For as much as we don’t deserve the return of Big Ten football, it’s coming back and today we had Michigan and Michigan State both release their eight-game regular-season schedules which will proceed champions weeks.
Here’s what Michigan has in line for themselves:
Offhand Michigan has five, maybe six wins to work with here. The fifth win maybe comes November 14 when they host Wisconsin. Other than that, I still don’t believe they’re beating Penn State and they’re definitely not beating Ohio State. The silver lining to that Ohio State game will be Michigan traveling to the Horseshoe without having to contend with any fans in the stadium.
How a 5-3 or a 6-2 record shapes out at the end of the season is still yet to be seen.
For Michigan State here’s what they have going on for them in Mel Tucker’s first season as head coach:
The Spartans get lucky opening up against Rutgers with what you can only assume will be a win, even in a year where you’re not expecting much. It’ll nonetheless be important to start on a positive note. Beyond that, maybe the most optimistic outlook is Michigan State going 4-4 with additional wins over Indiana, Maryland, and Northwestern. The more realistic outcome though is probably 3-5 by going 2-1 in that stretch between November 14 and November 28.
As far as bowl games go for either team, I’m not quite sure how that’ll shape out. Michigan will more than likely make something, even with a worst-case scenario outcome of 5-3. For the Spartans though, it’ll be hard to imagine them getting to any postseason bowl game with a losing record. I’m guessing they’ll at least need to win that fourth game to have any shot.
