Michigan Football Returns to CBS Power Rankings, How Can They Get Better?

Michigan football is 2-0. That’s the good news. More good news came this week as they catapulted themselves back into the conversation surrounding the College Football Playoff.

It’s probably too early to be discussing those scenarios this early in the season, especially with a schedule that still includes home dates against Iowa, Penn State, and Indiana, combined with road trips to Oregon and Ohio State.

Those five games ultimately will decide Michigan’s season.

After one game, however, doom and gloom was surrounding the program as the Wolverines were able to narrowly escape an upset from Western Michigan with a 13-12 victory. In theory, if Michigan was only able to beat Western by one point, what were teams like the ones mentioned before, or even Oklahoma going to be able to do to them?

The answer for Oklahoma, at least, was lose 17-10 thanks to a dominant defensive performance.

CBS Sports redid their power rankings, and after falling out of them last week, Michigan rejoined their rankings, checking in at 16. Let’s take a look at that ranking with some of our thoughts.

The Good News

The good news is simple. Michigan’s defense is nasty. That was kind of lost in the shuffle after their Week 1 performance because of a 20-play drive that spanned two separate quarters. Add in all the negative attention that went to the offense, losing perspective about how good the defense was would have been easy to do.

Michigan had a chance to make a statement last Saturday against John Mateer, who was expected by some to compete for the Heisman Trophy. Oklahoma’s offense is loaded with weapons, including tight end Rocky Beers, and slot receiver Isaiah Sategna III.

Michigan’s passing defense limited Mateer to 189 yards passing on 33 attempts, and made the game-changing play when Jyaire Hill picked off Mateer late in the fourth quarter to set up the game-winning touchdown.

More good news? Michigan’s defense could get even better. John Henry Daley and Rod Moore are still not full participants on defense as they work their way back from injuries.

Carter Meadows has yet to play a snap through the first two weeks and could give the pass rush some more juice as the season progresses. The linebackers, who were inexperienced have been a bright spot through two games and could continue to get better.

It’s hard to compare any defense to the unit that won a national championship in 2023, but Michigan’s defense is going to be their calling card through the season. There are not a lot of offenses they’re going to face with more talent than the group Oklahoma threw at them on Saturday.

The Bad News

The bad news is pretty simple. As noted in the article from CBS, Michigan is the third team since 2000 to start 2-0 while averaging less than 17 points.

Their offense struggled against Western Michigan outside of one series. Their offense put together two solid scoring drives, and capitalized on a turnover en route to 17 points against Brent Venables and the Oklahoma Sooners.

It was clear that the plan was going to be to try to win the field position battle, hunt explosive plays selectively, and play defense in order to beat the Sooners.

That worked Saturday. Will it work moving forward? Chances are, if the offense is going to be this anemic, they’re going to stumble at some point. The margin for error is significantly smaller if a team is unable to put points on the scoreboard.

Michigan’s run game has sputtered. Bryce Underwood is their leading rusher through two games.

Jordan Marshall and Savion Hiter should get better, and the coaching staff should get a better feel for them. Nonetheless, there are some concerns about what Michigan’s offense can hang their hat on.

The passing game has not been great through two games either. There is talent that is evident with JJ Buchanan and Andrew Marsh, but the offense has been unable to get them the ball consistently enough. Tight end has been a black hole, and no receiver other than Marsh or Buchanan have caught a pass yet.

The offensive line has also struggled. They have rotated three guys on the interior, but are down to two now with Evan Link sidelined with an injury. Star sophomore Andrew Babalola has been sidelined with a foot injury and won’t be back anytime soon.

There are a lot of concerns this coaching staff needs to figure out before conference play begins next week.

What’s Ahead?

Michigan has one more tuneup game against UTEP on Saturday, where they should be able to work out some kinks and build confidence before next week’s tilt against Iowa.

If there’s anything that we’ve learned through two weeks, it’s that Kyle Whittingham and his staff can identify problems and create improvement in a short period of time. They’ve already done that between Week 1 against Western Michigan and Week 2 against Oklahoma.

If the offense can find some semblance of an identity, as good as the defense is, who knows how could they can truly be?

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