Coming off a national championship, most expected Michigan to take a step back as a program after all the turnover last season.

However, the way the Wolverines went from winning college football’s biggest prize to just fighting tooth and nail for bowl eligibility was disappointing to say the least.

In a recent episode of his podcast, Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt dished on what he perceives to be the biggest disappointment in Michigan’s season, as well as two things that should motivate this program to close out the year.

“I don’t think a loss against Oregon is actually the disappointing part of Michigan’s season. A loss against Texas is actually not the disappointing part of Michigan’s season. The disappointing part of the season is the losses against Washington and Illinois,” Klatt said. . “The fans will be more upset about this.

“This team was never going to have a huge margin for error, so they had to play cleanly in their games against the teams they were supposed to beat and were going to have close games. No turnovers, play well defensively, take no penalties, win the battle for position on the field, and when they didn’t they were easily outplayed.”

In a sobering reminder, Klatt noted that Michigan is just 3-4 against Power 4 competition this season. These three wins were achieved by an average of 4.3 points per game, while the losses were achieved by an average of 16 points per game. This is indicative of a team and program that is nowhere close to competing for something meaningful.

“Remember, a few of these wins could have easily been losses for Michigan,” Klatt said. “I think of USC, Minnesota. Now you look up and lose to Oregon and it doesn’t seem like that was the game I was disappointed in. The others were.”

From Klatt’s perspective, there’s still one in-season goal that could motivate the current Michigan team and another that could motivate the 2025 practice squad.

“For Michigan fans, the season comes down to two things,” Klatt said. “Depending on what happens in the Ohio State-Indiana game, you could probably ruin Ohio State’s chances of winning the Big Ten title, but that will always be motivation for Michigan as it tries to get its fourth straight win against the Buckeyes.

“The next motivation is that you have to turn over the squad. I know it’s not a motivation for the dressing room, but it has to be for the coaching staff. Because the coaching staff will go there and they’ll have to identify the players they need to keep in their own squad, then they’ll have to identify the players in other squads they need to keep and then “They will have to identify the players they have, they have to do all of that to get.”

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