Monday night’s College Football Playoff Championship started and ended with a bang.
Michigan claimed its first national title since the 1997-98 season with a 34-13 win over Washington, a game that began with an offensive explosion and ended with the nation’s top defense flexing its muscle against arguably the top offense.
Donovan Edwards rattled off two 40-yard-plus touchdown runs on Michigan’s first two possessions to give the Wolverines an early lead over Washington.
The Huskies, though, were able to hang tough the majority of the game after climbing within one score at halftime. The score sat at 20-13 for much of the second half until Blake Corum capped a 71-yard drive to extend the lead late in the fourth quarter.
Years of waiting for a 10th title in program history finally culminated on the following drive when Mike Sainristil intercepted Michael Penix Jr. and returned it to inside the 10-yard-line.
His 81-yard return set up another Corum touchdown that put the finishing touches on the dream season for Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines, one that came with plenty of highs and lows.
Harbaugh twice served three-game suspensions in the midst of controversy — at the start of the season for alleged recruiting violations during the COVID-19 period, and the final three games of the regular season for violating the Big Ten Sportsmanship Policy in what Commissioner Tony Petitti deemed a “proven” impermissible scheme involving off-campus, in-person scouting and sign stealing, a violation of NCAA rules.
But the Wolverines adopted a “Michigan vs. Everybody” attitude down the stretch, culminating in Monday night’s triumph.
Michigan’s last title came on New Year’s Day 1998, a Rose Bowl win over Washington State that helped the Wolverines split the last title of the poll era before the onset of the BCS National Championship Game the following year.
This title ends the four-team CFP era as we know it, as next year will mark the start of the new 12-team playoff.