Three Predictions For Michigan's 2020 Football Season

Michigan fans must wait only three more weeks for the Wolverines' 2020 season to start. Let's look at a few things that could happen.

Joe Milton sets a Harbaugh-era record with four "big-play" passes per game: Shea Patterson owns the mark presently, with 3.77 20-yard pass plays per contest, connecting on 49 such completions in 2019. However, 17 quarterbacks nationally averaged 4.0 big-plays per game a year ago, including Washington State's Anthony Gordon and LSU's Joe Burrow, who both averaged better than 5.0. 

Today's college football is all about pushing the ball down the field. Already this season, there are 10 quarterbacks averaging better than 10.0 yards per pass attempt. There were four such QBs to average that over the course of the entire 2019 season, but a decade earlier, no one hit that mark. 

From 2010-14, 30 teams completed at least 30 passes of 30 yards or more. Over the next five years, from 2015-19, 58 teams hit that milestone.

Enter Milton, offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, and a wide receiver/tight end corps that is among the most promising Harbaugh has ever coached. Among Michigan's returning WRs and TEs, 33 of their 97 receptions in 2019 were "big plays" or 34.0%. While that is a high number, both Ohio State's Justin Fields (34.0% of his total completions) and Minnesota's Tanner Morgan (40%) created big plays at that level or better a year ago. 

If Harbaugh and Gattis fully embrace the skill set of their QB and receivers/ends, taking their shots down field but also getting the ball to speedy, shifty skill players in space, Milton and Michigan should be one of the nation's most explosive offenses. 

Kwity Paye would have set the single-season record for sacks, if Michigan played 12 games: An average of eight defensive players per season across college football since 2015 have met or exceeded the U-M program record for quarterback takedowns of 12, set by David Bowens in 1996 and matched by LaMarr Woodley in 2006. That's not a lot. 

In today's heavy set spread offenses, read-option attacks and quick-strike releases, it can be challenging to "get home." At the same time, pass attempts have consistently risen per season over the last decade, providing a defense an average of 30-35 opportunities to sack a quarterback per game. 

Taco Charlton probably would have tied or broken the record in 2016 had he not suffered an injury that forced him to miss two games - he finished with 10 sacks in 11 contests. Chase Winovich was on pace for 11 sacks, with seven QB takedowns in eight games in the 2017 campaign, before going cold, registering just one more sack in the final five contests as offenses better prepared for him and the competition (Wisconsin, Ohio State and South Carolina) went up. 

Paye recorded 6.5 sacks in his first season a starter in 2019 and has a few things working in his favor heading into this fall.

• His bookend, junior Aidan Hutchinson, will command plenty of attention.

• The D-tackles of senior Carlo Kemp and sophomore Chris Hinton should draw all three interior offensive linemen, putting Paye and Hutchinson in numerous one-on-one situations (though certainly tight ends and running backs will offer a second-line of body-guarding)

• He plays the weakside end position, which means he rarely has to match up against a tackle and a tight end, has less run-game responsibility, and can pin his ears back and just attack. 

• In redshirt sophomore MIKE Cam McGrone and redshirt sophomore Viper Michael Barrett, Paye has two uber-fast, uber-athletic, playmaking linebackers that will also draw plenty of eyeballs and assignments from offensive linemen, tight ends and running backs. Paye should find himself in advantageous single-blocking schemes all game long. 

By the end of the eight-game regular season, Paye will have eight or more sacks, but he won't get to the record because Michigan will play at least two fewer games and potentially three (if there's no bowl) than the 12-game schedules both Woodley and Bowens participated in. 

Michigan beats Ohio State but loses to Indiana: I mean, why not? 2020 is the upside-down world. Michigan hasn't lost to Indiana since 1987, enjoying its current longest stretch of dominance over one Big Ten team, 32 years and 24 wins. 

IU has given the Wolverines fits, especially in Bloomington where this year's game will be played. Michigan needed double overtime to beat Indiana 48-41 in 2015 and needed another extra session to win 27-20 in 2017. 

U-M crushed IU 39-14 on the road a year ago but the Hoosiers were without their star quarterback, Michael Penix Jr.. With the trio of Penix, tailback Stevie Scott (845 yards rushing) and receiver Whop Philyor (1,002 yards receiving), Indiana has a dynamic trio that will test defenses. 

The Indiana game also falls in a dangerous "trap" spot on the schedule, a week after in-state rival Michigan State comes to Ann Arbor and a week before Wisconsin arrives. In an opening stretch of at Minnesota, home to MSU, at Indiana, home to the Badgers, what game most likely gets overlooked? 

As for beating Ohio State ... the Maize and Blue are due, last taking down the Buckeyes in 2011 and never under Harbaugh. But we've said that before. Michigan was the better team in 2016 and lost thanks to uncharacteristic turnovers and spotty officiating. In 2018, the Wolverines were 10-1, ranked No. 4 and playing, arguably, the best football of the Harbaugh era, and got annihilated 62-39. 

Last season, U-M rode a four-game winning streak (with an average margin of victory of 30.1 points) into its season finale with OSU and again got whooped, 56-27 by the Buckeyes. 

With the exception of the 2017 season (and the disaster that was Michigan's quarterback room), the Wolverines have played their worst game of the season against Ohio State. Is that an OSU thing or a U-M thing? Probably a bit of both, but Harbaugh's teams have not risen to meet the challenge or simply aren't capable of doing so. 

Will that change in 2020? If Milton and Gattis are the real deal, Michigan's front seven doesn't shrink from the moment as it has, and sophomore safety Dax Hill can be a big-play neutralizer in the secondary, THE Game could finally have the outcome Michigan fans are praying for. But those are a lot of 'ifs.'