Michigan football ready for Ohio State: 'Peak at the perfect time'
NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos...
COLLEGE PARK, MD — It hasn’t always looked pretty, the Michigan football offense of 2025.
In their first three games of November, the Wolverines had eight turnovers. No passing touchdown. Injuries to the top two running backs. But on Saturday, Nov. 22, in front of the largest crowd at SECU Stadium since 2015 – thanks to the throng of Wolverines fans who stayed longer than the home supporters – U-M put all the pieces together in a comprehensive 45-20 win over Maryland.
The punt team stayed on the sideline. The offense didn’t have a turnover. A former walk-on ran for 100 yards and three touchdowns. Also, for the first time this season, U-M’s top two receivers – Andrew Marsh and Donaven McCulley – both caught touchdown passes in the same game.
All of a sudden, U-M’s offense looks like it has some juice –just in time for the biggest game of the season.
“This whole season we’ve been preaching to peak at the perfect time,” quarterback Bryce Underwood said. “I feel like it’s coming along.”
Underwood getting comfortable
The true freshman, who turned 18 just before the season, has taken his lumps. But after 11 games, he has shown progress, too.
He always had talent, but now, with nearly a full season under his belt, he has poise.
A week ago, it was the run-pass option that sliced and diced Northwestern’s defense for nearly 500 yards, undone by a swath of turnovers. This week, there was just one pass all afternoon that should’ve gone awry.
“Throwing across his body, I had to get him on that one, we got lucky on that one,” coach Sherrone Moore said of the sky-high throw that hit a Maryland DB in the chest before falling to the ground. “Still got mad at him, never stops, never stop coaching these kids. … He wants to be pushed and just keeps getting better and better.
“Proud of him and his progression and the offense in general not turning the ball over.”
Outside of that throw, Underwood did essentially anything he wanted. He completed 10 consecutive passes early in the game, including a perfect 12-yard fade to Marsh, who made a contested catch while battling a defensive back for U-M’s first score.
He took what the defense gave him, which included a third-and-4 when he checked the ball down to Max Bredeson for just his second catch of the year, a 7-yard pickup in what ended as a 12-play, 83-yard touchdown drive.
Bredeson later left the game and returned to the sideline in crutches, putting his status for next week in jeopardy. But U-M has shown it can step up even with key injuries.
A walk-on no longer
Take U-M’s running backs, for example. In the absent Justice Haynes and Jordan Marshall, Michigan was missing two backs with more than 1,800 yards of offense and 20 touchdowns.
Marshall could’ve played, Moore said, but U-M wanted to preserve his health for next week.
So, it was former walk-on Bryson Kuzdzal who found out earlier in the week he’d be getting the bulk of the carries. He didn’t disappoint, with 100 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries. Half of his rushes resulted in either a first down or a score, in his first college start.
“There’s a standard of being a running back at Michigan,” Moore said. “He played to that standard today. Ran hard, ran physical, ran tough. It’s a true credit to him … being a walk-on and the trust factor we have with him is so big. He played at a really high level for us.”
Marshall appears likely to return for the season finale against Ohio State. U-M won’t hesitate to feed him, but Kuzdzal showed he can help, too. On one 9-yard gain, he took a massive shot from the blind side and still held onto the ball. On another goal-line carry, he pivoted his body as he fell and extended his arms over the goal line for a touchdown.
For a player who grew up rooting for U-M’s other rival – “the green” team, as he called Michigan State – he knows what it means to play a role in the biggest game of the season.
“Gotta win,” he said. “I know what it means, I know what you got to put into it and I know what you get out of it. So it’s just attack it, harder than you’ve ever attacked anything before.”
The Game
Tré Williams spent the past five years at Clemson, but even he knows what The Game is all about.
There’s a clock counting down to The Game in the facility, and signs in every football building: “No red beyond this point.” There’s also a poster with a question, that also flashes on the electronic screen inside Al Glick Fieldhouse: “What did you do today to beat Ohio State?”
“I always grew up watching The Game. I mean everybody knows Thanksgiving Saturday, 12 o’clock, you know where it’s at,” Williams said, banging the table. “I just can’t be more excited. I’m at a loss for words.”
Moore looked to the back of the interview room to athletic director Warde Manuel before he made an admission Saturday and his standard rule about allowing 24 hours to celebrate each win: That’s not going to happen this week.
Moore said he watches Ohio State film “every week” throughout the season and intends to start immediately.
The ethos of the Wolverines is built around beating the Buckeyes in the regular-season finale. For four consecutive years, they’ve done exactly that, even as three-touchdown underdogs last year.
Undefeated OSU, the nation’s No. 1 team, enter The Game again as the favorite.
That’s why Moore doesn’t have any time to waste.
“The page is completely turned,” Moore said. “I’ll probably watch this game on the plane. … By Warde’s discretion, I won’t be in the office tonight, maybe. But this is the most important game of the year. … Everybody knows what this is about.
“They’re a really good football team, No. 1 in the country. They got talent everywhere … but I think we got a really good football team too.”
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football peaking just in time for Ohio State, The Game
More at NCAAF College Football News, Photos, Stats, Scores, Schedule & Videos