Losing and mediocrity are two words that are unacceptable at the University of Michigan in regards to its football team. The Michigan Wolverines football program has 910 all-time victories which is more than any other Football Bowl Subdivision school. The Wolverines have also laid claim to 11 national championships. From 1976-2008, Michigan enjoyed 33 consecutive trips to a bowl game. Michigan’s 20 trips to the Rose Bowl are more than other Big Ten Conference school. So the standards and expectations are high at Ann Arbor as they are a little bit different there than at other schools.
After Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr retired following the 2007 college football season and there were two failed efforts by the school to lure Les Miles away from LSU, the Wolverines have dipped into mediocrity. From 2008-2010, the Wolverines were led by head coach Rich Rodriguez. In those three seasons the Wolverines only complied six conference victories while only making one bowl game appearance as Rodriguez’s overall record with Michigan was 15-22.
Brady Hoke took over in 2011 as Michigan’s head football coach and he looked to restore the Wolverines winning ways. In Hoke’s first season with the team, Michigan went 11-2 which was highlighted by defeating rival Ohio State and a Sugar Bowl victory over Virginia Tech. In 2012, Michigan went 8-5 as they failed to get victories over big-time opponents in Alabama, Ohio State, and South Carolina.
This season Michigan started the season ranked 18th by the Associated Press. The Wolverines began the season with a record 5-0, but they struggled in games against Akron and UConn respectively. This year Michigan went 7-5 during the regular season including a 3-5 mark inside the Big Ten. In conference play Michigan lost to Michigan State, Nebraska, and Ohio State which left a bad taste in the mouths of Michigan fans and alumni alike. The Wolverines capped off an underachieving season this past Saturday in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl with a 31-14 loss to the Kansas State Wildcats which made their final record for 2013 a woeful 7-6. In the game Michigan surrendered 420 yards of total offense to Kansas State while only gaining 261 yards.
It hasn’t helped Hoke’s situation that in his three seasons in Ann Arbor that he is a combined 2-4 against Michigan State and Ohio State. Both Michigan State and Ohio State will be playing in Bowl Championship Series bowl games this week with Michigan State representing the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl as conference champions. The Big Ten incorporated a conference championship game in 2011 and Michigan has yet to make an appearance while Michigan State and Ohio State squared off their earlier this month. Heading forward with the Big Ten’s expansion to 14 schools in 2014, Michigan will now find themselves in the same division with Michigan State, Penn State, and Ohio State which will make it that much tougher to get to the Big Ten Championship Game and subsequently college football’s new four-team playoff.
According to ESPN.com, in the past two years Michigan has had top 10 recruiting classes under Hoke but it hasn’t translated to wins. In those same two seasons Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer has led his team to a record of 24-1.
When Hoke arrived at Michigan he inherited a quarterback in Denard Robinson that was better fit for Rodriguez’s spread offense. Hoke improvised and let Robinson’s athleticism take over and pushed his pro-style offense aside. With Robinson’s graduation following the 2012 season Hoke has gone with junior quarterback Devin Gardner who has been the starter since the middle of the 2012 season when Robinson was injured. Gardner made tremendous strides this season as a quarterback by passing for 2,960 yards and 20 touchdowns. In his last four games of the season Gardner had eight touchdown passes to zero interceptions, but a foot injury that was sustained in the loss to Ohio State kept him out of Michigan’s bowl game.
To his credit Hoke has done more in his first three seasons than what Rodriguez did in his three years at Michigan. Michigan has been bowl eligible in each season under Hoke. But at Michigan you are expected to contend for a national title every season while holding your own against Ohio State and dominating Michigan State who has been deemed as your little brother by some of the folks in Ann Arbor. Michigan is always expected to contend for the Big Ten Championship while regularly participating in New Year’s Day bowl games. This will mark the second time since 2010 that Michigan will finish the season not ranked in the top 25. On the brighter side the last time that Michigan State played in the Rose Bowl was 1988 and in five of the next years following that Michigan qualified for the Rose Bowl. If 2014 ends in the same fashion for Hoke and Michigan as 2013 did you can expect major changes to be made in Ann Arbor.
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