitting at No. 40. That's 15 spots behind Indiana. It's 10 spots behind Northwestern. It's also behind programs like Coastal Carolina, Tulane, Wake Forest and Appalachian State. Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin and Iowa are barely worth mentioning in the same sentence as Michigan as they check in at No. 5, 10, 15 and 23 respectively.
To put it bluntly — confidence in Harbaugh and U-M is at an all-time low.
The FPI doesn't just rank teams, it calculates the likelihood of different things happening as well. The index gives Michigan a zero-percent chance at going undefeated, making the playoff, making the national championship game and winning the national title. None of those predictions are exactly surprising, and everyone after No. 28 Virginia Tech is essentially in the same boat. Still, that's company that most Michigan fans don't consider themselves a part of.
The more alarming numbers, which are quite hard to argue with at this point, are the W-L totals and the chances to win the division and/or the conference. ESPN essentially sees Michigan as a 6-6 team, with virtually no shot to compete in the conference, giving the Wolverines just a 2% chance to win the division and a .7% chance at winning the Big Ten.
Ouch.
Within the Big Ten, Michigan is expected to perform better than Nebraska, Minnesota, Purdue, Maryland, Michigan State, Rutgers and Illinois in 2021. Sure, that's half of the conference, but it's not exactly a who's who of college football powerhouses. It's also not really surprising because those are the main teams Michigan has had regular success against since Harbaugh took over the program. Since Harbaugh became Michigan's head coach in 2015, the Wolverines are 25-1 against Indiana, Minnesota, Northwestern, Maryland, Rutgers, Illinois, Nebraska and Purdue. Conversely, U-M is just 9-15 against Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa and Wisconsin during the same time period.
Going 25-1 against the bottom feeders in the Big Ten isn't noteworthy. Going 9-15 against teams who generally win more games than they lose, is. Losing more often than winning against just about every team worth its salt is one of Harbaugh's biggest downfalls. Couple that track record with all the changes to the staff, the question marks at quarterback and several other key position groups and one of the tougher schedules in the country, and this is what you get — a preseason ranking of 40 going into Harbaugh's seventh year at the helm.
Former publisher of Wolverine Digest, Steve Deace, did a little research and fired off this tweet after ESPN's FPI rankings were updated earlier today:
Ouch. Again.
