MICHIGAN ARE NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!
"We Are the Champions" blasted and gold and white confetti showered over Jim Harbaugh's team as he lifted the championship trophy.
Harbaugh met the high standards he brought to his cherished alma school nine years after taking the helm at Michigan.
Monday night in the College Football Playoff, No. 2 Washington was defeated 34-13 by Blake Corum, who ran for 134 yards and two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Harbaugh and the top-ranked Wolverines, unfazed by suspensions and a case of sign-stealing that followed the programme, finished a three-year run to a national championship.
"We're innocent and we stood strong and tall because we knew we were innocent. And I'd like to point that out," Jumping in to respond to a question directed at his players, Harbaugh stated when questioned about off-field matters. "And these guys are innocent. And overcome that? It wasn't that hard because we knew we were innocent. "(The season) went exactly how we wanted it to go. It went exactly how we wanted it to go."
Corum, who scored the game-winning touchdown in overtime against Alabama in the Rose Bowl, rushed in from the 1-yard line with 3:37 remaining to put Michigan up by 21, setting off another raucous performance of 'The Victors' from the band, and the Wolverines (15-0) secured their first national championship since 1997.
Despite missing six games during the regular season this season due to two suspensions, Harbaugh won the championship that so many had predicted when he took over a failing powerhouse in 2015. This was his third consecutive postseason participation.
"That man, he's the reason we're here today," Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy said of his coach.
And Harbaugh accomplished it by leading a squad that Bo Schembechler, his former coach, would have loved. Against Washington (14-1), the Wolverines rushed for 303 yards, and their tough defence intercepted the Heisman Trophy runner-up twice while limiting Michael Penix Jr. and the Huskies' potent passing game to just one touchdown.
"There are more than 100 Michigan men who are on this team," Harbaugh said. "What they've done is amazing. They will forever be known as national champions."
Penix finished his incredible six-year collegiate career with what may have been his poorest game of the year. Penix was not nearly as accurate against a Michigan defence that negated his hallmark deep throws. Penix is usually undaunted by pressure.
"That was a spectacular game by our defense," Harbaugh said.
The transfer from Indiana, who had to recover from two knee operations and two shoulder issues, was roughed up by the Wolverines and occasionally hobbled.
When asked how he was feeling, Penix responded, unfazed: "Better than I was three years ago."
Penix completed 27 of 51 passes for 255 yards and a score, ending the Huskies' 21-game winning run.
A bunch of players who finished 4-8 just two seasons ago are now 25-3 after coach Kalen DeBoer came over in 2022. With DeBoer saying "They've given me everything they possible can."
McCarthy only ran for 31 yards and completed 140 yards of passing during the contest. However, it was sufficient to raise his record to 27-1 while starting for the Wolverines.
The Huskies were prepared for a while after Michigan gave them a taste of life in the Big Ten, where the Pac-12 champs will play next season.
The Wolverines led 17-3 early in the second quarter because to two lengthy touchdown runs by Donovan Edwards and 229 yards of rushing in the first quarter, which brought back thoughts of the historic Georgia rout of TCU last year.
In the first half, Washington steadied and didn't let the Wolverines score another point. With 4:46 remaining in the second quarter, the Huskies stopped Michigan on a fourth-and-2 from the UW 38, and Penix got to work.
With 42 seconds remaining, he connected with Jalen McMillan for a 3-yard score on a fourth-and-goal. Singing along to "Who Let the Dogs Out," the Huskies fans triumphantly defeated the Wolverines 17–10 at halftime, just moments before they were about to be crushed.
Michigan had another chance to take a two-touchdown lead after Will Johnson intercepted Penix on the opening play of the second half, but the Huskies forced James Turner to kick a field goal to make the score 20–10.
"Today was a complete, complete team effort," Corum said.
Up until midway through the fourth quarter, Michigan maintained a touchdown lead. However, the Wolverines eventually gained some breathing room when Corum scored a tackle-breaking 12-yard touchdown to finish off a 71-yard drive, giving them a 27-13 lead with 7:09 remaining.
With a knee injury from the previous season, Corum—the heart and soul of a team full of players in their fourth, fifth, and even sixth years—missed the CFP. He is the engine of the ground-and-pound offence. Before the College Football Playoffs grew from four teams to twelve the next season, he was selected as the offensive player of the final national championship game.
"Michigan, this is for you," Corum told the Wolverines fans.
When the NCAA announced in October that it was looking into Michigan's programme for possibly violating rules against in-person opponent scouting and using camera equipment to try to decipher opponents' play signals, the team appeared to be headed for a third straight Big Ten title.
The controversy threatened to ruin the Wolverines' season and made Connor Stalions, a low-level Michigan recruitment staffer accused of masterminding the plot, a household figure.
The NCAA procedure is expected to last well into 2024, and Michigan may be subject to fines that are yet to be determined. But the Big Ten took swift action, benching Michigan's head coach Jim Harbaugh for the next three regular season games, which included games against rival Ohio State and Penn State.
It was Michigan vs. Everyone once offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore replaced Harbaugh, and the Wolverines were unstoppable.
After completing the mission and returning for the postseason, Harbaugh was able to celebrate alongside his 84-year-old father, Jack, a former college football coach, while he accepted the trophy.
After defeating Maryland in November and winning its third national championship in January, Michigan became the first college football programme to reach 1,000 wins.
"Who has it better than us?" Jack Harbaugh questioned the spectators at the award ceremony, and they responded with a raucous: "Nobody!"
With the NFL obviously calling once more, the issue now is whether Harbaugh has coached the team he once quarterbacked for the final time.
It felt nice, according to Harbaugh, to not be the only coach in the family without a national championship any more. Eleven years before, John, his brother, defeated Jim's San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl while playing for the Baltimore Ravens. His father had won a Division I-AA championship with Western Kentucky.
"I can now sit at the big person's table in the family," Harbaugh said.
What comes next, then?
"I just want to enjoy this," he said. "I hope you give me that. Can I have that? Does it always have to be what's next, what's the future?"