The national media is beginning to reveal their post-spring top 25 rankings for college football and different people are placing Michigan football in different tiers heading into 2024. Recently, ESPN placed the Wolverines at No. 13 coming off of a national championship.
Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt is a little higher on the Wolverines than ESPN — and others. Klatt revealed his post-spring top 25 college football rankings on his podcast. Klatt’s top five consist of Ohio State, Georgia, Texas, Oregon, and Ole Miss.
Klatt has Michigan at No. 8 in his post-spring top-25.
“Michigan is No. 8 and they get the benefit of the doubt over Penn State,” said Klatt — who has PSU at No. 9 — on his podcast. “They have handled Penn State physically over the last couple of years. The defense is going to be incredibly good again. They are so good up front. It’s the best defensive tackle core in America. Mason Graham, and Kenneth Grant, they have good players on the outside. Will Johnson is probably the best corner in the country — arguably. That defense is going to be stout, no doubt.”
While Klatt mentions the Wolverines are going to look different offensively as players are concerned, he noted Michigan doesn’t look all that different schematically. Sherrone Moore has promoted from within offensively and it’s business like usual in Ann Arbor.
“They got Donovan Edwards back at running back,” stated Klatt. “They’ve got to figure out what’s going on at quarterback. But let’s remember, and I said this a bunch when I talked about Michigan after their spring game, it doesn’t feel all that different. Everything is the same, yet everybody is different. I get it. New head coach, new coordinator, new strength coach, new quarterback, all these things, and yet it’s business like usual because all of those people were promoted within and running the same system. So if you’re a player at Michigan, you’re speaking the same language, you’re doing the same things, your structure is the same, and the standard is the same. Nothing has changed for the players, and us on the outside, we look in and say everything is different…”
While Klatt isn’t all that concerned about the Wolverines schematically, he does express concern about Michigan’s schedule in 2024. He believes the Wolverines have one of the toughest schedules in all of football.
“That schedule I’ve mentioned a couple of times doesn’t do them any favors — no doubt. They’ve got Texas in Week 2, USC in Week 4, then they got to travel in a national championship game rematch against Washington in October. They’ve got Oregon in November in the Big House, and then they got to face Ohio State in the ‘Shoe to finish the year. That’s ridiculously difficult. The only [schedule] that might be more difficult is OU (Oklahoma). So Michigan has a lot to prove. Is it going to be Alex Orji, Davis Warren, maybe Jack Tuttle at quarterback? They are going to have to figure that out as they move forward.”
