PASADENA, Calif. — The cavalcade of buses pulled into the south lot at the Rose Bowl on Saturday morning, “Granddaddy of Them All” written on the side, as dozens of Michigan football players, coaches and staffers streamed down the steps and into the damp parking area.
The moment was finally here. OK, maybe not the moment.
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That moment, when No. 1 Michigan (13-0) and No. 4 Alabama (12-1) kick off the Rose Bowl on Monday (5 p.m., ESPN) was still a bit more than 48 hours away. This moment was the full-team College Football Playoff semifinal media day and the reality of what would soon happen on the field nearby wasn’t lost on anyone.
U-M has been on a similar stage before — it lost to Georgia in the CFP semifinal in the Orange Bowl, 34-11, to end the 2021 season and fell to TCU in the CFP semi in the Fiesta Bowl, 51-45, dumping water on last year’s undefeated campaign — but not this stage, the quintessential bowl atmosphere.
Nobody guaranteed anything, but head coach Jim Harbaugh’s confidence was loud and clear.
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“Just picture your favorite ball team you’ve ever been on,” Harbaugh began. “High school, college, pro. This is that ball team. … Bo Schembechler always talked about, ‘The team, the team, the team.’ Well this team is the team.
“I couldn’t be prouder, more excited to lead them into battle.”
Harbaugh said something similar earlier this season, when he proclaimed Team 144 the “ultimate team in every way, shape and form.” But what makes this the team?
That answer looks a little bit different for everybody.
“I think it was when we all made the decision to come back,” said Zak Zinter, a fifth-year captain, and unanimous All-American offensive lineman. “It’s something special about the team where we’re so close and so bonded as a team, it’s honestly hard to explain unless you’re in it day in and day out.”
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Zinter told the Free Press he was “close” to declaring for the NFL last offseason — some mornings he would wake up thinking he was leaving, other days he’d think he’d decided to stay — and several seniors, such as Blake Corum, Cornelius Johnson and Trevor Keegan, were weighing similar decisions.
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The offensive lineman admitted there was that pull of the entire group to finish what was started, and that he certainly didn’t want to be the first one to declare.
“I think if one of us left, a couple more of us might have left, but once one guy came back, it kind of snowballed,” Zinter said. “You don’t find a lot of places anymore where we’re all brothers. I mean, we all hang out on the weekends, like we all really do like love each other on and off the field.
“Now, the transfer portal, one year things don’t go their way, everyone dips out. You haven’t seen that here really. Just goes to show the culture of the coaches and all that.”
For Mike Sainristil, who also mulled entering the draft last winter only to return and be named captain and an All-American this season, the return was just the starting point. Certainly, it set the tone for an offseason full of intense workouts with a national championship as the team’s sole focus, but when the star defensive back said he truly learned what his teammates were made of was on Nov. 10.
That’s when the Big Ten announced it was suspending Harbaugh for the remainder of the regular season for violating the league’s sportsmanship policy as it pertained to the program’s sign-stealing scandal.
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Harbaugh wasn’t guilty directly, but was tasked with punishment as the face of the program.
“Just to see how everybody responded within those next hours, then the next day you go out and see how we played,” Sainristil said. “It was like, ‘This is what they’re going to do, let’s prove them wrong.’ You know, you take our coach away from us at one of the most critical times of our season, OK, cool, we have an answer for that — and that’s go out and dominate.”
For senior offensive lineman Drake Nugent, a transfer from Stanford, U-M’s defining in-game moment as his sign that this team was the team came late in the season.
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That was in the regular-season finale against Ohio State, when he was blocked backwards onto Zinter, who suffered a broken tibia and fibula on the play.
Play stopped for more than 10 minutes before Zinter was carted off the field, but on the next snap, Corum ripped off a 22-yard touchdown run, spiked the ball in the ground and emphatically flashed a “6-5′ with his fingers to the camera, in honor of his fallen teammate.
“I don’t even know,” the perplexed Nugent said. “That was like destiny at that point.”
The moments that made this season stand out, both good and bad, are virtually endless.
Corum set U-M’s single-season touchdown record (24) and tied the program’s all-time touchdown record (55), quarterback J.J. McCarthy worked his way (briefly) into Heisman Trophy conversations as he finished in the nation’s top 10 in completion percentage (74.2%) and QBR (89.3) and the defense proved, statistically, to be the nation’s best unit from start to finish.
But the season has also been marked by scandal.
Four different coaches or coordinators — Jesse Minter, Mike Hart, Sherrone Moore and Jay Harbaugh — all served as head coach while Jim Harbaugh watched six games from home as he served two separate three-game suspensions. Linebackers coach Chris Partridge was fired and former recruiting staffer Connor Stalions became a household name as reports of sign-stealing became the dominant story line of the sport.
All the while, the team kept its head down with a sole focus — a national championship.
At long last, the moment to play for a spot in that game is almost here.
“From the workouts last offseason, the mentality and vibe of the team,” McCarthy said. “The urgency and attention to detail we carried into the offseason was something special. That’s where the championships are going to be won, going through the offseason, going through spring ball.
“We put in the work.”
Contact Tony Garcia: [email protected]. Follow him at @realtonygarcia.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
