The 2025 college football season is fast approaching and with it comes thoughts on how teams may or may not be. And perhaps the most prescient is that of the coaches around the conference.

Every year, Athlon Sports taps several Big Ten coaches to discuss each team within the league and gets their anonymous thoughts about each program. Though many in the media (and in Vegas) might not be particularly keen on Michigan football, coaches seem to have a different opinion.

The anonymous opinions given paint a picture quite oppositional to the narrative that’s pervaded since the Wolverines’ 8-5 2024 campaign — one where the maize and blue started by faltering before finishing strong with wins over Ohio State and Alabama. Here is what the coaches had to say about Michigan.

Michigan just reloads talent

“It’s tempting to look at these rosters after the national title and define them by what they lose to the draft every year, but we don’t do that with [Kirby] Smart or [Nick] Saban or those programs. Michigan is an elite-level recruiting program. So yeah, they lost a Mason Graham, but they’re ready to plug in that next guy. It’s not plug and play, but it’s close.”

We often hear the media discuss the defense and wonder how the Wolverines will overcome the losses of defensive tackles Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, cornerback Will Johnson, and edge rusher Josaiah Stewart. However, if you watched the spring game or have paid attention to the roster, Michigan has six deep at defensive tackle, four at edge rusher, and while cornerback doesn’t have a Johnson-caliber player, it does have four who will likely rotate at the position.

The media narrative was the same following the 2021 season after the Wolverines lost Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo. And that 2022 defense ended up being just fine. We expect the same this year.

The Wolverines were better last year than many might have thought

“They would’ve been a serious postseason contender last year if they had a quarterback on the roster. Now they do, so it’s all about how fast [Chip] Lindsey can get him up to speed and going.”

We agree with this. Michigan is all about playing complementary football, yet last year, the offense couldn’t get much of anything going. Even in games that appeared to be blowout situations in the first half (USC and Minnesota), the lack of the offense being able to sustain drives allowed opposing teams to wear down the defense to the point where the games were tight late.

This year, the defense should be elite (as it’s been for some time), and with Bryce Underwood and Chip Lindsey, the chances are pretty good that Michigan will be able to get back to complementary football. Given the schedule, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Wolverines made the 12-team field.

Michigan isn’t worried about running back?

“The focus is on [Bryce] Underwood, but it should be on finding new backs to go with him.”

This feels like a coach who hasn’t been paying attention. Michigan has two new backs to go along with Underwood in redshirt freshman Jordan Marshall and Alabama transfer Justice Haynes. The outlook for both is quite high. The Wolverines also brought in two post-spring transfers in former UMass back CJ Hester and Princeton’s John Volker. That’s in addition to redshirt freshman Micah Ka’apana, spring game standout Bryson Kuzdzal, and freshman Jasper Parker.

The Wolverines are still a run-first team and addressed the position group through both recruiting and the transfer portal. Haynes, in particular, was a former five-star who was buried behind the depth in Tuscaloosa while Marshall showed out against the Crimson Tide in the ReliaQuest Bowl. Who knows what this coach knows about the roster, apparently.

Complementary football

“They’re not going to change that [Jim] Harbaugh identity all that much, and the ground game is how they define themselves.”

Correct (to some degree), as we just went over this. However, it’s unlikely that Chip Lindsey and Bryce Underwood came to Ann Arbor for the Wolverines to hand the ball off 35-40 times a game. There will be an added focus on the downfield passing attack and while we don’t expect Underwood to break the single-season passing record of 3,331 set by John Navarre in 2003, we expect the pass game to look closer to the J.J. McCarthy years than the Cade McNamara ones.

All in all, it seems as if the surveyed coaches have a relatively good beat on the maize and blue (minus the one who doesn’t think Michigan has tailbacks), but that means that the Wolverines probably won’t take many teams on the schedule by surprise.

This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan football set for 2025 playoff run, anonymous coaches say