The Michigan football team is coming off of a national championship, but because of their offseason losses, no one outside of Ann Arbor is giving the Wolverines much of a chance to repeat. They have a new head coach and two new coordinators, and they lost almost all of their starters from a year ago. So what would make this year a success for Michigan?

For the Michigan football team, the goals remain the same: Beat Ohio State, win the Big Ten, win it all. However, the reality is that won't happen every year. With how new this team is, the season can still be a success without winning another national championship. Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt thinks that a College Football Playoff appearance would do the trick.

“A really good, successful season is making the College Football Playoff,” Klatt said on The Joel Klatt Show. “Eighteen new starters. They have to replace their head coach, their offensive coordinator and their defensive coordinator. They're going to play three of the top four teams in the AP poll and in my preseason poll, Texas, Oregon and Ohio State.”

The blueprint for Michigan is the same

Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh is lifted off the ground by offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore after Michigan won the College Football Playoff national championship game against Washington at NRG Stadium
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The Michigan football team has a new head coach this season, but the style of play that we see from the Wolverines likely isn't going to change much. Sherrone Moore obviously worked around Jim Harbaugh a lot, and he wants to use similar tactics to be successful.

“Sherrone Moore is going to lean on the exact-same model that Jim Harbaugh used to go win a national championship, which is get the right guys in the program and develop them into players that they feel like they can be physically dominant with,” Klatt continued. “That's what their blueprint is.”

Things didn't work out immediately for Harbaugh, but he eventually found that blueprint for success. A national championship seemed impossible after the 2020 season, but Harbaugh made it happen. Now it's Moore's job to keep the Wolverines at the top.

“Michigan fans, if you're being honest with yourselves, go back to covid,” Klatt said. “And the question wasn't, ‘will we win a national championship?' It was ‘will we ever beat Ohio State again?' and then they did three times in a row and went undefeated, beat Nick Saban in the Rose Bowl, and won a national championship.”

Now, Michigan fans are no longer wondering if they are going to beat Ohio State again. They are thinking about when they get to beat Ohio State again.