Going into the 1997 season, the Wolverines were ranked No. 17 in the pre-season Coaches' Poll and had experienced four consecutive four-loss seasons for the first time since the 1934–1937 Michigan Wolverines football teams. Michigan had not won a national championship in nearly 50 years and had not played in a Rose Bowl Game since the 1992 season. The 1997 Michigan team was the first since the 1969 team to have no Rose Bowl veterans. In early September 1997, "The Columbus Dispatch" wrote off Michigan, noting that "the longtime beast of the Big Ten ... has lost much of its aura" and predicting that Michigan's 1997 schedule "doesn't create a feeling that the pendulum is about to swing back."