Michigan Football Preview 2015 – Team Overview and Projections

Offensive overview

Defensive overview

Special teams

Michigan’s three biggest problems last year were:

1. The incompetence of the coaching staff
2. The youth of the offensive line
3. The incompetence of the quarterback, much of which was the result of #1 and #2

Those problems have all been fixed. Jim Harbaugh has been hired to replace Brady Hoke, the offensive line is a year older, and Jake Rudock comes in as a grad transfer. If these problems had been addressed last year, Michigan is a 9-win football team. The defense was very good, and would have been even better if the offense could have stayed on the field longer and prevented the defense from ending up gassed late in game. But pretty much everything else was a train wreck, the problems were never addressed, and Michigan went 5-7 and was unable to fill the stadium every week, even after the price of tickets ended up as a low as 2 Coca-Cola products.

This year, Michigan returns most of that very good defense. Their ability to get to the QB is a concern, but it’s reasonable to expect that at least one defensive end will step up and make an impact. If another is at least solid, Michigan will be just fine. Desmond Morgan and Jabrill Peppers are both back from injury, with Peppers now playing a defensive weapon position that will see him do a little bit of everything on defense. Michigan is expecting a lot out of him. Peppers looked pretty good as a true freshman last year before getting injured. I have no doubt he’ll live up to the expectations.

The offense should be at least okay. As I said earlier, an okay offense last year makes Michigan a 9-win team. Jake Rudock’s floor is “competent starter.” Where his ceiling is, I don’t know. If his “just okay”-ness was a result of playing in Kirk Ferentz and Greg Davis’ system, his ceiling’s pretty high. If it wasn’t, his ceiling’s not a great deal higher than his floor. In any case, I’m fully confident that Jim Harbaugh and Jedd Fisch will get him pretty close to his ceiling. Shane Morris will at least have a chance to compete for the starting job. Will he win it? I don’t think so. But if he does, great. It means he will have beaten out someone with a rather high floor.

Between the offensive line getting another year older and Tim Drevno coming in as offensive coordinator, the O-line should be a lot better than it was last year. There’s no dearth of potential at running back, and I’m totally confident that at least one of the running backs will break out behind what should be a much improved line.

While Michigan has question marks at wide receiver, Jake Butt should be a very valuable player at tight end. He looked good last year, and this year is playing in a system very favorable to tight ends.

Special teams should improve greatly with the addition of John Baxter as special teams coordinator. He been coaching special teams for nearly three decades, with a great deal of success.

The Wolverines’ schedule is no cake walk, though it does set up pretty favorably for them. Utah will be a tough test in the season opener in Provo on September 3. The remainder of the non-conference schedule sees Oregon State, UNLV, and BYU make trips to Michigan Stadium. I like the Maize and Blue in all of those games. In conference play, Michigan travels to Maryland, Minnesota, Indiana, and Penn State and gets Northwestern, Michigan State, Rutgers, and Ohio State at home. The trip to State College won’t be an easy one; the rest of the road games certainly look winnable. Michigan should beat Northwestern and Rutgers, Michigan State and Ohio State will be significantly tougher. With both games at home this year, I like Michigan to pull at least one upset. Against which team, I don’t know. It would not surprise me to see Michigan defeat the defending National Champions. However, it would also not surprise me to see the Buckeyes run away with the game. Sorry, but it’s true – Ohio State has an awfully good team this year. All things considered, 9-3 seems very attainable for Michigan this year.

Twitter: @KSchroeder2325

E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com