Wolverines take underdog mentality to Rose Bowl
Even as top seed, team sees Alabama as bowl standard
Michigan football finds itself in a rather peculiar position.
Michigan (13-0) is ranked No. 1 in the College Football Playoff seedings as well as both polls, is favored over No. 4 Alabama by nearly all sportsbooks ahead of the programs’ Jan. 1 Rose Bowl matchup and is the only CFP participant this season returning from last season’s field.
That’s while U-M’s Block M is perhaps the biggest brand in college athletics: Its 1,002 victories are the most of any football team (at any level) and Michigan is returning to the stage nearly synonymous with their brand. Only Southern Cal (34) has played in more Rose Bowls than Michigan (21).
And yet, the Wolverines don’t have the typical buzz befitting a 1-vs.-4 CFP matchup.
Perhaps it’s because U-M coach Jim Harbaugh is 1-6 in bowls during his time in Ann Arbor. Or maybe it’s because his Crimson Tide counterpart, Nick Saban, is 6-1 in CFP semifinals, with six consecutive victories.
And so Michigan has embraced a virtual underdog mentality, developing — as defensive coordinator Jesse Minter put it Tuesday, the familiar “chip on their shoulder” approach.
“I don’t think it’s taken much to create it,” Minter said. “When we got back together, as a defense as a team — this is what they came back for. 13-0 is fantastic, nobody (at U-M) has ever won three straight outright Big Ten championships like this group has, like coach Harbaugh has.
“But at the same time, this group has been driven to get to this moment. And so past failures often lead to that mentality, that chip on their shoulder. So even though we’ve had success, nobody will ever take that away, it’s really this moment that, to a man, everybody said like ‘this is what we’re coming for. This is why we’re coming back.”
The Tide missed the CFP a season ago, but that didn’t stop Minter from jokingly referring to the CFP semifinals as “the Alabama invitational.” In 10 seasons of the four-team CFP
format, Saban’s squad has made it eight times.
Then again, although Alabama is the direct opponent, U-M is also contending with the boogeyman of the SEC in general.
That has been the case since the offseason, when Michigan implemented a “Beat Georgia” drill into its practices. Around that time, captain Kris Jenkins explained the mentality simply: “In order to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best.”
The SEC can certainly lay claim to the title as college football’s best. The 14-team conference — which adds Oklahoma and CFP participant Texas next season — has won four straight national championships, with Georgia taking the past two, only to fall to Alabama in this year’s SEC title game. In all 13 of the past 17 CFP or BCS champions have come from the SEC. And from the Big Ten? One — Ohio State in 2014, the first season of the CFP.
“We haven’t won it, they have,” offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore said Tuesday. “We have to prepare our tails off to get to that point to what they’ve done.”
Michigan players and staff detailed how
that preparation has been different this year: more walkthroughs and film work, fewer days of full pads and heavy hitting. It’s all part of how Harbaugh has adjusted to last year’s result — a 51-45 loss to TCU in the CFP semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl — when he felt his team may have burned out too quickly.
Although Minter said it’s a copout to blame a lack of preparation for last season’s disappointing end — not to mention a disservice to those players — he acknowledged something needed to change.
“You always try to find a way to be better,” he said. “It’s easy to look back and say ‘Well, we must not have prepared well for the game.’ I think that’s a nonsense thing to say. … But we certainly didn’t play our best.”
At the top of Michigan’s priorities in prepping for this year’s matchup, perhaps? Figuring out how to slow down Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe. He lost the job after a Week 2 loss to Texas, then earned it back a few weeks later and has been one of the most dynamic QBs in the country since.
Minter called Milroe a “phenomenal” athlete and gave credit not just to Saban but offensive coordinator Tommy Rees as well for “finding what works,” with Milroe. The first-year starter, Minter said, has developed as a passer — something he doesn’t get enough credit for — and isn’t just a playmaker.
“I don’t think we’ve seen a quarterback like this,” Minter said. “The closest thing we’ve seen is in practice with some of our guys.” So how will Minter’s defense stop Milroe? “This is a ultimate, ultimate group effort,” he said. “Not trying to go rogue and do your own thing — fit within the framework off the rush lanes, fit within the framework of where you fit on the quarterback.”
There are plenty of other questions for the Wolverines: Is there enough skill on the outside to contend with two potential first-round cornerbacks (Kool-Aid McKinstry and Terrion Arnold)? Can the much-honored U-M offensive line make up for its previous rough postseason performances (as well as the absence of injured Zak Zinter)? Will J.J. McCarthy cement himself as the greatest quarterback in program history?
Those will be answered in a little less than two weeks. But Moore answered one question Tuesday when he was asked if U-M has to prove to the nation it can beat Alabama.
“We just need to go win,” Moore said. “We’re not worried about proving anything, not worried about anybody’s opinions. We’re just ready to go attack and go try to win.”