It looks like the Supreme Court decided in favor of U of M in Michigan v. Everybody.
Ann Arbor is in hysterics after the University of Michigan Wolverines defeated their foes from the University of Washington 34–13 on Monday night. A dominant performance after a perilously close overtime victory versus Alabama the week before, this is Michigan’s first national championship of the millennium, with their last coming in 1997 — several years before this team’s seniors were born.
Michigan’s coach, Jim Harbaugh, took over the program in 2015 after a successful run at the helm of the San Francisco 49ers. Harbaugh’s tenure has been an exercise in patience, with the coach’s promise of ultimate victory coming up just short year after year. Despite the difficulty and inconsistent recruiting as the bully of the Big 10, Ohio State, pulled in five-stars, Harbaugh recruited the players he needed to run the ball over and through the Huskies’ defense. While quarterback J. J. McCarthy was a quiet ten for 18 for 140 yards, his running backs combined for 303 yards on the ground (8.0 yards per rush). For those unfamiliar with football’s stats, these running numbers are the equivalent of a grown man taking handoffs in Pop Warner and scattering seven-year-olds:
Scenes from Ann Arbor. The video doesn’t do it justice. pic.twitter.com/e22RVmCQvA
— Aiden Wagner (@TheAidenWagner) January 9, 2024
The Huskies’ defense was prostrate and their offense turned the ball over twice on 51 pass attempts. An undeniable trouncing, and one that fans of other Big 10 schools will have to suffer the retelling of for decades to come.
Here’s the Wall Street Journal‘s Jason Gay to relate the insufferableness of the Blue folk:
They deserve to be there. Yes, I said it. As a lonely Wisconsin Badger surrounded by Journal newsroom Wolverines who are going to be completely unbearable this week, humming “The Victors” in the elevators, I am expected to offer something snarky about Michigan’s latest accomplishment.
But I can’t, because they really did it. The No. 1 Wolverines stared into the abyss of another humiliating playoff semifinal loss — their greatest fear, after Ryan Day dressed in maize and blue — and persevered. They beat Alabama (Alabama!) and Nick Saban, and they did it with a late comeback, gutsy play-calling and pushing it to overtime to prevail 27-20.
All of this in a year where the head coach was twice suspended for what most would consider typical gamesmanship but what the NCAA considered punishable examples of sign-stealing and recruitment. What does it say for 2024 that the first major victor is a man under multiple investigations? Unknowable.
What we can know for certain is that Jim Harbaugh is a friend of National Review.
Here’s Jay Nordlinger, a friend from childhood of the Michigan coach interviewing the man at the top of the college game:
Enjoy a new Q&A, here. My guest is Jim Harbaugh, the coach of the University of Michigan football team. We are old friends, as I explained in a post last fall.
Jim was the quarterback of that very same University of Michigan team in the mid-1980s. Then he went to the NFL, where he played for 14 years. Mainly with the Bears and the Colts. Then it was coaching: the University of San Diego, Stanford University, the San Francisco 49ers — and back to Michigan.
We grew up together, in Ann Arbor. Best athlete I ever saw.
