Through the first three weeks of the 2024 season, the Michigan football team had nothing in common with the team that beat Ohio State three years in a row, won three straight Big Ten championships and captured a national title in January.

The Wolverines were undisciplined, losing the ball seven times in three games after having just eight turnovers in 15 games last year. Michigan is the least penalized team in the country in 2023 and will commit 5.33 penalties per game in 2024, ranking 46th in the country.

Other factors, like the offense’s slow start in the run game and inability to play through the air, or the defense’s struggles in the passing game and on third down, can be attributed to having a lot of new faces playing in the starting positions this season. But the lack of discipline, determination and toughness that Michigan played with and led to so much success from 2021-2023 – that’s a scarier problem facing this group of Wolverines.

Not only did Michigan lose most of its best players from the team that will win the national title in 2023. It also lost pretty much every leader it had in the program – guys like Mike Sainristil, Blake Corum, JJ McCarthy, Trevor Keegan, Zak Zinter, Kris Jenkins. Not to mention former head coach Jim Harbaugh, the entire defensive coaching staff and strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert. While everything the Wolverines lost was talked about ad nauseam this offseason, we may not have realized how much each and every one of these people meant to this program.

“This is not last year’s team,” running back Donovan Edwards told reporters this week. “This is Team 145, not Team 144.”

Sherrone Moore finds herself in a difficult position. The 38-year-old, first-time head coach was promoted from offensive coordinator largely to keep Michigan’s championship culture, habits and highly talented recruiting class intact. But in the days and weeks immediately following Moore’s promotion, the program was stripped of virtually every champion of that culture and style of leadership it had had for the past three seasons.

Michigan’s current roster is made up almost entirely of players who only had success in Ann Arbor. Only four players – safeties Makari Paige and Quinten Johnson, running back Kalel Mullings and offensive lineman Jeff Persi – were on that team during the disastrous 2020 season. Those four have experienced the difference between winning and losing at Michigan. The other 100 or so players on the roster have not.

Complacency is a human trait. It is natural, subtle and incredibly difficult to avoid when all you know is success. As Bane tells Batman in The Dark Knight Rises: “Victory has conquered you.”

It’s not for me to say whether complacency has set in in Ann Arbor this offseason. I’m inclined to believe that Michigan’s weaknesses and struggles through three games have more to do with the loss of talent, both on the field and on the coaching staff. Whatever the reason, there is too much talent and too many players who have played a crucial role in the Wolverines’ recent success to allow what we’ve seen this season to continue.

If there is any of that championship spirit left in Ann Arbor, it needs to show itself this Saturday against No. 11 USC. This team belongs to Edwards. It belongs to defensive linemen Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, cornerback Will Johnson and tight end Will Johnson. It belongs to Mullings and Paige, the starters who have experienced success and failure with Michigan football. Each of those players played a crucial role in the Wolverines’ national championship last season. They have been part of a new golden age of Michigan football over the past three seasons.

Head coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans are looking to prove they’re ready for life in the Big Ten Conference and get back on the national stage, and who better to do that than the team that has won the league three years in a row?

Michigan can tell a different story on Saturday. This narrative about a “year of rebuilding” or the Wolverines’ time being over – they can prove those are premature. Michigan can look at USC’s defense, which looked better in games against LSU and Utah State, and say, “Meet 233-pound Kalel Mullings, 212-pound Donovan Edwards and 235-pound Alex Orji. Try to fight them for three and a half hours.”

It is understandable that they were slow to get going against Fresno State, despite having so many new players in the starting lineup. A (even clear) home defeat against Texas, the new number 1 in the country, is somewhat understandable. But the time for excuses and explanations is over.

We got a glimpse of what Michigan is capable of last week when they rushed for 301 yards and 6.8 yards per carry against Arkansas State and the Wolverines’ defense forced six consecutive empty possessions. That’s what this team needs to be for four quarters and 60 minutes against the Trojans tomorrow.

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