Michigan football adamant it isnt looking past Maryland: 'It's a playoff game for us'

ANN ARBOR – The Michigan Wolverines currently find themselves on a crash course with the Ohio State Buckeyes, as is often the case in the rivalry. Sitting at 8-2, U-M needs just one more victory to set up a potential “win and in” game against OSU, where it could punch a ticket to the College Football Playoff.

But Maryland, a 4-6 team and losers of six straight, is next up on the schedule. And through most of the season, this Michigan team has not played well enough in any game to have the right to look past anyone.

So how do we reconcile a season full of self-inflicted wounds with the current record and the stakes ahead? It all requires perspective, according to Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore.

“We’re 8-2 and all our goals are in front of us, we’re playing for a lot,” Moore said. “You’re playing meaningful football in November, which is what you ask for as a football coach, as a college football player, just any player in general in this game.

“…You go out there with six freshmen on offense and a bevy of them on defense and special teams. Yeah, the mistakes are there that we’ve got to fix, but you’re also very blessed to be able to be in that position of being 8-2. But yeah, you’ve got to self-reflect and look at everything that you’re doing and make sure that you’re doing everything right. Offensively, you talk about where we are and obviously the turnovers you’ve got to clean up. The kids have already been in many times throughout [the last few days] to watch and evaluate the film. The coaches have attacked that. They’ll do it again later on here today.

“Everybody’s very aware of what we need to fix and what we need to do, but there’s a lot of positives in the game.”

But still, the stage and the opportunity ahead of them against OSU next weekend is too big for some to ignore. Michigan has four straight in the series and gets to host The Game in a year where an upset win would be far less shocking than the one that preceded it last year.

Moore does not want to hear about it and completely rejects the premise of Maryland as a trap game. He knows all too well, given he was the interim head coach for U-M’s 31-24 win in College Park in 2023, the 1000th win in program history.

“Don’t even talk about the final game,” Moore quipped with the media when asked about OSU. “Not doing it. Don’t even do it. Don’t even do it. No, it’s not a trap game. This is a good team, man. This is not a trap game. There’s nothing about this game that is a trap game. There’s zero trap game on this.

“This is about a really good team that, if you don’t play well, you will get beaten. So there’s that trap. The trap is like the Nick Saban poison comment, trying to get us. No, not a trap game. And everybody knows what’s ahead, but we’ve got to go execute. We have to go prepare for this one as if our lives depend on it.

“It’s a playoff game for us in this building, and there’s no trap game with this one.”

‘No peeking ahead,’ says Michigan defensive tackle

Michigan has been in “playoff mode” since its loss to USC on Oct. 11, which dropped them to 4-2 on the season. Since then, it has won four games in a row in the regular season for the first time under Moore. Graduate defensive tackle Tre Williams, a Maryland native, backed up his head coach on Monday.

 ”There’s no peeking ahead,” Williams said. “We stick one game at a time. Maryland’s a very dangerous 4-6 team. Let me be clear, their record does not reflect how good of a football team they are, so no, we cannot take them lightly, especially if we want to get to where we’re going to go.”

Maryland recently announced that, despite its six-game losing streak, head coach Mike Locksley would return in 2026. Now, the team has some juice as it searches for bowl eligibility in its final two games against Michigan and Michigan State.

 ”They really don’t have anything to lose,” Williams said. “They have two games left, too. Bowl eligibility is a lot to play for. So I expect them to come hard, and it’s Michigan. We get everybody’s best shot every Saturday, so I wouldn’t expect anything less from them.”