The Michigan Wolverines are National Champions
After 26 years, four head coaches, and back-to-back postseason heartbreaks, the Michigan Wolverines are national champions. A perfect way to end the program’s first-ever 15-0 season: the Wolverines triumphed over the Washington Huskies with a final score of 34-13 to win the last four-team college football playoff. Michigan fought through a tumultuous season, seeing their head coach Jim Harbaugh sidelined half of their games for both sign-stealing and recruiting violations. Despite this, offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore stepped up to lead Michigan to three straight wins to end the regular season over Penn State, Maryland, and Ohio State.
Relying on a dominant offensive line, Michigan followed its formula for success against Washington—handing the ball off to star running backs Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards who combined for 238 yards and four touchdowns. In addition, Michigan’s defense shut down Washington’s lethal passing attack with interceptions from Mikey Sainristil and Will Johnson. J.J. McCarthy, Ann Arbor’s beloved quarterback, played a clean game and made clutch plays down the stretch to lead Michigan to the win.
In Harbaugh’s ninth season, he finally delivered the long-anticipated National Championship fans hoped he could provide when the former Michigan quarterback was hired as head coach. However, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. While Harbaugh initially revitalized the program—even leading the team to be ranked #3 overall in the last week of the 2016 season—his failure to beat Ohio State in his first four seasons and a disastrous 2-4 finish in the Covid-shortened year led to many fans demanding his resignation. Instead, Harbaugh took a pay cut and has gone 39-3 since. Despite leading Michigan to the promised land after this impressive streak, Harbaugh announced on January 25th that he will be going to the NFL as the head coach of the LA Chargers.
As Michigan looks toward next season, they have already hired Sherrone Moore as head coach and will host an in-house quarterback competition to replace J.J. McCarthy. The Wolverines are currently projected to break the record for most players drafted, with ESPN projecting them to have 17 players in seven rounds. Although they are losing a large chunk of their starters, Michigan will have to field a strong team as they have the 13th hardest strength of schedule according to 247Sports, with notable opponents being Texas, USC, Washington, Oregon, and Ohio State. Nonetheless, Michigan fans are happy with the stellar 2023 season they had, and should be excited for the future of college football’s winningest program.