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Michigan football has been as dominant as any program in the country over the past three seasons and there are a lot of reasons why. Jim Harbaugh has proven to be an elite head coach and he has made some incredible hires, most notably at the defensive coordinator position. For one year, it was Mike McDonald. Then, after losing McDonald to the Baltimore Ravens, Harbaugh hired Jesse Minter, which ended up being an absolute home run move.

Throw in the development of JJ McCarthy, the return of several key offensive seniors like Blake Corum, Trevor Keegan and Zak Zinter, along with plenty of key players on the defensive side of the ball and you had somewhat of a perfect Michigan storm, especially in 2023, which obviously resulted in a national title.

There’s another area, that is extremely important to overall team success, and Michigan has been dominating there as well. Sometimes it gets overlooked, but not at U-M. In fact, Michigan has done something with its special teams that no other program has done over the last three years.

Even though there are a lot of touchbacks in college football these days, to not give up a kickoff return of more than 30 yards over the course of three years is incredible. As special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh says in the tweet above, it really does exemplify a tough-nosed, hard-working mentality. If you have 11-15 guys who are willing to lay it on the line for the kickoff team, that is going to trickle down. It’s how every game starts and it’s a very important, sometimes momentum shifting play, after a score. Michigan had several guys who took their duties on kickoff extremely seriously and that stat proves it.