Two weeks from today, Ohio State week will be here and Michigan will know exactly what’s at stake.
Wins the next two Saturdays against Northwestern and Maryland will put the Wolverines in position to make the College Football Playoff if they can beat the Buckeyes. That’s a big if, based on the tone of the questions in this week’s mailbag.
Let’s see what’s on your mind.
Note: Submitted questions edited lightly for length and clarity.
Is Sherrone Moore the right coach to lead Michigan football back to the top? My gut feeling is that UM will always be a 9-3 type of team under him, perpetually ranked in the 20s. Does he get a free pass because he — so far — has beaten Ohio State? — Bruce G.
Is Sherrone Moore just Lloyd Carr with better style and sound bites? — Paul J.
Paul might be overrating Moore’s sound bites and underrating Carr’s coaching. (I’m not qualified to assess style.) Michigan went 12-0 and won the national championship in Carr’s third season. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that won’t happen for Moore next year. If Moore coaches 13 years at Michigan and averages 9.4 wins per year, as Carr did, we’ll look back on his tenure as a huge success.
To Bruce’s question, the odds favor “no” for any coach getting his team to the top, if we define the top as winning a national championship. Now, if we’re talking about winning the Big Ten once in a while and getting to the CFP on a regular basis, that’s more reasonable. The jury is still out on whether Moore can do that. I haven’t seen the consistency from Moore’s teams to feel strongly that it’s going to happen. But we have to acknowledge that he’s on track to go from 8-5 in Year 1 to 9-3 or better in Year 2 with one of the youngest teams in the Big Ten. It hasn’t always been pretty this year, but the trend line is pointing up.
Michigan’s 7-2 record looks pretty good compared with some of the tire fires happening around college football. Now consider that Michigan is set to play eight home games next year, presumably with Bryce Underwood as a second-year starter. As long as the Wolverines keep beating the teams they’re supposed to beat, the pressure on Moore will be manageable.
The main reason Moore won’t replicate Carr’s run is that it’s really hard to sustain nine wins a year in this era of college football. The sport has gotten too volatile. You can’t just recruit and develop and count on being pretty good every year — unless you’re Kirk Ferentz, apparently. The incentive is to go for it all. Either it works and everybody’s happy, or the bottom falls out and the school is starting over with a new coach. I can’t say which path is more likely at Michigan, but if the Ohio State game goes the way many people expect, Moore will head into 2026 without a big safety net.
Arch Manning, CJ Carr and Underwood are all highly touted first-year starting QBs. Is it fair to say Underwood is developing at a slower rate? Maybe it’s the coaching, but I do not sense he is on the same level as the other two. — Kevin B.
What has been most notable about Bryce Underwood’s regression since the Washington game? In your opinion, are fans over, under or properly reacting to his play thus far given the expectations of the 18-year-old freshman quarterback? — Kenneth R.
There’s a big difference between a third-year college quarterback and a freshman. Comparing Underwood to Manning — or even Carr, a redshirt freshman — isn’t really fair. The relevant comparison is with Cal’s Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, BYU’s Bear Bachmeier and Maryland’s Malik Washington, other starting QBs from the Class of 2025.
Here are their stat lines:
Underwood: 134-for-220 (60.9 percent), 1,671 yards, 7.6 YPA, 7 TD, 3 INT
Sagapolutele: 224-for-364 (61.5 percent), 2,518 yards, 6.9 YPA, 13 TD, 9 INT
Bachmeier: 149-for-239 (62.3 percent), 1,881 yards, 7.9 YPA, 12 TD, 4 INT
Washington: 191-for-327 (58.4 percent), 2,056 yards, 6.3 YPA, 13 TD, 6 INT
Bachmeier has been the most efficient of the freshman quarterbacks, but the numbers are similar across the board. You also have to factor in Michigan’s offense, which isn’t conducive to big passing stats. Chip Lindsey has opened things up a bit, but the past two games have resembled Michigan offenses of old: Run, run, run, with the occasional pass mixed in.
Overall, Underwood has played about as I expected. When someone asked this question before the season, I said a reasonable expectation was 2,200 yards through the air, 15 touchdowns and 10 or fewer interceptions. He’s thrown fewer touchdowns than I expected, but the TD-to-INT ratio is better. If he falls short of 2,200 yards, it shouldn’t be by much. Anyone who expected a lot more from Underwood may have been underestimating the difficulty of starting as a freshman.
It does appear that Underwood has plateaued a bit, and that’s the part that has some Michigan fans worried. We’ll see if this week off was what he needed to iron out some of the issues that surfaced against Michigan State and Purdue.
Bryce Underwood ranks 10th in the Big Ten in pass efficiency rating. (Raj Mehta / Getty Images)
Is Wink Martindale a downgrade from his two predecessors? — Kevin B.
Yeah, but that was likely to be true of anyone Michigan hired as its defensive coordinator. Mike Macdonald is the head coach of one of the NFL’s breakout teams, and Jesse Minter is one of the league’s up-and-coming defensive coordinators. You can’t expect star DCs to fall off of the Ravens coaching tree every single year.
Michigan overpaid for Martindale, who’s earning $2.5 million this year, but I understand why. Moore is a first-time head coach and needed someone he could trust to run the defense. While Martindale’s defense has been frustrating at times, it’s been Michigan’s best unit the past two seasons. Moore’s side of the ball has been the much bigger issue.
I expect Martindale to return to the NFL when he gets the chance, possibly as soon as this offseason. He runs an NFL-style defense that works best when it’s executed by NFL players. It’s no coincidence that when Martindale has had NFL Draft picks like Mason Graham, Kenneth Grant and Derrick Moore, they have performed well. Getting the entire defense to execute what Martindale wants to run has been the biggest challenge.
Stinkers like the USC game are the difference between an elite defense and one that’s merely pretty good. That’s where Michigan is right now. But Martindale is 1-0 against Ryan Day, and if he figures out a way to shut down Ohio State again, he’ll have earned every penny of his big contract.
I know it’s game one and Michigan scored 121 points, but are we just a little worried about the basketball team’s defense? Seems like Oakland was able to penetrate and get a piece of the paint. — Douglas M.
I’m going to hold off on fretting about Michigan’s defense until someone holds the Wolverines to fewer than 90 points. More possessions means more baskets, and Michigan fans will have to get used to some high-scoring games if the Wolverines continue playing at this pace. I’m sure this won’t be the case all season: Big Ten teams are going to try to muck things up and get the Wolverines in a halfcourt game, much as they did last year. Then we’ll see if Michigan can buckle down and defend at the level that’s needed to win a Big Ten championship.
With all the switching Michigan likes to do, it often takes a little while for the defense to click. That end of the floor might be a work in progress early in the season, but in the meantime, sit back and enjoy what should be one of college basketball’s most entertaining offenses.
Trey McKenney put on a dazzling show against Oakland. L.J. Cason seems to have the most pure talent among the PGs on the roster. Will they be the starting guards by the new year? — John K.
I’m not sure about that. One of my takeaways from the opener was how well Elliot Cadeau seems to be adjusting to his role. Cadeau had 12 assists, one off of his season-high last year at North Carolina, and only one turnover. Michigan doesn’t need him to be a primary scorer. His job is to create opportunities in transition, knock down shots when he’s open and facilitate for Aday Mara, Morez Johnson and Yaxel Lendeborg.
Assuming Cadeau is the primary facilitator, Michigan will need shooters on the floor. McKenney, a five-star freshman from Flint, showed he’s capable of that by knocking down six 3-pointers against Oakland. If McKenney keeps doing that, he’s going to make it hard for Michigan’s coaches to keep him off the floor, even when Cason returns from the minor injury that kept him out of Michigan’s opener.
What’s more likely to happen, Michigan men’s basketball winning the natty or Michigan football beating Ohio State and making the College Football Playoff? — Alex S.
We’re talking about the odds of one thing happening versus the odds of many, many things happening. That one thing has also happened four years in a row. While I’m not giving Michigan great odds of beating Ohio State this year, I’ll take my chances with Michigan winning one game at home against the Buckeyes versus six games in the NCAA Tournament.
That being said, the percentages are a lot closer than they’ve been in the past. If we set the bar at a Big Ten championship instead of a national championship, I might go with the basketball team. I certainly wouldn’t be shocked to see Dusty May’s squad in the Final Four, and I’d be pretty surprised if Michigan’s winning streak against the Buckeyes extends beyond Nov. 29. If the football season ends on a down note, at least Michigan fans will have something to look forward to.