As fireworks cracked above Memorial Stadium and towel-waving fans celebrated Indiana’s first 10-0 start, Michigan players and coaches quietly funneled into their tunnel below.
Despite superb defense in the second half, Michigan fell 20-15 to the Hoosiers on Nov. 9. The only surprise was that the winningest program in FBS history — and defending national champion — had not lost to the losingest program by more, since Indiana entered as a two-touchdown favorite. After Michigan’s fifth defeat, more than its three previous seasons combined, the team entered its second open week with questions swirling — about its quarterback situation, about coach Sherrone Moore’s game management and overall readiness for the job, about the team’s 2025 roster and about the program’s overall outlook, just 10 months after it reached the peak of the sport.
When the team buses left Bloomington that night, few could have envisioned the mood swing for Michigan by the end of the month. The two factors that typically shape sentiment around college football programs, on-field performance and recruiting, both saw significant spikes during a late fall stretch that won’t soon be forgotten in Ann Arbor.
After Michigan recorded its first 50-point game of the season against Northwestern, the team followed with one of its most stunning and heartening wins against Ohio State, in a game in which the Wolverines came in as three-touchdown underdogs. The victory marked Michigan’s fourth straight against the Buckeyes, continuing a stretch that began under Jim Harbaugh and has continued under Moore, the team’s 38-year-old, first-time head coach.
The on-field success came on the heels of Michigan’s biggest recruiting win in recent memory. Quarterback Bryce Underwood, the nation’s No. 1 recruit and a product of Belleville, Michigan, less than 20 miles from Michigan Stadium, flipped his commitment from LSU to the Wolverines. A Michigan team with one of the nation’s shakiest quarterback situations in 2024 suddenly had its QB for the future. Underwood’s pledge set off others, as Michigan added linebacker Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng, defensive lineman Nathaniel Marshall and safety Jordan Young — all ranked among ESPN’s top 110 recruits — before signing day in December. A recruiting class rated 14th nationally at the end of October rose to No. 6 in ESPN’s rankings.
Michigan has followed its recruiting momentum with a solid transfer portal haul, which includes quarterback Mikey Keene, who brings starting experience from both Fresno State and UCF, as well as Arkansas safety TJ Metcalf and Alabama defensive lineman Damon Payne Jr., a former ESPN top-30 recruit also from Belleville.
“There’s a lot of excitement, as there should be, about the way the team finished, and there’s a lot of excitement based on the recruiting class that we have coming in, in the things that we’re doing to move the program forward and get back to winning championships and competing in the playoffs,” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel told ESPN. “I’m extremely proud of Sherrone and his leadership, and our student-athletes stuck together. I never felt that this team gave up.
“If people have seen what has happened in the last month or so, it’s clear that we’re going in the right direction.”
Michigan will wrap up its season Tuesday against No. 11 Alabama at the ReliaQuest Bowl (noon ET, ESPN), a rematch of last season’s College Football Playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl. Although the Wolverines had higher aspirations for 2024, they end the year feeling as if they’re not as far away from the place where they began it.
Here’s how a Michigan team most had written off never splintered on the field, executed a personnel strategy months in the making and dramatically changed the vibes in Ann Arbor.
MICHIGAN FACED A choice when it returned from Indiana. The team could pack it in for 2024, especially high-level NFL draft prospects such as defensive linemen Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, and tight end Colston Loveland. Michigan’s CFP hopes were long gone, and other than bowl eligibility and beating its rival, the Wolverines had few incentives left.
“Everybody realized losing ain’t fun and most of the guys that have been there, the truth is we’re not really used to losing,” tight end Marlin Klein said. “[Indiana] was a final punch in the mouth, and from then on, we knew we’re going to have to work our butts off if we want to win those next couple games.”
After a slow start against Northwestern, Michigan went up 17-6 on a Loveland touchdown with eight seconds left in the first half, and didn’t look back in a 50-6 win. Michigan scored on all five of its second-half possessions, while tacking on a safety, to post its highest scoring total of the season by 20 points. With the win, the Wolverines had avoided the embarrassment of missing a bowl game after a national championship, but their regular season seemed headed for a painful ending. Ohio State was frothing at the chance to beat Michigan for the first time since 2019. The Buckeyes had a far better roster and were playing at home, where they hadn’t lost since the 2022 Michigan game and had won their first seven games this fall by an average of 33.9 points.
Manual said “99.99 percent of the people, the super majority, thought there was no way we were going to win.”
Klein sensed the pessimism on campus before the Ohio State game. Classmates would anxiously ask him how the team was looking, while “not sounding confident,” he said.
When the signal-stealing scandal surfaced midway through the 2023 season, the Wolverines adopted the motto “Michigan vs. Everybody,” putting it on apparel worn by players and coaches during the stretch run. But before taking the field in Columbus, the belief had reached a fever pitch.
“It was our backs against the wall, the whole stadium is against us,” edge rusher TJ Guy said. “We fueled off that, for real. We quieted the crowd, and it was fun to do.”
Led by Graham and Grant, Michigan throttled the powerful Buckeyes offense, limiting Ohio State to 10 points, 27.8 below its average, and 77 rushing yards, 100 below its average. Michigan twice intercepted Will Howard and held a decisive edge in special teams. Despite only 62 passing yards, the Wolverines got enough from Kalel Mullings and the run game to outlast Ohio State 13-10.
“We won a game against Ohio State, we beat our rival, but in many respects, this team showed, ‘Don’t doubt Michigan, don’t don’t put us down and say we’re there’s no way we’re going to be able to win something,'” Manuel said. “The national championship last year, you have a level of happiness that you know only one team can feel. But this game and this rivalry, for me, it was just different, not only because we beat them, but we beat everybody who doubted us.
“That elevates it in my mind as the most special game I’ve been a part of.”
Even amid the euphoria of the Ohio State win and a late-season surge, the players set to return in 2025 tracked Underwood’s recruitment and those of other prospects Michigan had targeted.
“I was definitely following and aware,” Guy said. “It was definitely a huge bonus to our team. We definitely got better, signing [Underwood] and this whole class.”
DURING THE SUMMER, Nate Forbes, a founding member and current chairman of Champions Circle, Michigan’s collective, went to Ann Arbor to meet with Moore. Forbes, a 1985 Michigan alum, is a longtime donor to Michigan athletics and a former minority owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers.
He had a question for Moore.
“I said, ‘Tell me how we didn’t get Bryce Underwood.'” Forbes said of Underwood, who committed to LSU in January, days before Michigan played for the national championship.
Forbes came away from the meeting determined to act. He called Jared Wangler, co-founder of Champions Circle and a former Michigan fullback. After those conversations, Michigan’s program and those associated recommitted their efforts to have the nation’s No. 1 prospect stay home.
“The best talent in Michigan should be playing at Michigan,'” Forbes said.
The Wolverines had won it all with a different type of roster than other recent champions. Michigan’s recruiting classes from 2019 to 2022 had several elite prospects, including 2021 quarterback J.J. McCarthy, but weren’t filled with top 100 players. Many of Michigan’s main contributors on the 2023 team were developmental players with strong connections to the program and school. Michigan also had taken a more methodical approach toward NIL, providing strong deals for established players and transfers but not shelling out money for high school recruits, whom Harbaugh wanted to prove themselves after they got to campus.
Michigan’s 2023 roster cost about $8.5 million — $4.6 million from booster funding and $4 million from NIL commercial opportunities — believed to beless than the other teams in the CFP and Ohio State. But the Wolverines’ championship run coincided with the swarm of attention around NCAA signal-stealing investigation, as well as uncertainty about Harbaugh’s future because of NFL interest. Even though McCarthy’s NFL draft stock rose, Michigan didn’t add a quarterback last winter, and brought in only two transfers in the initial window. The Wolverines’ recruiting class finished 16th in ESPN’s rankings.
“Uncertainty around the program on the future of the head coach left us in a state of limbo — unable to present a clear vision to current players, high school recruits or portal players,” Forbes told ESPN. “It felt like we were frozen at a critical moment.”
In late January, Michigan completed its coaching change from Harbaugh to Moore. Six weeks later, the team brought back Sean Magee, who had served as associate athletic director for football under Harbaugh, as its general manager. Michigan picked up a few spring transfers, including kicker Dominic Zvada from Arkansas State, but Moore’s first team would look dramatically different after a team-record 13 players were selected in the NFL draft and others found their way to pro rosters.
Moore and Magee began crafting their personnel strategy, which sources said more closely resembled NFL boards, with players slotted according to position and priority, with the corresponding financial commitments. Michigan picked up several key recruits in June, including Kainoa Winston, ESPN’s No. 5 safety and No. 51 overall prospect. More notable commits followed in the preseason, including wide receiver Andrew Marsh, and during the fall, including offensive tackle Andrew Babalola, ESPN’s No. 27 overall prospect.
But the quarterback question loomed, especially as Michigan tumbled to 129th nationally in pass offense this season while using three different starters. Michigan needed a player to build the next chapter of its program around.
MICHIGAN LAUNCHED ITS renewed pursuit of Underwood in the fall. The team wasn’t just chasing a generational quarterback recruit who lived minutes from its campus, but, to keep pace with the college football personnel landscape, also began allocating NIL resources toward top high school prospects. In February, a federal judge in Tennessee granted an injunction prohibiting the NCAA from punishing any athletes or boosters for negotiating NIL deals during the recruiting process, which sources said was an inflection point for Michigan’s NIL arm to become more aggressive.
Michigan was building its future roster, with or without Underwood, but the pull of the nation’s top recruit for a program that hadn’t landed the No. 1 prospect since Rashan Gary in 2016 would be powerful. On Oct. 30, Carter Smith, a four-star quarterback recruit from Florida, decommitted from Michigan, seemingly clearing a path for Underwood.
But in mid-November, Underwood reaffirmed his pledge to LSU. A week later, though, he changed his mind, flipping to Michigan after spending time around the program. Michigan approached Underwood with a comprehensive package, which included business development and extended opportunities and mentorship, and attempted to make the decision about more than just a financial transaction, Forbes said.
“I had the understanding of what Sherrone and his staff were doing in recruiting, I was very pleased before Bryce signed with us,” Manuel said. “But after Bryce signed, it obviously kicked it up to a whole other level. Those kinds of things do give you a boost.”
The news quickly reached Michigan players set to be directly affected by his arrival.
“It was super exciting, being able to be future teammates with a guy who’s the No. 1 recruit in the country, hometown hero, that’s awesome,” Klein said. “Obviously, if he ends up being the starting quarterback for my final year, I’ll do whatever it takes to help him out and hopefully get as many wins for this university together as we can.”
Underwood’s decision on Nov. 21 set off a mini flurry of others ahead of signing day. Young, ESPN’s No. 107 recruit, committed Dec. 1 and two top-100 recruits, Marshall and Owusu-Boateng, soon followed.
Michigan finished with seven recruits ranked in the top 85 nationally, matching the total from its previous five classes. Starting with Young, four players committed to Michigan between the Ohio State win and the conclusion of the signing period.
“Coming off of that game, there was such a level of euphoria, and [the win] did help a couple guys that were on the fence and a couple guys that had turned us down,” Forbes said.
Young told ESPN’s Eli Lederman that Michigan didn’t change its recruiting pitch, even after he committed to Clemson in early November. Michigan “didn’t fake anything,” Young said. His decision to sign was most affected by a chance to join his good friend Elijah Dotson, a four-star athlete and a high school teammate of Underwood’s, who committed the day before Underwood did.
But other factors also contributed.
“They started heating up on the recruiting trail, getting all these guys that they wanted,” Young told Lederman. “They kind of started to heat up on the field, too. And then a few weeks later, they beat Ohio State. Everything just felt like it was coming together. Michigan felt like it was on the come up. And they don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.”
Michigan fittingly will play on the final day of 2024, a year filled with change for the program. The Wolverines are once again significant underdogs, especially after a sizable opt-out list that includes Graham, Grant, Loveland and Mullings.
A win over Alabama would cap an incredible stretch, but even a loss wouldn’t impact the mood about Michigan’s future.
“Obviously, the win over Ohio State, and getting all these big-time recruits, it’s just a lot of momentum in the building,” Guy said. “We’re looking to carry it into this game and then winter lifting, spring ball and on to next year. So yeah, a real sense of momentum going on right now.”
ESPN’s Eli Lederman contributed to this report.
