Michigan football pushes back against 'championship or bust' mantra

Michigan football is considered the favorite by many to win the Big Ten Championship this year and has aspirations of winning a national title. That has led to the fanbase embracing a “championship or bust” mindset that says anything less than adding trophies would make this season a failure.

Michigan itself does not feel the same way. That is not to say that those goals do not exist, but the team looks at it as more of a “step-by-step” approach.

“Championship or bust? What does that mean? That doesn’t mean anything to me,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said at Big Ten Football Media Days. “Same as we always are, the way we go into every year — our goals are to win the (Big Ten) championship, win the national championship, to beat Michigan State, to beat Ohio State, to beat Penn State. I mean, we have so many good teams that we play, so many football fights.

“I haven’t heard one football player say that ‘It’s championship or bust.’ I know I’ve heard that media-driven slogan but that means nothing, that word bust.”

Graduate defensive back Mike Sainristil agrees and looks at it from a wider focus than what type of hardware comes out of the 2023 campaign.

“Personally, I don’t think that winning the national championship this year not determines the future of this program,” Sainristil said. “I think the most important thing that we need to understand is we don’t know what a national championship looks like.

“So our focus shouldn’t be the national championship is the only thing that we’re focused on, because we have to focus on the day-to-day process, what’s going to get us to a national championship — what haven’t we done in the past two years that didn’t get us over that hump. So we have to figure out, OK, from Week 1 to Week 2, what adjustments do we need to make in Week 2-3, Week 3-4, and so forth to help us get over that hump?”

Senior defensive tackle Kris Jenkins wants the big prize but understands that the program needs to start at ground zero and build up from there.

“That talk’s gonna always be there and that would be a big goal,” Jenkins said. “The main focus is going to be eliminating complacency and becoming a better football team every day. Because before, you need to work on your craft the next 24 hours. That’s gonna help dictate what type of football team you’ll be in the future.

“We can’t look ahead until we focus on what’s right in front of us.”

Michigan is at +185 to win the Big Ten, second behind Ohio State at +165 according to Fanduel’s most recent odds. The Wolverines are at +850 to win the national championship. Michigan is coming off back-to-back wins over Ohio State, two Big Ten titles and a pair of appearances in the College Football Playoff.