47 days until Michigan football: Give us Hawkeyes vs. Wolverines in Indianapolis
There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 2 opener against East Carolina. We’ll discuss current Michigan events, the upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.
Former Michigan tight end and current Iowa Hawkeye Erick All had made one of the Wolverines’ biggest plays in the Jim Harbaugh when he went 47 yards for the game-winning touchdown at Penn State in November 2021. The guy who threw the ball to All on the drag route was quarterback Cade McNamara, also a brand-new Iowa Hawkeye.
McNamara seemed as though he felt slighted by Michigan early on in the 2022 campaign, when he had to battle current starter J.J. McCarthy for the job he held the year prior. The pressure was too much for him early on in the season, and then he suffered a knee injury in the third game against UConn, forcing him to miss the rest of the campaign.
All and his father, meanwhile, expressed some displeasure with Michigan — particularly on the medical side of things, since All, too, missed most of the 2022 campaign with an injury (back) — when he exited.
Time heals all wounds, though. And we’d bet that in years and decades from now, most Michigan fans will look back fondly on the two team captains who had a big hand in the Wolverines’ first Big Ten championship in 17 years and first-ever College Football Playoff appearance.
But the present is the present. All and McNamara both transferred to another Big Ten school before Michigan’s 2022 season even ended. There’s at least a tad bit of bad blood from the fan base, though the two teams aren’t scheduled to play each other this season.
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Michigan is one of the top contenders to win the Big Ten East for a third straight season, though, and Iowa is right up there in the West, projected by most — including Athlon, Lindy’s and Phil Steele — to finish second in the division behind Wisconsin.
Getting a Michigan vs. Iowa matchup in the Big Ten championship game in December isn’t out of the question at all, still one of the possibilities with the highest odds. And boy, would it be something to see.
McNamara and All are set to boost an Iowa offense that was particularly bad last season, when it averaged just 17.7 points per game, ranking 123rd in the country and second to last in the Big Ten. The defense is predicted to be nasty once again, after slotting second in the nation by allowing only 13.3 points per contest in 2022. That combination could lead the Hawkeyes back to Indianapolis for the first time since 2021 — when McNamara and All beat them to win the championship.
The storylines would write themselves.
Michigan football countdown to kickoff
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