Two PFF analysts predict Michigan football to win 2023 national championship

Michigan football is getting a lot of respect entering the 2023 season, coming in ranked No. 2 in both the AP Top 25 and USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. Yet, when it comes to the national media punditry, most of the conversations about the championship involve Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, or a few others — Texas, USC, and LSU are among them.

But this is Jim Harbaugh’s most talented team, one rife with experience. It’s the most experienced team in the field and has a schedule which should allow the Wolverines to get to November unscathed — assuming they don’t slip up. Most every team they’ll face will be breaking in a new quarterback, and the same can be said of the Bulldogs, Crimson Tide, and Buckeyes. It feels like a potential perfect storm for the maize and blue in 2023.

That’s apparently how a duo of PFF analysts see it, as Max Chadwick and Trevor Sikkema are both predicting Michigan to win the whole thing this season.

A couple of interesting things: Chadwick expects Michigan football to face Georgia and defeat it in the national championship game while Sikkema thinks that Florida State can finally get to the championship game after having only made the College Football Playoff in 2014.

Also interesting is that Michigan is the only included Big Ten team — neither Ohio State nor Penn State made the cut. That would suppose that both could falter more than one game, and it would also assume that the Wolverines will go undefeated.

Either way, in our conversations with PFF analysts throughout the past two years, they’ve more or less had a good beat on the Wolverines. Anthony Treash appeared on the Locked On Wolverines Podcast and often had Michigan beating teams no one expected, and was even bullish against the Buckeyes in 2021, when most expected the Wolverines to lose. Max Chadwick appeared on the podcast this offseason and shared his lofty expectations for the maize and blue there, too.

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