Michigan releases availability report for Big Ten Championship

The Michigan Wolverines and Iowa Hawkeyes play Saturday night for a Big Ten Championship in Indianapolis. The conference released its availability report two hours before kickoff, which was headlined by sophomore cornerback Will Johnson (leg) as questionable.

Sophomore linebacker Jimmy Rolder and senior guard Zak Zinter are out Saturday night. Graduate center Drake Nugent is also listed as questionable. Zinter is out for the season with a broken leg suffered in the win over Ohio State last week.

Here is the full report for both teams:

MICHIGAN AVAILABILITY REPORT
OUT

Sophomore LB Jimmy Rolder
Senior OL Zak Zinter

Questionable

Sophomore CB Will Johnson
Graduate OL Drake Nugent

IOWA AVAILABILITY REPORT
Out

DB TJ Hall
OL Beau Stephens
TE Luke Lachey

Questionable

DL Deontae Craig

There are plenty of questions about how competitive Iowa can make Saturday’s game. But the most important stat to Michigan has to do with the victory column, and the Hawkeyes have done enough to position themselves for the contest.

“The key word there is wins,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said during a teleconference on Sunday. “Any time you win, it’s a team effort. Your team was able to make the plays they needed to make, stop the drives, needed to cover the kicks that needed to be covered, and Iowa does that. They win.

“Our team’s really good when we don’t turn the ball over. I think we’re undefeated when we don’t turn the ball over since I’ve been coaching here. That’s one of Iowa’s specialties, tips and overthrows. We’ve tried to adopt that as the best we can, but nobody does it better than Iowa.

“You have to earn everything that you get and it’s going to be a tough physical game. We have got to get ourselves in that mindset, which now more than ever, more than the last two years, I really think our team [knows] there’s more to do. There’s the mindset of, of onward and, we understand the task of the championship game.

“Both teams really want it. It’s an opportunity for Iowa to be champion, an opportunity for us to be champion. That’s going to have to get earned and we’re going to have to do what we always do every single week. Plan, practice, and then go execute. And it’s going to have to be good. If it’s not, then, we’ll have a good chance of getting beat. If we play well, then we’re going to have a good chance of winning. That’s how we go into every single week.”

Saturday night’s game kicks off at 8:17 p.m. ET from Indianapolis with Gus Johnson, Joel Klatt and Jenny Taft on the call for FOX. With a win, the Wolverines will punch a ticket to the 2023 College Football Playoff.