I don’t defend Michigan football very often but I feel the need to here. Does Michigan underachieve? No doubt about it. No College Football Playoff appearances to date, no division titles in the Big Ten since the conference expanded in 2011 and just a 3-11 mark in their last 14 bowl appearances. That’s clearly not performing at a level that matches the hype that surrounds Michigan each and every year.
You’ve got to love the off-season. We’re in the heart of a period where anything and everything is up for debate in regards to college football and…wait, that’s exactly what college football is pretty much all the time.
Argue, debate and talk trash. College football in a nutshell right there.
Rivals put together a list of five statements in regards to college football Monday and one of them hits close to home for a Notre Dame rival as it reads:
2. Michigan is the biggest underachiever in college football.
Farrell’s take: FACT. Michigan pumps out NFL players but not division titles, not conference titles, not College Football Playoff appearances, not even bowl wins (lost 11 of its last 14 bowls). I can’t think of another program that qualifies for this title.
Gorney’s take: FACT. Not only is the biggest underachiever in college football but someone needs to start asking coach Jim Harbaugh and his staff where this program is headed. Clearly, the problem is Ohio State, which is far superior to every team in the Big Ten and only getting better. But Penn State isn’t going anywhere and the Wolverines seem stuck in neutral. That’s incredibly hard to believe since Michigan has produced 28 NFL Draft picks over the last four years.
You can read the entire “Fact or Fiction” piece here.
I don’t defend Michigan football very often but I feel the need to here. Does Michigan underachieve? No doubt about it. No College Football Playoff appearances to date, no division titles in the Big Ten since the conference expanded in 2011 and just a 3-11 mark in their last 14 bowl appearances. That’s clearly not performing at a level that matches the hype that surrounds Michigan each and every year.
I know some will throw Notre Dame in there and yes, guilty as being over-hyped frequently but certainly not always of late with a BCS Championship and College Football Playoff appearance in the last decade. There is certainly one team that I’d have above Michigan, though.
Can someone tell me what Texas A&M has really ever done?
There might not be a program in the nation that has more resources in terms of money, at least that’s what much of their base claimed when luring Jimbo Fisher there a few years back. And what do they have to show?
Nationally they haven’t claimed a national championship since before the United States entered World War II.
On the lesser scale even they haven’t won their own division in either the Big XII or SEC since winning the Big XII in 1998.
They’ve had two Heisman Trophy winners in the long history of their program and I get they have a traditional powerhouse in Texas to deal with in-state, but it’s a state that has as much football talent as any state you’ll find.
Texas A&M should be set up to be a powerhouse and knocking on the door of winning big annually. The closest they got to ever being that was the early nineties when they went 42-5-1 between 1991 and 1994 but three of those seasons ended in Cotton Bowl losses (twice to Notre Dame) and in 1994 they went 10-0-1 but NCAA sanctions prohibited them from being allowed to claim a SWC championship or accept a bowl berth.
Listen, Michigan is a pretty massive underachiever. The way you often hear Jim Harbaugh discussed you’d think he had more the track record of James Franklin at Penn State than Harbaugh’s had in Ann Arbor. He and Michigan both have been disappointing for quite some time but let’s not confuse it, they’re levels of underachievement are nothing compared to those in College Station.
