College football games, Week 2: Texas looking forward, Michigan plagued by past as blue-blood clash headlines

There are different ways to reload. No. 3 Texas has done it seamlessly on the fly. No. 10 Michigan? Well, it’s been a bit of an awkward transition.

One team made the College Football Playoff for the first time in its history and is over the moon playing in the SEC. The other is reigning national champion while defending itself against the NCAA. One team is ascending. The other is, well, descending, even if just a bit. Their fates meet in the middle of some X and Y axis at The Big House on Saturday. 

Maybe that’s not the first thing that comes to mind with Michigan but, good gosh, there are distractions heading into this showdown with the Longhorns.

At Texas, Steve Sarkisian is in the process of weathering the loss of 11 draft picks while transitioning to arguably the toughest conference in the country. Michigan? It lost a school-record 13 draft picks and its coach after Jim Harbaugh became the first national championship-winning coach to leave his program since Tom Osborne retired at Nebraska in 1997. The Difference is that he’s still around in a what-did-I-just-step-in kind of way. 

The detritus left by Harbaugh’s wake needs a street sweeper. Cheeseburger Gate was laughable in the case that ended with Harbaugh getting a four-year show-cause and one-year suspension.

The NCAA is still digging down on the Connor Stalions affair while former Michigan staffers break land speed records trying to distance themselves from the program’s former analyst/volunteer/savant/suddenly documentary subject.

Harbaugh’s replacement, Sherrone Moore, faces a possible NCAA suspension. Athletic director Warde Manuel expressed some of his frustration this week with 247Sports’ Sam Webb.

None of it should bother Texas, which has won seven straight road…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-games-week-2-texas-looking-forward-michigan-plagued-by-past-as-blue-blood-clash-headlines/

Author : Dennis Dodd

Publish date : 2024-09-05 18:40:29

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