The defending national champions haven’t looked the part of championship contender at any point this season. Whether it’s been the new personnel breaking in, new coaches figuring things out, or the numerous quarterback and identity changes, Michigan football has been a work in progress.
Now the Wolverines are at the halfway point and have a much-needed bye week to figure things out. Coming off of a loss to unranked Washington, the maize and blue lost the game that was something of an inflection point on the season. Having already lost to Texas, Michigan couldn’t afford to lose a game before November, but the schedule is getting increasingly harder as teams like Indiana and Illinois are proving to be much better than advertised. And Oregon and Ohio State still loom large next month.
But the way that senior defensive tackle Rayshaun Benny sees it, this break comes at the perfect time as it allows the team to have something of a reset before the final six games arrive.
“It’s a fresh start. It’s a whole new part of the season to where we’re just trying to get everybody back from injuries,” Benny said. “Anybody who body was banged up, we’re trying to get everybody back on board to where it’s a whole fresh, new start of the season, to where we just roll after this.”
Injuries certainly have mounted and that’s played a role in some of the recent struggles. Even in Seattle, Michigan was without numerous starters, including left tackle Myles Hinton, center Dom Giudice, and edge rusher Derrick Moore. The week before, it was Will Johnson and Josaiah Stewart who were out. The week before, Colston Loveland was out. Jack Tuttle is only now starting because he was unhealthy leading up to this point.
Regardless, Benny is confident that a newly healthy version of these Wolverines could do some damage. After all, the talent is there, it’s just incumbent that it’s healthy and makes good on its potential through execution.
“Just knowing that, like the rest of this — not necessarily a new season, just more so that our season is not over, no matter what everybody else want to say or how they want to look at it, we know our season not over,” Benny said. “Anything can happen. We just got to keep playing good football. And then what was meant to be will be.”