Michigan has chance to quiet naysayers over final stretch

And anyone else who had gone after Michigan when it was, in Winovich’s words, fighting through “an in-between year.” 

“Revenge in general,” he added later. 

More: Michigan football’s path to Big Ten title game: What has to happen

In a micro sense, this adds up. But it also works on a macro level. Michigan is, as things sit today, the favorite to get to Indianapolis. The favorite to win the Big Ten championship. And the Big Ten’s best hope to make the College Football Playoff. 

Michigan’s conference title drought is at 14 years and the Wolverines have heard about it every step of the way. Jim Harbaugh now has a chance to take wins against Michigan State and Ohio State after listening for a year about he was inept against rivals. This team has a golden opportunity over the next month to dash several narratives and walk away with hardware. 

In short, Michigan’s “revenge tour” is a great big chance to shut people up. 

Michigan players raise the Paul Bunyan Trophy after the 21-7 win over Michigan State, Saturday, Oct. 20, 2018 at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. (Photo: Kirthmon F. Dozier, Detroit Free Press)

From a national standpoint, there are few things more popular in college football than piling on the blue blood program that’s fallen on hard times. Hot seat charts and misery rankings. Nobody does Schadenfreude better than college football fans. 

And while this isn’t Tennessee or something, Michigan’s been up there with the easier targets for at least a decade. 

Rich Rodriguez arrived as an outsider and collapsed. Brady Hoke showed up as a well-liked guy and turned into an apology-issued punching bag. Harbaugh came here as a highly paid savior before seeing his picture next to Hoke’s on a low-hanging TV graphic comparing records by the end of year three. 

But it’s year four now. 

And whether he’s willing to admit it or not, this is the chance for both Harbaugh and his team to send back all the jokes and jabs and mocking sessions about whether or not this program would ever find success on a national level again. About whether or not Michigan’s internal view of its football program was dated and insane or still realistic. 

The list of doubters is long. I’ve been on it more than a few times. And it’s always been evidence-based. 

Michigan entered this season with talent and an upgrade at quarterback, but the biggest hangup, in my view, lived between the ears. It simply wasn’t sound to project this team as a Big Ten champion over the summer because we had zero proof that this group had what it took, in terms of mental toughness, to navigate this schedule without coming undone in crunch time. In recent years, we’d seen the opposite too many times. 

Gradually, though, Michigan’s put proof on paper. The Wolverines got off the mat after Notre Dame and went to work. They rolled Nebraska, came back from 17 down at Northwestern, blasted Maryland and made everything look easy against Wisconsin. Then, two weeks ago at Michigan State, Michigan dug in and put its grit on display by physically handling the Spartans in East Lansing. 

The work’s nowhere near over, of course. But Michigan’s done a lot to put itself in position.

The Wolverines are double-digit favorites this week against a Penn State team that embarrbaded U-M a year ago in Happy Valley. A game that James Franklin put up six touchdowns and try for a seventh in the final minute. 

Defensive coordinator Don Brown has thought about it every day for 12 months. 

“I think the team will be motivated to play this week,” Harbaugh said. 

After that is Rutgers, the worst team in the Big Ten. Followed by Indiana, a possible trap game but also potentially the last thing standing between Michigan and a mega road showdown at Ohio State. No one needs a reminder — or a ruler — of what happened the last time the Wolverines were in Columbus. 

“Our attitude is everybody every week,” Winovich says. “You know where to find the smoke. That’s all I’m going to say.”  

This could, of course, all go up in smoke with one stumble over the next month. Schadenfreude is always just four quarters away. Winovich and the Wolverines know this. 

They also know that, in college football, November’s about winning championships. And for the first time in a long time, Michigan’s in control of everything as the final stretch arrives. 

The prizes at stake: All the lunch money, all the smoke and championship rings. 

What more could a team want?