The Michigan football team finished up their 2023 season last month with a win against Washington in the national title to cap off a perfect 15-0 season. Fans of the Wolverines have been waiting for a season like this for a long time, and they finally were able to pull it off this year.

There were a lot of ups and downs that Michigan went through to get to the national title game, and a lot of their key players that came back this season could've gone to the NFL. They all came back for one common goal: to win a national championship. The Wolverines accomplished that goal, and now, they are hoping to continue that success going forward, and the momentum they have built can help make that happen.

Let's take a look at what this team went through to get to where they are now. It can't be overstated how important it is to the future of this program.

First, head coach Jim Harbaugh started off the season at home for the Wolverines as he faced a self-imposed three-game suspension because of some minor recruiting violations. That wasn't a big deal, however, as Michigan started the season with home games against East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green. The Wolverines were fine for those games, but that wasn't the only suspension that Harbaugh would face in the season.

Around the halfway point of the season, news broke that the Michigan football team was being investigated for illegal sign stealing. The culprit ended up being a low-level staffer named Connor Stalions.

Stalions bought tickets for friends and others to go to future opponents games and videotape the sidelines with their cell phones. After the investigation had been going on for a couple of weeks, Stalions resigned.

Jim Harbaugh was able to coach for Michigan for a couple of weeks after the investigation started, but then, with three weeks remaining, he was suspended by the Big Ten for the final three weeks of the regular season, and offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore had to take over head-coaching duties for the most daunting stretch of the Michigan season: @ #10 Penn State, @ Maryland and vs. #2 Ohio State. Also, they suspended him less than 24 hours before the Penn State game while the Michigan team plane was on the way to Happy Valley.

The sign-stealing investigation started as something very bad for the Michigan football team, but it actually gave the Wolverines an extra spark. This team already had all of the motivation in the world to go out and win a national title, and then they started to hear all the outsiders say that the only reason they had won the last two seasons was because they were cheating.

Michigan then took down Penn State and Ohio State without Harbaugh, won their third-straight Big Ten title, beat Alabama in the Rose Bowl and then took down Washington to win the national title. It was a massively important season of football in Ann Arbor.

Now, Michigan football is at the mountaintop of college football, but can they stay there? Their first year after winning the national title could prove to be mighty difficult.

One issue for Michigan is that they lost Jim Harbaugh to the NFL. The rumors have popped up during just about every offseason that Harbaugh was the head coach of the Wolverines, but after winning the national title, he decided that it was finally time to move on and go back to the NFL.

Not only did Harbaugh leave, but a lot of the staff is departing as well. Strength coach Ben Herbert, defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, defensive line coach Mike Elston andspecial teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh will not be back next season. Sherrone Moore is the new head coach for the Wolverines, and he will have his work cut out for him in year one. He lost a lot of talented players from the 2023 squad, and he has a lot of very good coaches to replace.

The good news for the Wolverines is that their defense should be in pretty good shape next year, and that was a major strength of this year's team. However, they are losing their starting quarterback, starting running back and their entire offensive line. The offense ran through those positions, and those guys are all going to be very difficult to replace.

In order for Michigan to keep up in an offseason where they are losing so much talent, they will need to pick up some more in the transfer portal. That's why it's there, and the Wolverines are certainly a team that needs to utilize it. They haven't taken much advantage of it so far, but let's take a look at their sneakiest pickup that they have right now.

OL Josh Priebe, Northwestern

The addition of offensive lineman Josh Priebe for Michigan football is a big one. The Wolverines are losing just about all of their experience on the OL this offseason, and while they do have some guys in the program that have been patiently waiting for their turn, they do need to get some experienced players from the transfer portal. That's where Priebe comes into play. He is transferring from Northwestern, and he is currently a senior, so he has a lot of playing experience. It's also helpful for the Wolverines that he is coming from a Big Ten school. He is familiar with this conference, and he has played against these teams before.

Josh Priebe should also be a good culture fit at Michigan. He was just part of a Northwestern football team that had one of the best turnarounds in college football this past season. They won just one game in 2022, and then they lost their head coach due to a scandal before the 2023 season. Nobody expected the Wildcats to win more than a few games, but they ended up coming just short of winning the Big Ten West, and they finished the year with an 8-5 record. The culture has to be pretty good for a turnaround like that to happen so quickly.

Michigan only has two incoming transfers at the moment, but the Wolverines should definitely be excited about adding Priebe to the roster.