Michigan Wins The National Championship

This space will not typically feature sports reportage, but today we have little choice but to pause and recognize your 2024 College Football Playoff National Champions, the University of MICH Wolverines.

For any team, yes, probably even the Alabamas and Georgias of the sport, a national championship is a rare, unforgettable accomplishment. Watching your team win is the type of moment where you know, in real time, you will never forget what you’re seeing. National championships are up there with wedding days and childbirths in that regard. In that way, when MICH beat Washington Monday night for the title, I got to experience what so many other fans, in other fanbases, have experienced every January since at least back in the BCS days, when college football championships went from myth to reality.

But of course, I think the meaning of MICH's win goes beyond the significance of a normal championship. For two reasons:

1. In the time since MICH's last national championship, in 1997 (which also was “mythical” and not an outright championship), the program completely collapsed and went through several of the worst seasons in its nearly 150-year history. Two coaches were hired, then fired within four years for being terrible. There are multiple storied college football programs that have fallen from prominence and never recovered, and by all appearances MICH was right among them. I, like many others, thought the glory days were over and MICH was no longer among the top-flight college football programs.
2. Even once Jim Harbaugh made MICH once again very good, they still seemed far behind the absolute best programs, the Alabamas, Georgias, Clemsons, and (for a time) the Ohio States. My armchair analysis for most of the past decade is that these programs were the lucky few which had transformed themselves into national brands, hoovering up all the best talent and most of the championships as a result. I thought the gap between that tier of program and MICH was simply too wide. And the nature of MICH's schedule is that they must beat Ohio State, and then one of Alabama / Georgia / Clemson in order to win a national championship. From the perspective of the 2018 – 2020 seasons, I could imagine MICH beating Ohio State on occasion, but the gauntlet of beating Ohio State plus, say, Alabama seemed effectively impossible to clear. Those other teams were too good; the odds of beating them both were too narrow; a national championship was simply not possible for a team like MICH.

And then it happened. To me, it’s a reminder that over a meaningful timescale—say, five years—there are very few constants, and most things are subject to change. The unbreakable hegemony of Bama / Georgia / Clemson / Ohio broke, and with surprising ease.

MICH wasn’t a scrappy underdog who Cinderella’d their way to a ring. They were the best team this season and they looked the part from week one all the way through Monday’s national championship. They might be the best team next season, too.

What changed to make that possible? MICH changed internally. They fired coaches and hired a bunch who are much better. They got better on the offensive line and defense. They finally found a functional quarterback who—while not great on every play—is very good on most plays, and when absolutely necessary, is clutch like no MICH player I can remember.

Equally important, college football shifted back in MICH's direction. For obscure reasons, MICH is reticent to play the NIL and transfer portal game, and so their team is built like most teams were built ten years ago: lots of three- and four-year veterans, few transfers in or out, a modest helping of five-star recruits who play immediately and a bunch of guys who need serious development before making the two-deep.

So over the past several seasons, while the transfer portal and NIL enticements have hollowed out the talent-rich recruiting classes at places like Alabama and Ohio State, MICH has kept their team largely intact and gotten gradually better each year. Hence the talent gap between MICH and those schools has narrowed in the past five years to the point that MICH can compete with them and even dominate, as we’ve seen with the ritual humiliations of the Buckeyes each of the past three Thanksgiving Weekends.

It’s been inspiring to watch. I mean that sincerely.

Looking ahead, is this the first year of an incipient MICH dynasty? Certainly seems that way, but time will tell.

The important thing for now is that MICH has the belt, and everybody else has to shut up, go home, and get a better team.