For the past three seasons, Michigan football has outperformed every other team in the nation, and there are several reasons for this. Jim Harbaugh has established himself as a top head coach and has assembled a fantastic staff, chief among them being the defensive coordinator. It was Mike McDonald for a year. Then, following McDonald’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Harbaugh made the brilliant hire of Jesse Minter.
Throw in the development of JJ McCarthy, the return of several key offensive seniors like Blake Corum, Trevor Keegan and Zak Zinter, along with plenty of key players on the defensive side of the ball and you had somewhat of a perfect Michigan storm, especially in 2023, which obviously resulted in a national title.
There’s another area, that is extremely important to overall team success, and Michigan has been dominating there as well. Sometimes it gets overlooked, but not at U-M. In fact, Michigan has done something with its special teams that no other program has done over the last three years
Even though there are a lot of touchbacks in college football these days, to not give up a kickoff return of more than 30 yards over the course of three years is incredible. As special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh says in the tweet above, it really does exemplify a tough-nosed, hard-working mentality. If you have 11-15 guys who are willing to lay it on the line for the kickoff team, that is going to trickle down. It’s how every game starts and it’s a very important, sometimes momentum shifting play, after a score. Michigan had several guys who took their duties on kickoff extremely seriously and that stat proves it.
