Michigan football: Ranking the 5 best wins from the 2022 season

Michigan football finished the 2022 season 13-1 in 2022 and won another Big Ten Championship, earning its way back to the College Football Playoff. The season ended on a bitter note with a loss to TCU in the Fiesta Bowl, but the season still goes down as one of the most accomplished in program history.

Michigan had never won 13 games in a season before, so the bar was raised even higher for a program on a two-decade high point. The Wolverines skated through the regular season undefeated and found a way to best a 2021 campaign that felt like a storybook. Despite the missed opportunity in the playoff, this one will be a year to remember for a long time.

Here are the top 5 moments from the season and some honorable mentions from the rest of the schedule.

1. Beating Ohio State

There are bigger trophies in play during the course of a college football season, but few of them taste as sweet as a win in Columbus did for the Wolverines. Michigan football had not won at Ohio Stadium since 2000, which was also the last time it won consecutive games in the series. While it was not quite the wire-to-wire domination that the 2021 edition of The Game brought when the clocks hit zero Michigan emerged as a 45-23 winner. Making their rival quit in their own building is as good as any championship in the eyes of most fans.

2. Another Big Ten championship

There is still a premium put on conference hardware, especially when Michigan had not won any since 2004 prior to the 2021 season. Michigan did not play its best game against Purdue in Indianapolis on Dec. 3 but eventually walked out with a 43-22 victory over the Boilermakers. It felt more like a pit stop as opposed to the crowning achievement that last year’s title did. That said, the confetti falling onto the heads of Michigan players who had worked so hard to get back is still an enduring moment.

3. Penn State domination

Michigan had not played anyone all season, right? It racked up its rushing totals against inferior opponents and skated through the first 6 games of the schedule, didn’t it?

Wrong. Emphatically so.

The scribes and the pundits predicted that Penn State would be able to stop the run in a top-10 matchup in Ann Arbor on Oct. 15. What followed was one of U-M’s most explosive offensive performances of the season, rushing for 418 yards in a 41-17 dismantling of the Nittany Lions. Donovan Edwards led the way with 173 yards and 2 touchdowns, while Blake Corum had 166 yards and 2 touchdowns of his own.

4. Beating Iowa at Kinnick Stadium

There’s something about being able to move the football at Kinnick Stadium that feels so satisfying. The aforementioned concerns about Michigan’s schedule materialized into a prove-it game in one of the toughest venues in the Big Ten. The Wolverines put together an 11-play, 75-yard drive on their first possession of the game to quiet a raucous Kinnick crowd and paced an eventual 27-14 win over the Hawkeyes.

At the time, Michigan’s 27 points scored were the most Iowa has allowed in the regular season since a 27-7 loss at Wisconsin last year and most at Kinnick Stadium since a 28-17 loss to Wisconsin in 2018.

5. Surviving Illinois

This was by no means a fun game. It was basically a 3.5-hour root canal with an undefeated season on the line. Michigan lost Corum in the first half to a knee injury that cost him the rest of the season. The Wolverines’ intestinal fortitude was put to the test in this game, and it took a game-winning field goal from Jake Moody to keep the undefeated season going in a 19-17 victory.

Michigan football’s honorable mention moments

vs. Colorado State: J.J. McCarthy’s 20-yard touchdown run in the thrid quarter was essentially where he became U-M’s new starting quarterback. He was always going to get the Week 2 start, but it made his eventual QB1 status feel like more of a formality than anything.

vs. Hawai’i: Once again, the McCarthy show stood out. Fans waited through a rain delay to see his first career showing. He went 11-for-12 for 229 yards and 3 touchdowns.

vs. UConn: The 59-0 win led to the wildest box score screenshot of the season.

vs. Maryland: Corum’s best outing of the season with a 243-yard, 2-touchdown showing in the Big Ten opener.

at Indiana: Another Corum highlight, turning something out of nothing at midfield on the game’s first drive, was the defining moment. Followed by victory after running backs coach Mike Hart collapsed on the field.

vs. Michigan State: Michigan was able to take the rivalry back in a 29-7 victory and ended all hopes for a salvageable season for Mel Tucker and the Spartans. It was ruined by a violent scene from MSU players on Wolverines in the tunnel after the game.

at Rutgers: Back-to-back interceptions from linebacker Michael Barrett, the 2nd for a touchdown, headlined Michigan’s 52-17 win at Rutgers.

vs. Nebraska: The highlight of this game is that it was a dominant, wire-to-wire victory that was entirely forgettable.

vs. TCU: So many moments could have changed the game. Michigan’s furious second-half comeback stands out. It is still stunning they scored 39 points in 2 quarters and lost. This one will sting for a long time.