Week 1 viewing guide: Breaking down/predicting Michigan vs. ECU, plus other key games from around the country
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Week 1 viewing guide
We made it.
After more than 240 days of waiting and marinating on a heartbreaking loss at the end of a dream season, the Michigan Wolverine football team is returning to the gridiron to play in an actual football game(!).
Sure, part of it will feel odd. It will be the first time in 25+ years that a Michigan football game won’t be broadcast on linear TV (hello, Peacock!). And Michigan will be coached by someone other than Jim Harbaugh for the first time since the Brady Hoke era. But Michigan football is still Michigan football, and we’re finally about to get our first real taste of game action in eight months.
If you’re looking for drama, you (hopefully) won’t get that on Saturday — or really at any point in September. But there are still plenty of reasons to tune in to Michigan’s 2023 opener — I’ll get to those shortly.
But first, a reminder about how we deal with the weekly picks over here on the newsletter, whether you’re a first-year subscriber or just need a refresher. Every week, I’ll spotlight seven games in this spot — Michigan’s matchup, three hand-picked Big Ten games and three hand-picked non-B1G contests — and make my predictions, plus provide rapid-fire picks on all other Big Ten games, too — both straight and against the spread.
This year, I’m also going to add a poll to get the readers’ thoughts on how Michigan performs against the spread that week, too. Over the course of the season, we’ll compare your thoughts vs. mine. Unless you start doing a lot better than me. Then I’ll just quietly sunset that feature and forget it ever happened.
Also, if you thought I was going to miss out on the opportunity to brag about how well I did in picks last season, you clearly don’t know me well. The bar is set probably way too high to reach these results again this fall, but it doesn’t mean I won’t at least give it a shot.
2022 results
Michigan games
Straight: 11-1
Against the spread: 7-5
B1G games
Straight: 80-24
Against the spread: 59-42-3
Overall
Straight: 105-37
Against the spread: 81-58-3
And with that out of the way, let’s get to it — here are 4,500 words on the openers for Michigan, the Big Ten and a few other selected games this weekend. LFG.
(A housekeeping note: This will typically be a Friday morning piece of content. But since I won’t have the “usual” Thursday post of Power Rankings this week — the preseason Big Ten Power Rankings have already been posted and can be read here — I bumped this up a day, particularly since there are some Thursday games covered in this one.)