Why Michigan remains 'sneaky' ahead of The Game for Big Ten Championship, College Football Playoff

As of now, Ohio State, Indiana, and Oregon look to be the three-team conversation as far as the Big Ten Championship and the conference’s berths into the College Football Playoff. However, based on their record and what’s still ahead of them, Josh Pate believes Michigan is being completely overlooked.

On ‘Josh Pate’s College Football Show’ on Sunday night, Pate reacted to the newest edition of the AP Poll, with the Wolverines coming in at No. 18. That led him into the discussion about the maize & blue’s postseason hopes, as he thinks that Michigan is going completely under the radar right now with a record of 7-2 overall, with only one of those being in conference play, and a chance at the tiebreaker against the Buckeyes in The Game.

“Sneaky, sneaky team right now,” Pate said of the Wolverines.

“If you don’t believe me, let me just float this out there to you. Michigan is at 18 (in the AP Poll). You know they still got the Ohio State game coming up. Michigan is a two-loss team, right, so you kind of dismiss them when you talk about the Big Ten. It’s all Ohio State-Indiana, Ohio State-Indiana, maybe Oregon. Well, one of Michigan’s losses is at Oklahoma. Their other loss is USC. Only one of those teams is a Big Ten team. That means Michigan has one conference loss,” explained Pate. “What happens if they beat Ohio State, and they are a one-loss Big Ten team with a head-to-head tiebreaker over Ohio State? Who’s going to Indianapolis? Has anyone even considered this? Or are we slipping into this coma again where, since we think Ohio State is the better team and they’ll be a big point spread favorite, we’re just going to, like, project them past Michigan? I’ve done that the past four years! I cannot allow myself to slip into that coma for a fifth consecutive year.”

As a two-loss team, both of which remain very quality ones, with them coming off their bye this past week, Michigan still sits at No. 21 in the initial rankings for the CFP, with an update for those to come tomorrow on Tuesday night. That had them as the sixth-ranked team in their own league behind No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Indiana, No. 9 Oregon, No. 19 USC, and No. 20 Iowa, who lost this past weekend to the Ducks.

Still, the Wolverines have a very real path to be in contention for the CFP. That starts with a pair of winnable road games the next two weeks at Northwestern and at Maryland, while Southern Cal, who has a win of their own over them, will be playing against Iowa and at Oregon. Then, as Pate pointed out, they will have their real chance as, with them fairly likely at that point to be at 9-2, they will be hosting Ohio State, likely to still be undefeated at that point at 11-0, in Ann Arbor. If that were to be how it played out, and they were to win for a fifth consecutive year in the rivalry, Michigan would, with a tiebreaker at 8-1 over the Buckeyes, go on to play in the Big Ten Championship. And, even if they didn’t win the conference title game over whoever they’d play in Indy, 10-3 overall as a league’s runner-up and the resumé they’d have built may still be enough for them to get in as an at-large to the CFP.

That is plenty of projecting still at this point, with three weeks left in the regular season as the Wolverines have to go to Evanston and to College Park before playing, in all likelihood, their bitter rival as the No. 1 team in the country who’d be unbeaten. But, as far as the races either for the Big Ten or for the College Football Playoff, Pate has by no means yet ruled out Michigan, especially if they’re playing with everything on the line come The Game inside The Big House.

“We have to consider this as a possibility,” said Pate.