Sitting pretty at 7-2, the Michigan Wolverines now face a three-game gauntlet. Sherrone Moore’s team’s only path to the College Football Playoff is to run the table. Just as Michigan fans were riding high, Jon Gruden decided to play spoiler. Aiming Michigan alum Dave Portnoy, Gruden poured cold water on the hype, refusing to believe Sherrone Moore’s squad is playoff material.

On the November 10th episode of the Wake Up Barstool podcast, Gruden shared that there should not be 12 teams running for the National Championship. He then jumped into singling out Michigan. And among others, Portnoy got to bear the maximum heat. “There’s a lot of people like Portnoy out there that are dreaming that Michigan gets to get a tournament bid. He’s just dreaming they can get in the tournament. I’m into nightmares,” came Gordon’s blunt jab. 

Portnoy graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Education degree in 1999. However, after this, Portnoy had no intention of ever stepping into a classroom. He launched thegamblingman.com, a website where he shared sports-betting picks while still at Michigan. However, even though he became the popular face of Barstool Sports, he continued to support his alma mater under all circumstances. But this time, Portnoy could not go too far with the ‘praise Michigan’ game as Gruden came with a grounding alert. 

Last month, the Michigan alum tagged the Big Ten as the best conference in college football. “As much as I don’t like Ohio State… Ohio State is very good, Oregon is very good. They’d clearly be the two best teams in the SEC. And then everybody else could beat anybody. Michigan could go win that conference,” shared Portnoy.

The script is unforgiving but straightforward for Michigan. Win at Northwestern, handle Maryland, then take down Ohio State at home. Pull that off for a fifth straight year, and there’s no way the committee can keep them out. But Gruden refused to focus on their CFP hopes. Instead, he came with a fiery demand: “Get them out of the tournament. They don’t deserve to be in.”

ESPN’s Billy Connelly argued the Wolverines’ ground-heavy, low-risk approach may not be enough to fool top-tier defenses or impress the playoff committee. However, even before Gruden’s bitter reality check, Moore had come up with a change.  

Michigan sharpens its focus on five-star signal-caller

Notably, Michigan is now on a mission to bolster its quarterback, Bryce Underwood. According to The Michigan Insider’s Brice Marich, the Wolverines are tweaking Bryce’s setup. They are making him comfortable both under center and in pistol formation to sharpen pass protection. As the analyst shared, “Wants to have a good balance of both in this offense. He adds QB Bryce Underwood was locked in this bye week and is ready to roll.”

Ann Arbor was raving about Underwood’s rocket arm after Washington. Two crisp touchdown throws, one for 22 yards, another for 10, powered a 24-7 win. But in the games that followed, the Michigan quarterback’s magic vanished. No passing touchdowns against Michigan State or Purdue, and worse- a red-zone interception and a fumble at the goal line against the Boilermakers. So, the Wolverines are employing different formations.

While Jon Gruden puts Michigan Wolverines alums on the hot seat for rooting highly for their college football team, for Michigan insider Isaiah Hole, the Ohio State Buckeyes are an “overrated” team. As he shared on his Locked On Wolverines podcast, “They talk about Ohio State, but I will say that one name that I’d say 75 percent of you know, they told me, ‘I don’t really think they’re that great like that.’” Now the stage is set. Can Sherrone Moore’s crew crash the CFP and make Jon Gruden eat his words?