Some games are easier than others, and likewise, some provide more difficulty. And it’s not always due to name recognition.
There are some teams you can expect to be battles any given year — Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State — while others return a bit of production, which gives them more than a fighting chance. Michigan football enters the 2023 season as back-to-back Big Ten Champions, but that just means the target on the back is getting bigger.
The Wolverines do have the most returning production of any Big Ten team with 81% (as of Feb. 2023’s ranking — so there are some losses via the transfer portal since then) with J.J. McCarthy, Blake Corum, Donovan Edwards, Will Johnson, Cornelius Johnson, Roman Wilson, Kris Jenkins, Trevor Keegan, Zak Zinter, Junior Colson, and Rod Moore among the headliners. Taking a look at the schedule in terms of difficulty, we weighed returning production, whether the game is home or away, and last year’s record to figure out which teams will be the easiest to go against, and which games will be the hardest.