Outside Schembechler Hall, the skies were gray and the air was chill. It felt a bit like one of those typical fall Saturdays in Ann Arbor or perhaps a January night in Houston, the site of the next national championship game.
But alas it is August, which means it’s that time of year when the hype around Michigan football tends to swell to enormous, sometimes outrageous levels.
This program has historically been the home to September Heisman winners and inflated preseason rankings fomenting the kind of outsized expectations that are never quite fulfilled. The buildup and subsequent letdowns have become such a regular pattern that eyeballs roll and sighs are exhaled whenever buzz around the Wolverines crescendos.