ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In today’s college football, everyone’s a critic.

As fans flock back to stadiums and tailgates around the country and the 2022 season gets underway, even  good teams  are picked apart by fans and media alike . Watching on TV, listening to the radio, reading message boards, scrolling social media or the classic in-person college football arguments orbit around even top tier teams’ weaknesses.

Outside of Georgia's level of dominance, the commentary surrounding a win can almost sound like a loss.

They’re good, one might say, but …

There's always a but nowadays. For some teams, they don’t have the answer at quarterback. Or they’re too slow in the secondary. Or too small in the trenches. Or don’t have the depth to last the season. Discipline and mental mistakes might be the team’s Achilles Heel, or perhaps they don’t have enough talent at the skill positions.

After each game, a team either lost, won by a precarious amount or didn’t face enough of a challenge for any of it to matter.

The latter critique was the one that emanated out of Ann Arbor this weekend. The No. 4 Michigan football team walloped Connecticut, 59-0, sending the Huskies home with their worst loss since 1919. The Wolverines scampered all over the field, punched in touchdowns, set records, stifled the Huskies’ run game, disrupted pass attempts and even put on a special teams show in a game that was arguably over in the first 10 plays. 

After the game, though, even Michigan couldn’t out-run critique. More than a dozen publications rolled out essentially the same takeaway after the Wolverines’ win: Michigan looked good, just as it had the prior two games, but we still haven’t learned enough from the Wolverines' schedule yet to be sold on Michigan as a title contender.

It's true that the Wolverines are untested — only five other power-five teams haven't played another power-five team yet, and none of them are ranked like Michigan. But watching how Michigan steamrolled its way to 3-0, and the latter part of that statement may not be true. The Wolverines look like a crisp, clean, dominant football machine — maybe Jim Harbaugh's most complete and capable team yet, even — and they finally get to move their aim to the rest of the Big Ten.

They might just be as good as they look.

(This story continues below.) 

"We’re just playing the schedule, having fun out there," said running back Blake Corum. "It’s been great, and Big Ten’s on the way."

Every power-five team in college football typically plays at least one and usually two or three overmatched opponents on their schedule, charmingly referred to as "cupcake" matchups. It gives the team an easy win and tune-up opportunity, fans another home game to enjoy and the opposing team a hefty paycheck and shot at an upset.

T hese games usually  unfold   one of four  ways . There’s the  upset , such as Northwestern’s loss to Southern Illinois Saturday, where everything goes awry, coaches' seats get warm and seasons get ruined. There are the scares, such as Missouri State pushing Arkansas or South Florida testing Florida on Saturday, where the home team gets caught napping ,  shows its flaws and nearly loses before winning in the end. There’s the routine blowout, the most common result, where the winning team either gets off to a slow start or hits a lull during the game as it tries things out, but it doesn’t matter as it still wins by a high margin thanks to its superior talent, size and speed..

A trained eye, however, notices a fourth kind of cupcake game, one we’ll call the annihilation. These are lopsided, just like the routine blowouts, but come with a more punishing brand of football. These are where complete, cohesive teams look the part, avoiding mistakes, penalties, missed tackles, blown assignments, pre-snap confusion or other human errors.

In addition to running faster and hitting harder, the winning team looks like a machine from start to finish, without a lull or lapse to be found.  Not every team can pull this off. You need to have elite talent, but also need to have the experience, coaching and culture to play such clean, unrelenting brand football.

So far, Michigan has looked like that machine three weeks in a row. Even against a weak schedule, the  way  the Wolverines have won has to be noticed.

Through a quarter of the college football season, Michigan has been called for eight total penalties, tied with Air Force (who might know a thing or two about discipline) for fewest per game in the country.  The Wolverines only missed one tackle Saturday according to Pro Football Focus, extending their nation-leading tackle grade on the site to 90.7. Michigan has allowed just five of 181 defensive plays to go for 20 yards or more (tied with Georgia for fourth-fewest in the country), while only nine of its 192 offensive plays failed to at least get back to the line of scrimmage.

“We’re trying to make a statement," said linebacker Junior Colson. "You can tell everybody’s playing with a chip on their shoulder, and we’re just going to keep dominating.

“It doesn’t matter if we’re playing Colorado State or Ohio State, we’re still going to play the same — just dominate them.”

The Wolverines have done that, posting  a 103-0 first-half scoring margin through three games, and an accompanying 899-187 margin in yards in those  six quarters. Michigan got a staggering 115 different players on the field over the last three weeks and, impressively, the Wolverines’ discipline, awareness, and commitment to hits, blocks and tackles didn’t relent. The Wolverines’ second-half scoring margin was still 63-17 over the last three weeks, resulting in their best scoring margin through three games since winning a national title in 1947.

“They play with energy, they don’t miss tackles, they challenge you, they run the ball well, they pass the ball well, their QB runs it well, they have speed all over the field," UConn coach Jim Mora said Saturday. " I looked down at pregame warm-ups, it was like they had an army down there, they had so many players and they are all great players. I don’t  think, they are  a contender for the National Championship right now. It’s not in dispute in my opinion.”

There are a few factors at play leading to Michigan’s unrelenting approach right now. First, Michigan simply has a lot of talent. Though the Wolverines’ No. 14 ranking in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite isn’t overwhelmingly high, Michigan is one of seven programs to land a top-15 recruiting class in each of the last four recruiting cycles, giving the Wolverines a healthy mixture of talent  at   different ages and position groups. Not every team can be this dominant, but the talented teams  have the best soil to work with .

Commitment has grown since Michigan's mass transfer exoduses a few years back, too; no one from Michigan's 2021 freshman class transferred, and the Wolverines' 21 graduate students is extremely high in the transfer portal era. 

“It’s really just our culture as a team," said defensive lineman Kris Jenkins. "We’ve been with each other since January, and even as a team last year, that’s what we’re trying to build off of. So it’s just, no matter what the situation, we’re playing for each other. No one’s trying to get the bag just for themselves or show out just for themselves.

Second, that breadth of talent fostered depth, which fostered competition during a stretch of the schedule that hasn't been competitive. Every position has seemingly had competition for snaps thus far, and the elevated play of Makari Paige, Max Bredeson, Mike Barrett, Giovanni El-Hadi and others is keeping the competitive waters hot at nearly every position. 

“Even from game one to game three, guys that are hungry to play — starters, backups, guys on the third string — scratch and claw and fighting to get better and to play and contribute,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said. “ It’s a fun thing to coach when you’ve got as many guys that have done that and really train themselves to be where they are.

“You’ve gotta pull them back, I really do. You don’t have to ever talk them into anything, you have to pull back from time to time. It’s cool.”

Perhaps most importantly, Michigan believes it has an effective culture in place. The Wolverines are simultaneously months removed from a College Football Playoff appearance and less than two years removed from a 2-4 season — a truly unique mix of knowing firsthand what does and does not work in college football.Michigan has 64 players on its roster who were on both teams, essentially possessing a how-to guide on correcting, building and growing a productive winning culture.

"They attack everything they do," Harbaugh said. "And there’s been zero entitlement out of this group. I know I’ve said that before, and I don’t see any on the horizon."

Talented, hungry and smart, the Wolverines might be the last team in the country to take a game or even practice lightly.

“We’re always competing with ourselves,” quarterback J.J. McCarthy said. “No matter who we’re playing or when we’re playing, we’re always going to go out there and try to be the best version of ourselves every single week.”

The postgame columns are correct, of course, that none of Michigan’s remaining opponents will be as bad as its first three. The Wolverines’ receivers won’t be as open as they were against Hawaii; their pass-rush will face more opposition than it did against Colorado State; opposing quarterbacks are going to make the throws that UConn’s Zion Turner couldn’t. 

There’s also truth to the notion that someone is going to figuratively punch Michigan in the mouth, which, as Mike Tyson notes, will impact the Wolverines’ game plan in the heat of battle.

It might be Maryland's elite passing game. Or maybe Iowa's suffocating defense. Penn State comes to Ann Arbor in less than a month, and is having a similarly enjoyable  start to the season.

But looking around the Big Ten and back at the Wolverines, and Michigan is as complete as any team as any in the league.

"Our chemistry as a team, how we work together, how we play together, how we identify opposing formations. I really think our awareness is improving," said defensive lineman Kris Jenkins. "I think we’re definitely going to be dominant regardless of who we play."

That's why skeptics have to go after Michigan's schedule, as it's the only common refrain left unanswered. The Wolverines seem to  have an answer at quarterback, as JJ McCarthy showed velocity and accuracy that not only won him the starting job, but sparked fans’ imaginations. They look faster than even last season in the back seven, with Mike Sainristil, Makari Paige, Will Johnson and Mike Barrett adding to the proven speed established last fall from DJ Turner, Gemon Green, Rod Moore, RJ Moten and Junior Colson.

On either side of the ball, Michigan is anything but too small in the trenches, now boasting five scholarship defensive tackles above 315 pounds compared to one in 2020 and none above 305 in 2019. Michigan has shown  depth to last the season, while discipline and avoiding mental mistakes may be the Wolverines’ biggest strength. The only position group that isn't arguably in a better place than last season is edge rusher, where Michigan had the Heisman Trophy runner-up and his first-team All-American teammate.

All that's left is to show  it against someone  better.

“I feel like we look good, but we haven’t faced adversity,” Corum said. “I really don’t know how good we’re gonna be. I feel it. I feel like we’re gonna be great. But I can’t tell you."

There are questions and concerns the Wolverines still need to address. Pass-rushing, pass-blocking, running the ball against a stacked box and linebacker coverage are the ones that jump out as unanswered so far, largely because of Michigan's opponents thus far.

But there’s a lot to be said for how crisp, clean and crushing Michigan was in its first three games — when it really didn’t have to be. It was machine-like, really, and now, the Wolverines are locking their tunnel vision on the Big Ten.

And the league is warned. They just might be as good as they look, with no buts to be found.

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