How Michigan Football’s strength of schedule could affect 2026 record

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The 2025 season was a painful one for Michigan football for a multitude of reasons. The team didn’t develop as much as anticipated, the hated Buckeyes escaped Ann Arbor with a win, and Sherrone Moore was dismissed with cause. An added pain to consider is the Wolverines’ 2025 schedule was pretty easy, and Michigan didn’t capitalize on it.

The same cannot be said of the 2026 schedule.

Last season, Michigan ended the season with the 24th-toughest strength of schedule in the nation, according to ESPN’s FPI. While that may sound impressive, it shouldn’t, as the Big Ten and SEC front-load the nationwide SOS rankings — 17 of the 18 Big Ten teams landed in the top-45, with 11 Big Ten teams taking up spots in the top-25. By all accounts, Michigan’s schedule was pretty lenient by avoiding Indiana and Oregon, while playing Ohio State at home. Yes, playing at Oklahoma was always going to be tough, but nine Big Ten teams had tougher paths than the Wolverines.

Things look vastly different in 2026. The program has renewed hope with a mostly brand new coaching staff. The staff was able to retain most of last year’s key players and appears set to take a step forward this fall.

However, the schedule is an entirely different animal. While you can only trust preseason projections as far as you can throw them, CBS Sports has the Wolverines with the fourth-toughest schedule among top-25 teams. College Football News has the Wolverines with the seventh-toughest schedule in the land.

The Wolverines have their first four games of the year at home. Key among those games is a Week 2 showdown with Oklahoma with a chance for revenge. In mid-October, the Wolverines host a newly revamped Penn State squad and the Indiana Hoosiers in back-to-back weeks. A month later, Michigan has to travel to Autzen Stadium to face an Oregon team with championship aspirations. Two weeks later, the season concludes at Ohio State.

There’s a very real chance the 2026 Michigan Wolverines are vastly improved from last year, but they could still end up with the same record or worse. It’s not far-fetched to envision Michigan losing three or four games despite being a much better team, on paper at least, than last year. Michigan will likely need to win at least two of its toughest games in order to stay in the College Football Playoff picture by season’s end. That is a tough hill to climb for a brand new coaching staff, but not impossible by any means.

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