Facing fourth-and-two on his own 33-yard line, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh could have been conservative trailing Alabama by a touchdown with 3:19 left on the clock and three timeouts in his pocket. His offense had been shut down the entire second half, so nobody would have blamed Harbaugh for trusting his dominant defense one more time.
Nobody, including his dad, who was in the stands watching in trepidation that this was going to be one more downtrodden trip home for the Wolverines from Pasadena.
“Back in the old days, when I was with Bo Schembechler, you never thought about it. You just punted,” said 84-year-old Jack Harbaugh, the former Michigan assistant coach, reflecting on his son’s decision later. “And now we have this thing called analytics, all these different things far beyond me, so my thing is, usually, punt it.”
Despite Michigan’s thrilling Rose Bowl win, Jim Harbaugh must be sick of coaching college football. He should take over the Chargers’ coaching job.
But Jim Harbaugh has been saying all season that his quarterback, J.J. McCarthy, is the standard bearer at that position for Michigan, surpassing even the head man himself. Harbaugh backed up those words Monday night by putting the ball in McCarthy’s hands with the season on the line.
McCarthy responded by converting on a nifty pass to running back Blake Corum, who slipped out of the backfield uncovered, for 27 yards. The next play, McCarthy kept the ball for 16 yards. Then, McCarthy found receiver Roman Wilson for a 29-yard gain. Two plays later, McCarthy hit Wilson again for a four-yard touchdown pass, tying the score with 1:38 left in what will go down as one of the all-time classic Rose Bowl Games.
Could Michigan finish off its comeback in overtime, overcoming a litany of unspeakable special teams errors that gave life to the Crimson Tide over and over again?
“When we scored and forced overtime, I knew it was over,” Corum said. “Just like Alabama probably thought it was over for us on that last drive. They had us on our heels, but we were able to come together as brothers.”
Sure enough, it was Corum who produced a dazzling 17-yard touchdown run to put the Wolverines up 27-20. And, minutes later, it was McCarthy who pumped up the insatiable Michigan crowd as the Crimson Tide faced their own fourth-down-and-season from the three-yard line.
After two lengthy timeout breaks, as the Michigan and Alabama coaching staffs eyed their respective alignments, the Crimson Tide settled on a designed run for quarterback Jalen Milroe, who ran into a blue wall of defenders for no gain. At that moment, Southern California experienced its second earthquake of the new year, the Wolverine faithful shaking the hallowed old bowl with a revelry their program hasn’t experienced since living it right here in 1997.
No. 1 Michigan, 14-0, will play in a true national championship game for the first time in program history on Jan. 8 in Houston (when it shared that ’97 title with Nebraska, it beat No. 7 Washington State in the Rose Bowl, the year before the start of the Bowl Championship Series).
Monday night’s thriller under the San Gabriels squashed all of the narratives surrounding the Michigan program — that the Wolverines can’t win the big game, and when they started doing it of late against rival Ohio State, it was suddenly due to an elaborate sign-stealing scheme, in the eyes of many.
But Michigan’s analyst in charge of scouting the other team’s signs, Connor Stalions, resigned in early November as the NCAA’s investigation into his activity took over college football. And the Wolverines responded by winning at Penn State 24-15 and against Ohio State 30-24 without Stalions — and Harbaugh, who served a three-game suspension levied by the Big Ten.
Harbaugh watched those games with his parents, Jack and Jackie, who were now waiting for Jim outside the victorious Michigan locker room on a chilly Pasadena night. Jack graciously spoke with a few reporters while he waited, marveling at much more than his son’s fourth-down gumption.
“Beautiful thing is, we’ve seen this team all year, and today they just encapsulated it all, the way they performed in that final drive and the overtime stop,” Jack said.
“We all know the circumstances and the ups and downs and all that. The games [Jim didn’t coach] were great victories, but to watch our team, our coaches, the way they looked into the camera with tears rolling down their face and telling the listening audience, we play for each other … and today to take that ball down the field, and the entire nation was able to see in living color what they were talking about at the end of all those games.”
Michigan safety Jesse Madden reminisces about what it’s been like to play football while being related to coaching and broadcasting legend John Madden.
Michigan proved once and for all on Monday night that its three-year run as Big Ten champions — and trio of wins over the Buckeyes — were not the product of employing a super spy. The NCAA penalties are still to come, whatever they may be, but what won’t be attached to them is doubt about the strength of what Harbaugh has built at his alma mater.
Not even Alabama, which was going for its seventh national championship under Nick Saban, now the sport’s most legendary tormenter, could stop these Wolverines.
“People kept saying, ‘When they found out they were gonna play Alabama, they were scared,’” Corum said. “Man, no one was scared. We’re the No. 1 team in the nation. No one was scared. We were surprised, just because of what happened [with Alabama being selected over Florida State]. I had all the confidence in the world going into this game we were going to get over the hump.”
Michigan fans, apparently, believed this team was different, too. The maize-and-blue contingent, which had been waiting not so patiently the last 17 years to make their return to the Rose Bowl, appeared to make up about 65% of the 96,371 in attendance.
The Wolverines began the game looking overwhelmed by either the grandness of the stage, the stakes or both. On the first play, McCarthy threw a weak pass toward the sideline and was nearly picked off by Alabama’s Caleb Downs, before a replay review determined Downs was out of bounds. Michigan’s defense forced a three-and-out on its first series, but freshman punt returner Semaj Morgan mishandled the punt, giving Alabama the ball at the Michigan 44.
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1. Alabama defensive back Jaylen Key tackles Michigan tight end Colston Loveland during the second quarter at the Rose Bowl on Monday. 2. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 3. Michigan fans react as Wolverines wide receiver Roman Wilson leaps into the end zone to tie the game late in the fourth quarter. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Four plays later, Alabama running back Jase McClellan hit a wide-open hole and juked Michigan’s Mike Sainristil for a 34-yard touchdown run to put the Crimson Tide up 7-0.
But Michigan’s immediate response was encouraging. The Wolverines executed a 75-yard touchdown drive on Alabama’s stalwart defense, establishing Corum on the ground before McCarthy found him for an 8-yard touchdown pass.
Throughout the first half, Michigan’s defensive front made Alabama’s offensive line look more like Indiana’s. The Wolverines got to Milroe whether they brought four or blitzed extra defenders, sacking him five times. Each sack seemed to build more confidence that Michigan hadn’t come all this way just to be issued a typical SEC beating with the whole country tuning in.
Harbaugh, sensing urgency to make the scoreboard reflect the way Michigan was controlling the game, went into his well of tricks. McCarthy threw a lateral pass to running back Donovan Edwards, who quickly tossed it back laterally to McCarthy. The quarterback made an acrobatic one-handed catch, then turned and heaved the ball down the field before getting hit hard by Alabama’s Dallas Turner. Wilson was streaking open and caught the ball for a 20-yard gain to remember.
McCarthy struck again, finding Tyler Morris on a crossing route for a 38-yard touchdown. But once again, Michigan suffered a self-inflicted wound with a bad snap on the extra point.
The Wolverines led the yardage battle 199-39, but led just 13-7 on the scoreboard with 3:49 left in the half. Alabama pulled to within 13-10 at halftime with a 50-yard Will Reichard field goal.
Neither team scored in the third quarter, as the sides traded miscues that stalled drives. The Rose Bowl DJ tried to break the tension, playing Michigan fans’ favored late-game anthem, the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” and, after Alabama took the lead again 17-13 early in the fourth quarter, “Dixieland Delight.”
But, as the Alabama fans belted their song of the South into the valley night, the Michigan fans came over the top of them with chants of “Let’s Go Blue!”
“We promised our fans we would go win it all, and we had to stand on that,” Corum said. “We kept saying on the sideline, a playmaker gotta make a play. Sometimes all it takes is one play to get the team going again.”
Harbaugh gave his quarterback that chance, and McCarthy’s fourth-down pass to Corum will now go down in Michigan history as the play that started it all.
McCarthy, named the game’s offensive MVP, completed 17 of 27 passes for 221 yards and three touchdowns.
Afterward, Harbaugh was at it again.
“J.J. told me last year we would be back and we were gonna win,” Harbaugh said. “I’ve said it before, but right here, this is the greatest QB in Michigan football history. There’s been nobody at Michigan better than J.J. He’s that guy.”
Jack Harbaugh has clearly heard all that many times before.
“I know Jim at nauseam talks about J.J.,” Jack said, “how impressed he is not just as a football player but as a leader. But now we saw it, the nation saw it. Jim says something now, we’re all gonna … we’ll believe what he’s talking about.”
Go beyond the scoreboard
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