Michigan and Washington prevail to reach College Football Playoff title game
Jalen Milroe caught a low snap on fourth down in overtime at the Rose Bowl and ran straight ahead into wall of blue and maize.
That wall of Michigan defenders had been hardened by the Wolverines’ violent practice drills. Toughened by two previous College Football Playoff losses. Made impenetrable by months of turmoil that battered the program and its beloved head coach, Jim Harbaugh.
Alabama’s quarterback went nowhere.
The Wolverines are going to Houston.
Blake Corum rushed for a 17-yard touchdown on the second snap of overtime, and top-seeded Michigan advanced to its first CFP championship game with a 27-20 victory over fourthseeded Alabama in the Rose Bowl on Monday night.
Harbaugh’s Wolverines (14-0) will play for their school’s first national title since 1997 against Washington on 8 January – but only after a fourth-quarter comeback and a hair-raising finish when the two winningest programs in college football history played just the second overtime game in the 110 editions of the Granddaddy of Them All.
“Glorious. That was glorious,” Harbaugh said. “It was a tremendous football game.”
Roman Wilson made a four-yard TD catch with 1:34 left in regulation for the Wolverines, who hadn’t scored in the second half until that gritty 75-yard drive led by JJ McCarthy.
Corum, who caught an early TD pass and rushed for 83 yards, needed only two snaps to score in the first overtime period, breaking tackles and spinning wildly into the end zone.
After Milroe was stopped two yards short of the end zone on the final snap, the Wolverines’ entire sideline sprinted onto the field, throwing a few helmets in the air while fireworks soared from behind the Rose Bowl scoreboard.
“Everything that we went through this entire year made us unbreakable, and in the biggest moments, we were going to show up,” said McCarthy, who passed for 221 yards and three touchdowns to win the Offensive Player of the Game award.
Jase McClellan rushed for 87 yards and two touchdowns for Alabama (12-2), which fell heartbreakingly short of the chance to play for Nick Saban’s seventh national title at the school. The Tide led 20-13 on Will Reichard’s 52-yard field goal with 4:41 to play, but their defense couldn’t preserve it.
“We just didn’t finish the last four minutes of the game like we would like to, and we’re all very disappointed,” Saban said. “But one thing I told them in the locker room, this is one of the most amazing seasons in Alabama football history in terms of where this team came from and what they were able to accomplish.”
Milroe passed for 116 yards and rushed for 63 for the Tide, whose 11game winning streak ended.
Michigan are the sixth straight No 1 seed to win their semi-final game in the CFP’s 10 years of existence – but only after surviving just the third overtime Playoff game. After everything that has happened to Michigan in the past several months, Harbaugh believes his team is primed to keep fighting.
“If ever a game was going to be won up front, it was going to be won with toughness and physicality,” Harbaugh said. “Our guys were just there in rhythm and got it done. Epic game. Epic game. The stick-togetherness – I guess what people don’t know, how could they know, what the togetherness is like? There’s just nothing that can separate these guys.”
Michigan are one win away from reaching the primary goal set by Harbaugh when he returned to his alma mater in 2015 to restore its dominance. The former Wolverines quarterback won no Big Ten titles in his first six seasons, but Michigan have been elite since 2021, winning three straight conference titles and advancing to three Playoffs.
“We broke through after the Covid year, getting here,” linebacker Michael Barrett said. “We fell short a couple of times, man, but finally doing this, especially against Alabama, especially with a great coach like Nick Saban, great athletes they have, just having this tonesetting win, it’s definitely a turning point for the program.”
The Wolverines’ pristine record masked a profoundly messy season bookended by two three-game suspensions for Harbaugh – the first issued preemptively by the school amid an investigation of possible recruiting violations, and the second mandated by the Big Ten over allegations of signstealing and in-game scouting.
“It’s almost been an unfair advantage, all the things that the team has gone through,” Harbaugh said. “We don’t care anymore. Don’t care what people say. Don’t care about anything that comes up. We just know we’re going to overcome it.”
Michigan defensive coordinator Jesse Minter acknowledged that the program’s infamously difficult 9-on-7 tackling drills are “definitely” done for moments just like the end of this Rose Bowl.
“You put the faith in your players and trust their training, and when the game’s on the line, you let them go play fast and don’t overthink it,” Minter said. “The game comes down to the last play. We’re going after him, and that’s what we’re able to do. So proud of our guys for the win.”
Michigan was the dominant team for long stretches of the first three quarters of the Rose Bowl, yet Alabama hung in impressively with big plays and just enough defensive stops.
The Wolverines snapped their sixbowl losing streak and survived a handful of potentially disastrous mistakes
that undercut their long stretches of superiority in this matchup. The biggest was a muffed punt by Jake Thaw, who was tackled at the Michigan 1 with 43 seconds left in regulation and barely avoided what would have been one of the most spectacular safeties in football history.
McClellan made an untouched 34yard TD run in the first quarter, and Michigan answered with Corum’s eightyard catch for his FBS-leading 25th TD – his first on a reception. Corum has been at Michigan for three straight appearances in the CFP, but he barely played two years ago when the Wolverines were routed by Georgia, and he was injured when they were upset by TCU last year.
The Wolverines went ahead shortly before halftime when Tyler Morris made a 38-yard TD catch, but McClellan put the Tide up 17-13 with a threeyard TD run on the second snap of the fourth quarter. Down seven moments later, Michigan finally got moving with Corum and Wilson making big plays before Wilson’s tying TD.
“It’s very frustrating, man,” Alabama defensive back Malachi Moore said. “We always preach finishing, and we’re competitors at the end of the day, so when it come down to stuff like that it really eat at you.”
Texas 31-38 Washington
Michael Penix Jr passed for 430 yards and two touchdowns, and Washington held off Texas 37-31 in the Sugar
Bowl on Monday night to advance to the College Football Playoff championship game, earning both the sixthyear quarterback with two surgically repaired knees and the beleaguered Pac-12 one more game this season.
The second-ranked Huskies (14-0) will face No 1 Michigan next Monday night in Houston, looking for their first national championship since 1991 and the Pac-12’s first since Southern California in 2004. Washington is one of 10 schools fleeing the Pac-12 for other Power Five conferences next year, with the Huskies headed to join Michigan in the Big Ten.
But first, the final season of the four-team playoff before expansion to 12 in 2024 comes down to a Pac-12-Big Ten matchup, just like the first when
Ohio State beat Oregon.
No 3 Texas (12-2) had four shots at the end zone after getting to the UW 12 with 15 seconds left, but Quinn Ewers missed on the last three. The final throw was a fade to a well-covered Adonai Mitchell that sailed long.
In Texas’ first CFP appearance and final football game as a member of the Big 12 before it goes to the Southeastern Conference, Ewers passed for 318 yards and a touchdown. But it wasn’t enough against Penix and his array of talented receivers.
Penix spent his first four college seasons at Indiana, suffering three season-ending injuries. When his former offensive coordinator at Indiana, Kalen DeBoer, took over at Washington, Penix didn’t think twice before moving to Seattle.
The left-hander stayed healthy and blossomed into a star, the Heisman Trophy runner-up this year, and now has a chance to win a national championship after another brilliant performance.
Penix went 29 for 38 with no turnovers. He completed 12 straight at one point, the longest on-target streak in the CFP’s 10-year history.
And he did it attacking down field as usual. He completed six passes of at least 20 yards, connecting with Rome Odunze six times for 125 yards and Ja’Lynn Polk five times for 122.