Notre Dame football and Michigan have gone different ways since 2019

Notre Dame football and Michigan have gone different ways since 2019

What has happened to Michigan?

On the other hand, Michigan has struggled since that game. Big losses to Ohio State and Alabama at the Citrus Bowl to end the 2019 season marred the end of their season. After the B1G 10 had some difficulty getting the season started, it began with hope for Michigan.

They dominated Minnesota, who just about everyone expected to be good this season. It has since become clear that Minnesota is not good, and neither is Michigan.

Since that win over Minnesota, Michigan has lost three straight games. Each game has been a bigger final deficit than the last. Their offense is non-existent, and their vaunted defense can’t do any of the things that it prides itself in doing.

For instance, defensive coordinator Don Brown doesn’t like to leave man coverage. That’s great when you have the athletes on the outside, but Michigan has neither recruited the players, nor developed the talent to be able to successfully play in man coverage. However, they refuse to leave it.

These are the issues that have truly plagued Michigan since Harbaugh arrived. He isn’t as good a recruiter as is perceived nationally.

In fact, Michigan’s 2018 recruiting class was only 22nd in the country. Meanwhile, their 2020 currently sits at 14th. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, except if you’re desperately trying to catch Ohio state, who is a perennial top-5 program for recruiting.

It also means that you’re taking mostly four star recruits, which is good, except for the wide range of four star recruits out there. There are borderline five stars and borderline three stars, and each of those is a wildly different player. This all means that you’re going to have to contend with the fact that you need to develop talent more than the elite teams.

Michigan hasn’t done that. Instead, they’ve tried to force these players  into their system, rather than build a system around the talent that they have. It’s essentially the opposite of what Notre Dame has done.

The Irish typically recruit at a similar level to Michigan, some years even a little behind Michigan. The difference has been that Kelly has adjusted to his talent better than Harbaugh.

Really, when you look at the two program’s since that meeting, it seems like 45-14 was a fluke. Maybe so, but it was the smack in the face Notre Dame needed. They’ve certainly woken up since that game as a program, now pushing for an opportunity to make the College Football Playoff.