5 biggest questions Michigan football faces ahead of 2024 Big Ten media days

And just like that, the unofficial kickoff to the 2024 college football season has arrived.

The Big Ten's media days are scheduled to begin on Tuesday morning at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, a city that has become a second home for Michigan football as the Wolverines have claimed three consecutive outright Big Ten championships in that very same building.

The Wolverines, who are 40-3 since the start of 2021 and the defending national champions after their first 15-0 season , have been the class of the league this decade, but things appear to have gotten even more difficult this time around.

Not only has the Big Ten officially expanded to 18 teams this year with the additions of Oregon, USC, Washington and UCLA, but U-M has to replace nearly two dozen contributors who left from last year’s group, as well as half the coaching staff.

Even still, U-M remains a trendy pick to have a decent shot at a fourth consecutive College Football Playoff berth, however it will need to answer some questions in order to do so.

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Here are the top five questions facing the Wolverines — who will be represented in Indy by running back Donovan Edwards, safety Makari Paige and fullback Ben Bredeson — as they head into the 2024 season.

No. 1: Who will be the starting quarterback?

Michigan appears to be debating between three options for the new field general of the offense. The front runner, at this moment, feels like Alex Orji. He’s carried himself like the expected starter all offseason and now is the time to win the job in fall camp, much like his predecessor J.J. McCarthy had to do in 2022.

Orji is a 6-foot-3, 235-pound dual threat athlete who’s run 21 times for 115 yards and three touchdowns across his career and thrown just one pass, which was completed for five yards. Earlier this offseason when asked if he’s ready to show he can move the ball down the field with his arm, not just his legs, he said “it’s pretty hard to play quarterback if you can’t throw,” implying he’s more than ready for the challenge at hand.

He will need to beat out a pair of more-senior passers in seventh-year graduate student Jack Tuttle and senior Davis Warren. Tuttle, who has starting experience from his time at Indiana, is the only player in the room who’s started a game. Across his career, Tuttle has completed 119 of 199 passes for six touchdowns and six interceptions. Last year as a back up, he was extremely efficient for U-M, completing 15 of 17 attempts for 130 yards and a score and running four other times for 35 yards.

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Last but not least, Warren, who threw a pair of touchdowns in the spring game and told the Free Press in the winter shortly after U-M’s national title that his intention was to return and compete for the starting job. He didn’t complete a pass last season, going 0 for 5 with an interception, but the year prior he did connect on 5 of 9 passes for 89 yards.

Junior Jayden Denegal was also said to be in the competition, however based on experience and the spring game as sample size, he figured to be on the outside looking in.

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“They got to be low-turnover, high-completion players,” Campbell said of his main criteria for picking the starter. “But there's stuff off the field that we're looking at. I mean, all of them are great leaders. But who is the great guy, the best guy to go out there and lead this team?‌"

No. 2: What does running game look like?

Now six months removed, it feels safe to say Blake Corum was somehow taken for granted.

A unanimous All-American in 2022, Corum ran the ball more than 500 times in just the past two seasons alone as he racked up more than 2,900 yards of offense and 47 touchdowns. No U-M player has scored more rushing touchdowns in a single season (27) or career (58) than Corum, and now it’s up to Donovan Edwards and Kalel Mullings to try and replace that production.

Edwards is far from a new face. The man with the nickname "Big Game Don" ran six times for 104 yards and two scores in last year’s national title game and in the final three games of the 2022 season amassed 520 rushing yards and three scores as the full-time replacement for Corum, who was out with a season-ending knee injury — but last year was far from consistent.

In his first 14 games, Edwards ran 113 times for 393 yards (that average of 3.4 yards per carry which was the worst mark in the Power Five among ball carriers with at least 100 rushes) and just three scores.

Even his work in the pass game (where he’s 89 yards away from setting a U-M record for receiving yards any a running back) took a step back with 30 grabs for 249 yards (8.8 yards per touch) and no scores.

As for Mullings, who ran 36 times for 222 yards and a score last year, the senior converted linebacker is out to show he’s a multi-dimensional runner and not just a short-yardage back.

The duo will also be running behind an entirely new offensive line. Last year, U-M had a trio of starters in Zak Zinter, Trevor Keegan and Karen Barnhart who combined to start more than 100 games in a U-M uniform.

This year? Nobody on the offensive line has started even 10 games for the Maize and Blue, but there is still some experience in Myles Hinton (14 games, 5 starts at U-M), Gio El-Hadi (20 games, three starts), Greg Crippen (15 games), Josh Priebe (29 starts at Northwestern) and Jeff Persi (12 games, one start).

No. 3: Can defense replicate its dominance?

Michigan was the No. 1 rated defense in the nation last season both in total defense (247.0 yards per game) and perhaps more importantly, in scoring defense (10.4 points per game).

It remains to be seen if the Wolverines will be able to replicate that dominance, given what has walked out the door. Not only did Michigan lose a pair of defensive backs in All-American Mike Sainristil and starter Josh Wallace, but the Wolverines saw both of their starting linebackers (Junior Colson and Michael Barrett) get drafted into the NFL while a trio of defensive linemen (Kris Jenkins, Jaylen Harrell and Braiden McGregor) also are trying their shot at the next level.

And it wasn’t just the players who’ve left the unit. Former head coach Jim Harbaugh also poached half-a-dozen staffers from this side of the ball to join him in Los Angeles, including Jesse Minter (defensive coordinator), Mike Elston (defensive line), Rick Minter (linebackers), Steve Clinkscale (defensive backs), and Dylan Roney (edges).

U-M now has a new defensive staff led by a more-aggressive coach in Wink Martindale, with new coaches along the defensive line (Lou Esposito), linebacking unit (Brian Jean-Mary) and the secondary (Lamar Morgan).

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There’s still a ton of talent on this unit. The defensive line has a pair of potential first round picks in Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant and at least four future NFL players when counting Derrick Moore and Josaiah Stewart.

For this unit, the talent isn't the question. But will the turnover be too much to overcome and still be dominant?

No. 4: Is Sherrone Moore ready for the spotlight?

Sherrone Moore has acted as Michigan’s head coach before; four times as a matter of fact.

It was the second of those four contests, a road game in Happy Valley, that showed athletic director Warde Manuel all he needed to know about Harbaugh’s future replacement.

"To be told 90 minutes before a game (that) you're taking over against a team like Penn State in an environment like Penn State, and to see his poise and the way he handled things, both leading the team, calling the plays, making the decisions, that was the time, when after talking to Jim about him, I realized that this could be our next head coach," Manuel said this offseason.

Moore came to Ann Arbor after coaching tight ends in Mount Pleasant and worked his way up the coaching ranks; coaching tight ends for three years with Michigan, then taking over the offensive line and getting named co-offensive coordinator for two seasons, before he was named the sole offensive coordinator last year.

Moore’s overseen two Joe Moore Award winning offensive lines, three Big Ten championship teams and a national championship. One un-named player told Manuel upon news of Harbaugh leaving, “you know who we want,” implying Moore.

After a slow start on the recruiting trail, Moore seems to have picked it up there. It will be interesting to see how quickly he gets his feet under him as a head coach — the tests will be immediate with Fresno State, Texas and USC as three of the first four games.

No. 5: Will Michigan still have the same drive?

The only thing harder than becoming a champion? Staying a champion.

Michigan football will put this cliché to the test this season as U-M begins its first title defense in a quarter of a century. In 2023, even after winning consecutive league titles, there was a clear hunger and desire as seniors and graduate students returned in droves to handle the "unfinished business."

That business was very much finished last year and now U-M is in a new era, with a new coach and new leaders. With that said, there is quite a bit of overlap from the recent reign of success and Michigan will need to lean into that, as Michigan will need to manufacture its own energy as it will be the hunted and not the hunter in each game this year.

“We know we lost a lot of great players on our team,” Mason Graham told the Free Press last week. “It’s going to have to be a lot of younger guys who step up this year. We might not have the depth that we had last year, but we definitely have all the players we need to get the job done.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 5 biggest questions Michigan football faces ahead of 2024 Big Ten media days