The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1503142
134 ■ THE WOLVERINE 2023 FOOTBALL PREVIEW BY ANTHONY BROOME T he whiplash of Michigan's strong 2021 season coming off a 2020 campaign to forget caused some to question whether the Wolverines could stay in the national title discussion. The stars had aligned in 2021, but U-M would not sneak up on anyone in 2022. It did not matter. Michigan not only repeated as Big Ten champion last season, but it took every- thing it did the previous year and amplified it. Headlined by a quarterback change, an elite backfield duo and first-year defensive coordinator Jesse Minter's "no-star de- fense," the Wolverines finished 13-1 with a Big Ten Championship Game win over Purdue and a second straight trip to the College Football Playoff, where the season ended in the Fiesta Bowl against TCU. The team was tailor-made to repeat, but first it needed to find out who its quarter- back was going to be. The battle went into the early weeks of the regular season, then sophomore J.J. McCarthy put his stamp on the job in Week 2 and never looked back. A soft nonconference schedule lent itself to the team easing its way in before some early-season battle scars helped define what would ultimately come. Maryland nearly took the Wolverines to the wire in the Big Ten opener, while road games at Iowa and Indiana presented their own sets of challenges. Michigan continued its charge through the middle part of the season with blowout wins over Penn State (in which it rushed for 418 yards) Michigan State, Rutgers and Nebraska, heading into the final two weeks of the season at 10-0. There had been bouts of adversity throughout the year, but Illinois was the first team on the schedule that had U-M on the ropes. It took a Jake Moody field goal with 9 seconds left to grab a victory, but the game extracted a heavy toll when running back Blake Corum injured his knee at the end of the first half. He tried to give it a go at Ohio State, but the set- back would ultimately prove to be season- ending. Michigan delivered a signature per- formance without its star at Ohio State, though. The Wolverines grabbed a 45-23 win in Columbus, their first there since 2000, to clinch a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game against Purdue. U-M captured a second straight confer- ence crown with a 43-22 win on Dec. 3, earning the No. 2 seed in the College Foot- ball Playoff after a 13-0 run to start the year. Spirits were high heading into the Fiesta Bowl against TCU, but the Horned Frogs came ready to play and got Michigan into an early hole. Self-inflicted wounds and some rotten luck led to a comeback effort that fell just short, and the season ended with a 51-45 loss in the CFP semifinal. 2022 2022 The Year In Review Success Sustained And Pushed Forward Sophomore running back Donovan Edwards (7) was named the Grange-Griffith Most Valuable Player of the Big Ten Championship Game after rushing 25 times for 185 yards and a touchdown in Michigan's 43-22 win against Purdue. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER