7 college football bold predictions for the final month of the 2023 season

3. Michigan beats Ohio State by double-digits for third straight season

Elephant in the room, who the hell knows what's going to happen with the Michigan Wolverines right now? The program is being accused of a years-long and relatively extensive cheating/sign-stealing scandal executed by mysterious staffer Connor Stalions. With an investigation still ongoing, we have no clue what the ramifications will ultimately be in Ann Arbor.

What we can say right now, however, is that Michigan has been dogwalking their competition to this point.

Granted, as was noted coming into the year as well, the Wolverines' schedule to get to 7-0 on the season has been Charmin-soft. The two best wins on the season for Jim Harbaugh's group might actually be a pair of home victories over Rutgers and UNLV. While those are two teams that are already bowl-eligible, those wins also aren't needle-movers.

Having said that, J.J. McCarthy and this Michigan team has performed like you'd want them to in these spots. Michigan's smallest margin of victory this season was a 31-6 win over Bowling Green in Week 3 -- a game Harbaugh was suspended for. They've won every game by 25 points or more and have allowed double-digit points just once -- a 52-10 win over Minnesota.

Michigan has been thoroughly dominant and a complete football team on both sides of the ball all season. And once gain, we appear to be making a beeline for another Ohio State-Michigan game in the season finale where the Big Ten title and a College Football Playoff berth hangs in the balance.

Ohio State has the better resumé at this point with wins over Notre Dame and Penn State, but the eye test tells me it won't matter. For as good as the Buckeyes defense is, they have yet to face a well-oiled machine like Michigan. More importantly, though, Kyle McCord has continued to look highly imperfect against the best defenses he's faced, which could be an issue, especially with the game in Ann Arbor this year.

At the end of the day, the Buckeyes just won't have the goods to compete with Michigan. In fact, it won't be close. Fans in Columbus will likely point to the sign-stealing stuff should that happen -- and that is undeniably warranted and justified -- but it won't change the result on the scoreboard come Nov. 25.