Michigan Football Helmet Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The Michigan Wolverines lost a lot of players and coaches from last year’s national championship team, including head coach Jim Harbaugh. But that isn’t stopping ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit from expressing optimism about their upcoming season.

During ESPN’s College GameDay on Saturday morning, Kirk Herbstreit said that he is “fascinated” with the Wolverines and “much higher on Michigan than I think a lot of other people.”

“We talked a lot about Dillon Gabriel, the expectations on Oregon. I’m fascinated with Michigan,” Herbstreit said according to On3. “I can’t remember a team winning a national championship and almost a forgotten team coming back the next year. Think about what they lost … five offensive linemen, J.J. McCarthy, Blake Corum, all those incredible leaders on defense. Now, you look at these guys that are gonna be playing in 2024, a lot of these guys played a lot of ball last year.

“I might be crazy, I think Michigan – I’m not saying they’re gonna win the Big Ten – I’m much higher on Michigan than I think a lot of people because I think they’ve got, again, this new chip on their shoulder for 2024. No one’s talking about them, no one cares about them, no one respects them. And these are the defending champs. So I think they’re interesting.”

We’ll have to see whether or not Michigan can prove Herbstreit correct this season.

[On3]