Michigan’s opener against Western Michigan may look like a tune-up on paper, but the way the Wolverines handle it could wind up saying plenty about where the whole season is headed.
That’s especially true this year. Bryce Underwood is stepping into the spotlight with all the baggage that comes with being a cornerstone talent, and the program around him is just as new.
With a fresh coaching staff across essentially the entire team, there’s going to be a rush to read meaning into every snap of the season’s first game. And based on recent history, that instinct isn’t overblown.
Michigan has used Week 1 to ease into the year for much of this decade, but the matchup itself still tends to reveal a lot. The 2010s brought some far tougher openers - trips to Utah and Notre Dame, plus neutral-site games against Alabama and Florida - but this one is not shaped like that.
A Germany trip had been in play at one point, though even that would have counted as relatively gentle competition. Instead, Michigan gets a buy game, which gives us a clean set of recent examples to compare.
The pattern is pretty easy to spot. In 2021, Western Michigan scored on its first possession, but Michigan answered by putting up 27 points in the first half and rolling to a 47-14 win. Western finished 76th in SP+, a respectable number for a buy-game opponent, and Jim Harbaugh went on to deliver the program’s first Big Ten championship in years.
The next year, Michigan opened against a Colorado State team that finished 126th in SP+. Cade McNamara got the first crack at the offense under Harbaugh’s creative plan and looked shaky for much of the first half, even with a 23-0 lead in hand.
J.J. McCarthy, despite not getting “his” turn, still logged meaningful work, ran for a touchdown, and led two more scoring drives.
The 51-7 finish looked like the kind of routine opener Michigan wanted, and the Wolverines backed it up by repeating as Big Ten champions after an undefeated regular season.
Then came 2023, when East Carolina entered the game 111th in the final SP+ rankings. There was no quarterback battle to sort through, and McCarthy delivered a sharp start to what became a legendary season, throwing for 280 yards and three touchdowns. That opener was predictive in another way too: Michigan looked ready even without Harbaugh on the sideline, and the rest of the year turned out just fine.
The more recent games are where the warning lights start flashing. Fresno State, which finished 85th in SP+, gave Michigan a much tighter test in 2024.
Davis Warren averaged just 4.7 yards per attempt, the Wolverines managed only 10 points across six first-half drives, and a Bulldogs touchdown with 10 minutes left turned it into a nervy 16-10 game. Warren did answer with a touchdown drive, and Will Johnson slammed the door with an 86-yard pick six against Mikey Keene lol, but the close call made sense given how the game unfolded.
Last year wasn’t quite as stressful, but it still wasn’t clean. New Mexico finished 73rd in SP+, and Michigan scored on its first two possessions, yet the Wolverines led only 17-10 late in the first half before a two-minute drill pushed the margin back to 14.
Even then, the fourth quarter began with Michigan up just 10. The 34-17 final was acceptable, but it didn’t exactly wipe away the concerns hanging over the season.
That’s the larger lesson here. Michigan’s Week 1 performance has been a pretty good indicator of what comes next, even when the Wolverines are heavy favorites.
The 2021-23 openers were the kind of businesslike wins that usually travel well through the rest of the schedule. The last two seasons have not felt that way, with only last year’s win over Central Michigan coming off as truly clean.
So yes, “it is only Week 1” and “take it one game at a time” and “they are just figuring out the new system” all sound reasonable. But they also miss the point a little.
A few mistakes won’t sink the season, and Underwood has some room to work through the opener after the standard set last week. Still, if the second half ever starts to feel shaky, history suggests that could be telling us something real about what’s coming next.
The record will show 1-0 or it won’t. The way Michigan gets there might matter even more.
In Other News...
Michigan Linebackers Are Changing The Tone Around One Big Defensive Concern
Michigans second week of fall camp has brought an encouraging twist on a position group that had been easy to question entering the season. Under first-year head coach Kyle Whittingham, the Wolverines have kept most of their key pieces in place while adding new help, and the linebacker room has started to draw notice for the right reasons. Former North Dakota State starter and team captain Nathaniel Staehling is part of that mix, giving the group another experienced name as camp gets deeper.
Defensive tackle Enow Etta has been among those seeing the progress up close, and the early read from inside the program is that the linebackers are looking more solid than the outside chatter suggested. Staehling has been one of the standouts, while Troy Bowles, Chase Taylor and Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng have also flashed in camp, giving Michigan a few more options as it sorts out who fits where before the season begins. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Just Added To An Uncomfortable In-State QB Debate
Donald Tabrons commitment to Texas A&M is another reminder of how quickly the quarterback recruiting board can change when a program goes through a coaching shift. Michigan had been involved with the highly ranked 2028 passer, but the momentum around that pursuit never really held after the change on the sidelines, and the Wolverines have since turned their attention to other options in the 2027 and 2028 classes.
For Michigan, the timing matters because quarterback is already a position with some depth on the roster, which gives the staff a little breathing room as it works through the next wave of targets. The bigger question now is how the Wolverines reshape their approach with other key 2028 recruits still on the board, especially with an in-state quarterback conversation getting more crowded in the process. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Enters Key Recruiting Battle For An Elite Two Way Wing
Michigan has jumped into the chase for Montgomery, the 6-foot-7 wing from Georgia whose offer sheet has already swollen to nearly 30 major-program schools. The scholarship from coach Mike Boynton Jr. puts the Wolverines in a crowded recruitment for a player whose profile keeps rising, especially after he helped the USA Basketball U17 National Team win gold and showed the kind of all-around game that turns heads at the highest level.
What makes Montgomery so appealing is the balance in his game. He brings scoring, playmaking and defensive ability, which is the kind of two-way foundation that can translate well in Michigan's system under Boynton. For a program looking to add length and versatility on the perimeter, his skill set makes this one worth watching closely as the battle with other top schools develops. [Read more 🡒]