Michigan wins conference-record 13 Big Ten championships, finishes sixth in LEARFIELD Directors' Cup standings in 2022-23
Michigan Wolverines athletics just wrapped up one of its most successful years in history. The Maize and Blue won 13 Big Ten championships, a school and conference record, one year after taking home 12 Big Ten (and 13 total) league titles in 2021-22.
The following Michigan teams won Big Ten championships:
• Field hockey
• Football
• Women’s gymnastics (2)
• Men’s gymnastics (2)
• Women’s track and field (2)
• Ice hockey (tournament)
• Women’s tennis (2)
• Men’s lacrosse (tournament)
• Rowing
Michigan’s 13 titles were far and away the most of any league institution, with Penn State finishing second with five and Maryland and Northwestern following with four.
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Michigan’s conference titles were highlighted by football winning its second straight, with a victory over Purdue in the championship game in Indianapolis. The Wolverines are now one of two programs to win multiple Big Ten titles during head coach Jim Harbaugh‘s tenure (since 2015), joining Ohio State, which has enjoyed four.
The men’s lacrosse team scored an upset win over Maryland to win its first-ever Big Ten Tournament, after going winless (0-5) in Big Ten play the prior season.
Michigan had four athletes who were named national player of the year in their respective sports: Sierra Brooks (women’s gymnastics), Adam Fantilli (hockey), Paul Juda (men’s gymnastics) and Mason Parris (wrestling).
Three Wolverines won a total of five individual NCAA championships: Fred Richard in men’s gymnastics (all-around, horizontal bar and parallel bars), Parris in wrestling (heavyweight) and Savannah Sutherland in women’s track and field (400-meter hurdle).
From a team standpoint, Michigan had 14 top-20 finishes in 27 sports, including seven programs that concluded top-five. The Wolverines finished sixth in the final LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup standings, behind Stanford, Texas, Ohio State, USC and Georgia.
Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, speaking at U-M’s board of regents meeting in June, said his department focuses on the following areas: “Win in the classroom, win on the field, develop young people, do it within the rules and have fun.”
“Athletics should not be just for our teams and our staff but our fans having fun supporting our student-athletes,” Manuel continued, before discussing how his athletes “achieved in a big way this year.”
Also headlining those achievements were 35 individual Big Ten champions, 44 All-Americans and 116 All-Big Ten selections.
Michigan had 491 Academic All-Big Ten honorees (194 in the fall, 106 in the winter and 221 in the spring), and had a school-record 695 student-athletes with a GPA of 3.0 or higher.
