ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Michigan football will play one of the most difficult schedules in the nation in 2024, but that won’t necessarily be bad for the team’s playoff hopes.
On Thursday, June 8, the Big Ten announced each team’s conference opponents for the 2024 and 2025 seasons. Divisions will be dissolved as the Big Ten adds UCLA and USC to increase to 16 members.
As expected, Ohio State and Michigan State are protected yearly rivals for the Wolverines. But now we know Michigan will also host Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland, and UCLA, while visiting USC, Illinois, and Rutgers.
It doesn’t get much tougher than road trips to Ohio State and USC, but Michigan also has an amazing home schedule, with Texas, Michigan State, Wisconsin, and UCLA all visiting Ann Arbor.
Fresno State and Arkansas State are much stronger Group of Five programs than Michigan has played recently, and that trip to Illinois won’t be a walk in the park, either. Overall, the 2024 schedule will be the most difficult Michigan has played since at least 2019.
That might alarm fans who are programmed for the current College Football Playoff landscape. No two-loss team has ever made the playoff, and the prospect of trying to go 11-1 through that gauntlet seems unlikely. Michigan has been to the playoff two years in a row, so missing out on the first 12-team edition would feel like a disappointment.
But college football is going to completely change after this season.
Starting in 2024, teams won’t need to avoid multiple losses if they want to compete for a national championship. The playoff is expanding to 12 teams, which means in addition to the six highest-ranked conference champions, six at-large bids will be handed out.
If Michigan can go 10-2 against that 2024 schedule, a playoff berth would be guaranteed. Even 9-3 might be good enough, depending on what else happens around the country.
History of 3-loss teams in CFP poll
You probably haven’t paid much attention to three-loss teams during the College Football Playoff era, because they’re never relevant by the time the final rankings roll around.
But if the playoff had always been 12 teams, the perception of those 9-3 seasons would change drastically.
Since the four-team playoff model was adopted in 2014, there have been a whopping 22 three-loss teams ranked in the top 12 of the final CFP poll -- an average of 2.4 per season.
Here’s the full list:
- 2014: Ole Miss, Arizona State, Kansas State, Georgia Tech
- 2015: Ole Miss
- 2016: Wisconsin, USC, Colorado, Florida State, Oklahoma State
- 2017: Auburn
- 2018: Washington, Florida, LSU, Penn State
- 2019: Wisconsin, Auburn
- 2020: Florida, Iowa State
- 2021: Utah
- 2022: Utah, Kansas State
It’s worth mentioning that this list includes conference championship games, and if Michigan finished 9-3 next season, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t even make the Big Ten title.
So, let’s revise our list to include only teams that didn’t play in conference title games (in other words, they finished the regular season exactly 9-3):
- 2014: Ole Miss, Kansas State
- 2015: Ole Miss
- 2016: USC, Florida State, Oklahoma State
- 2017: NONE
- 2018: Florida, LSU, Penn State
- 2019: Auburn
- 2020: Florida, Iowa State (both 8-3 due to shortened COVID schedules)
- 2021: NONE
- 2022: NONE
Getting into a hypothetical 12-team playoff at 9-3 would have been no guarantee, but it still would have happened in six of nine seasons.
Here’s another complication: What if the Group of Five champion isn’t ranked in the top 12?
Under the new playoff format, six conference champions are guaranteed spots in the field, which will likely almost always include the champions from the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, Pac-12, and ACC. So if that sixth conference champ isn’t ranked in the top 12, that means teams would have to be in the top 11 to receive an at-large bid.
In the playoff era, only five teams outside Power Five conferences have finished in the top 12 of the final poll: UCF in 2017 (No. 12) and 2018 (No. 8), Cincinnati in 2020 (No. 8) and 2021 (No. 4), and Coastal Carolina in 2020 (No. 12).
That means in the at-large picture, the cutoff point is much more likely to be the top 11 of the CFP poll.
Here are the 9-3 teams that have been ranked in the top 11 of the final CFP poll during the playoff era:
- 2014: Ole Miss, Kansas State
- 2015: NONE
- 2016: USC, Florida State
- 2017: NONE
- 2018: Florida, LSU
- 2019: NONE
- 2020: Florida, Iowa State (both 8-3 due to shortened COVID schedules)
- 2021: NONE
- 2022: NONE
So, in four of nine seasons, multiple three-loss teams would have made a 12-team playoff. But in the other five seasons, that wouldn’t have been good enough for any to get in.
What if a highly ranked Power Five team gets upset by a team outside the 12 top in a conference championship game? For example, if Purdue had beaten Michigan in last year’s Big Ten title game, it would have stolen a bid from an at-large hopeful (though the elimination of divisions will make this far less common).
Michigan is going to have a lot working in its favor in 2024 -- brand recognition, schedule strength, a high-profile non-conference game, and recent playoff participation -- but losing three games would make the picture very dicey.
That’s the great thing about the improved playoff format: Instead of teams being eliminated from contention by the end of September, the race to remain in the top 12 will extend well into November. With the current trajectory of the Michigan football program, a difficult schedule should only help.
