What 247Sports sees as Michigan football biggest strength in 2023
Michigan football should be among the top, top-tier of programs in college football entering the 2023 season.
Returning the fifth-most production of all teams in college football, the Wolverines enter the season coming off of back-to-back Big Ten Championships, seeking more than an early semifinal exit.
While all eyes are on some of the skill positions — particularly at running back and quarterback — 247Sports believes that the maize and blue will thrive most where it has in recent years — in the trenches.
Michigan boasted the best offensive line in college football during the 2021 season, it repeated as the Joe Moore Award winner in 2022, and it now enters 2023 with arguably the most prolific group in the sport yet again. The Wolverines paired their returning stars — highlighted by right guard Zak Zinter — with a duo of Pac-12 standouts from the transfer portal, bolstering a group that will pave the way for an electric rushing attack. The offensive line dominance is well-documented, but Michigan is also quietly coming off a strong year on the other side of the ball as it finished seventh nationally in rushing yards allowed per game and saw a majority of its 37 sacks come from the defensive line.
Oddly, despite losing a Rimington Trophy winner in Olu Oluwatimi and a multi-year starter at left tackle in Ryan Hayes, there is the possibility that the Wolverines are even better on the offensive line than they have been each of the last two years. With incoming transfers LaDarius Henderson, Drake Nugent, and Myles Hinton competing with some of the extant talent, the maize and blue have, at the very least, a two-deep that could rival most programs’ first-teams.
The schedule helps, as Michigan likely won’t see a strong opposing line until Week 6 at Minnesota and then not again until playing at Penn State in Week 11.
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