Michigan and Penn State were ranked in August but got no votes Sunday

There were 25 teams in Sunday's Associated Press poll and 10 more that received votes. Michigan was not among them. A week earlier it had 54 points, and in the coaches poll it had been 24th. This week the coaches left it off every ballot too.

Penn State is in the same place. It was 13th in the AP poll two weeks before this one, then lost 24-20 at home to Wisconsin and 34-13 at Northwestern. Neither poll gave it a point this week. The teams that beat these two did better: Minnesota picked up 19 AP points and 40 from the coaches after beating Michigan 20-14, and Northwestern got 59 and 70.

In the preseason AP poll Michigan was 16th and Penn State 18th, with Washington between them at 17th. Those were three of the eight Big Ten teams in that poll. All three are now 3-2, 0-2 in the conference, and without a vote. Michigan does not play Washington this year. It plays Penn State on October 17 in Ann Arbor.

A poll in the first week of October is still part guess. A conference standings table is not, and the Big Ten's has sorted itself toward the ends: 13 of its 18 teams are unbeaten or winless in conference play.

Six at 2-0, seven at 0-2#

In the two seasons the Big Ten has played without divisions, all four teams that reached the championship game were 8-1 or better in conference play. Michigan's best possible finish now is 7-2. Nothing in the rules keeps a 7-2 team out of Indianapolis. It would take a run of losses by the six teams now at 2-0, and help from the tiebreakers, and it has not happened in the two seasons this format has existed.

The other path is an at-large bid, and its shape is 10-2.

What 10-2 asks for#

Michigan has seven games left. To finish 10-2 it has to win all seven.

The last two seasons give a decent count of how often that happens. In 2024 and 2025, 75 FBS teams lost two of their first five games. One of them won every game after that: Notre Dame in 2025, which lost 27-24 at Miami and 41-40 to Texas A&M, then won 10 straight. It finished 11th in the selection committee's final ranking, one spot behind the Miami team that had beaten it, and it was not in the field.

Of the 75, 41 played in the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 or ACC. None of the 41 won out. Two came within a game, South Carolina in 2024 and Texas in 2025, both 9-3. Nine of the 41 lost two or fewer of the games that were left. The other 32 lost at least three.

That is the base rate Michigan is working against, and the schedule does not lean its way.

The seven, measured by how they score#

The poll has four of Michigan's remaining opponents ranked. A better way to read them is what they have done with the ball, because Michigan's season has been about what it has not.

Michigan scores 23.0 points a game, which is 106th of the 138 FBS teams. Take out the 52 it put up against UTEP and it has scored 13, 17, 19 and 14. Four of the seven teams left average more than 42. Its defense allows 15.8 a game, 23rd nationally, and it will need to be better than that against Oregon, UCLA, Indiana and Ohio State, because the offense has not scored 20 points against anyone but UTEP. Indiana allows 10.8 a game, fifth in the country, and Ohio State allows 12.6, tied for eighth.

Penn State is the one of the seven that looks most like Michigan on paper: a defense allowing 16.0 a game, an offense that has not scored more than 20 against a Big Ten opponent, and the same two losses. The difference is that Penn State's three wins came by an average of 35 points, and Michigan's three by an average of 14.3, two of them by a combined eight.

The offense, in the words of the people inside it#

Kyle Whittingham said after the Minnesota game that the results were "unacceptable." "We might have to make some tough decisions here. We'll see," he said, according to 247Sports. "I'm not pointing fingers. Certainly not pointing fingers at the players. But something has got to be resolved."

On Tuesday, Zack Marshall, a senior tight end, apologized for messages in a group text that leaked over the weekend. ESPN reported that the messages attributed to him said Jason Beck, the offensive coordinator, had told the tight ends that none of them were valuable to the offense, and that Michigan struggles against the blitz because it "runs different versions of the power read on every play." Marshall's post on X said that in the hours after the loss he "pointed fingers instead of taking accountability," and apologized to his teammates and coaches. A Michigan spokesperson told ESPN the coaches had discussed it with him.

Marshall's description is a player's, written in anger, and he has taken it back. It lands in the same week the head coach said the staff would look at everything. Beck's offense at Utah scored 41.1 points a game in the 2025 regular season, sixth in FBS. The bye gives Michigan two weeks between games for the first time this season, and whatever it decides about that offense and these players has to show up against a Penn State defense that has allowed 16 a game.

Health, carried forward#

Andrew Sprague, the junior right tackle, has missed three straight games: UTEP, Iowa and Minnesota. Michigan has started the same five offensive linemen in each of them. The Big Ten availability report for the Penn State game is the first document that will show whether the bye returned anyone.

Where that leaves the season#

Of the 41 power-conference teams that started this way, 32 lost at least three more. Three more losses would leave Michigan 7-5 at best and out of the at-large conversation.

Nine of the 41 did better, and Texas and South Carolina lost only one more. Michigan plays four of its seven at home, including Penn State and Indiana. Whatever Whittingham decides during the bye will be visible for the first time on October 17.

Penn State and Michigan kick off at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 Pacific, at Michigan Stadium. It is Michigan's homecoming. One of them will be 0-3 in the Big Ten that night.

Sources: CollegeFootballData (2026, 2025 and 2024 game results; AP, coaches and committee rankings); ESPN rankings feed (AP and coaches others receiving votes, week 6); Michigan Athletics schedule and roster pages; ESPN, "Michigan's Zack Marshall apologizes for criticizing OC Jason Beck," October 6; 247Sports, Whittingham postgame, October 4.