The 2024 college football season is well underway, and several of the sport’s blue bloods are adding to their respective legacies.
Blue bloods are considered the most elite within the sport—these programs have a deep history of national and conference titles, are consistently ranked inside the Top 25 and have been nationally relevant over multiple years.
But, as we know all too well in college football, not every season goes according to plan, even for blue blood schools. So what are college football blue bloods’ biggest fears for the 2024 season? Let’s run through them to find out.
For our list of schools, we used this recent list of blue bloods from On3 Sports released this summer, as well as a few other schools added in.
Things were expected to look a lot different in Ann Arbor in 2024. Jim Harbaugh is gone, and he took a number of assistants with him to the NFL. There are also several key players from the national title roster that the Wolverines had to replace.
Yes, two games is a small sample size, but 2024 might be a tougher year for first-year head coach Sherrone Moore than was initially anticipated. In Week 1 at home against Fresno State, it was a one- or two-score game until late in the fourth quarter. Last week against Texas, Michigan didn’t find the end zone until the last two minutes of the game, while the Wolverines defense gave up 389 total yards to the Longhorns.
Obviously Michigan’s struggles don’t hinge on a single player, but Michigan starting quarterback Davis Warren has struggled through the first couple of weeks, throwing for 322 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions while completing just 63.8 percent of his passes.
Michigan getting Arkansas State at home this week should be a good way for the Wolverines to get back on track. But as for the rest of the schedule, it could be a long season in Ann Arbor if Michigan keeps playing like it has. Michigan will play No. 11 USC at home on Sept. 21 and has two road trips to Washington and Illinois on Oct. 5 and Oct. 19 with a bye week in between. The biggest tests in November include a home game against No. 9 Oregon on Nov. 2 before ending the regular season at Ohio State on Nov. 30.
Surprisingly, the reigning national champion might not compete for a playoff spot this year, even with the expanded 12-team system. It looks like Moore won’t just pick up where Harbaugh left off, at least not in Year 1.
