Should the Michigan Wolverines Be Ranked in the Top 25?

The Michigan Wolverines find themselves ranked in the Top 25 for the first time this season at No. 22. The road to the Top 25 spot this week has included a rain-out victory versus Western Michigan, one of the greatest games in football history against Notre Dame and a relatively lackluster win over Eastern Michigan. It’s a formula that has actually been effective over the past few years, largely based on the perennial over-ranking of Notre Dame.

Each year Notre Dame begins its return to glory by being inexplicably ranked 15 or so spots higher than they should be, thus boosting the ability of the teams that beat them to be thrust into the Top 25.

It was South Florida that reaped the initial benefits over the early Irish ranking this year. After receiving not even a single vote in the AP Poll in the preseason, they now find themselves ranked No. 18 in the country after beating the 16th ranked Irish in Week 1.

In Week 2, it was Michigan that overcame the mighty Irish and I half expected that it would be enough to get the Wolverines to the Top 25 right away because of the national coverage and drama of the game. It took another week and a win over the Ron English led Eastern Michigan Eagles to get the Wolverines into the rankings, however.

I don’t mean to come off sounding harsh, but Michigan has far too many unanswered questions to even be in the conversation for rankings right now. Even Brady Hoke admitted as much in his press conference today. Hoke was asked if he voted for the Wolverines this week he responded that he did not vote for his Wolverine team. Some will just say that is coach speak, but he knows better than anyone that they have a long way to go to be one of the best 25 teams in the country. 

It’s a great thing for the Michigan program to be seen favorably on the national level again, but we have all seen how little the start of the season really means. We’ve seen Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson lead the Heisman race and start with four straight wins enough times. I think deep-down there isn’t a Michigan fan out there that isn’t thinking “we’ll see once we get to the Big Ten season.” 

My skepticism doesn’t lie in my lack of faith in this staff or the current roster. It lies in what we have seen so far such as being ranked 76th defense (by yardage allowed) in the country. There are still tackling deficiencies, gap containment issues, and not a whole lot of depth if an injury were to arise. Yes, they are getting better. Mattison is earning every cent he gets paid with the way he is disguising some of the holes in this defense, but they are still there.

Offensively, there is still not much of a running game outside of Denard Robinson and there really isn’t a passing game outside of airing it out to Junior Hemingway. The offensive line is having a hard time playing with the physicality it needs in order to have a power running game, so we are left with what we had last year for now. Denard Robinson running 26 times for 200 yards. It is a lot of fun to watch, but almost impossible to survive a season of it.

I’m not all pessimism today, however. I think Fitz Toussaint and Vincent Smith have shown that they are the best running backs on this team. I think that the defense is showing that it has some talent, but still has some learning to do. The best thing about that, is that Michigan has some of the best teachers available on the defensive side of the ball. That isn’t a slight to the offensive staff, the guys on defense are just that good.

This team is on a journey back to the top of the world of college football. The newspapers say Wolverines have already arrived, but they are much closer to the beginning than the end.

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