HOUSTON — The Michigan football team could have just sulked.
Last season the Wolverines fell to TCU, losing their second-straight college football playoff game. However, the maize and blue did anything but dwell on another loss on the biggest stage.
They moved forward. They predicted they would be back in the college football playoff, and that this year, they would win.
That's exactly what happened as No. 1 Michigan topped No. 4 Alabama 27-20 in the Rose Bowl on the first day of 2024.
Wolverines junior quarterback JJ McCarthy called his shot, promising Michigan would return and come out victorious right after the Fiesta Bowl loss to the Horned Frogs. He lived up to his proclamation.
"Just everything that we went through, it forged us, motivated us in the off-season to be better, do the extra rep, do more," McCarthy said. "I feel like it is ultimately the pain and failure that pushes you over the hump, pushes you to limits you've never been. I am extremely grateful for those failures and everything it did for us. We're here now, so obviously it worked."
Michigan Head Coach Jim Harbaugh knew on that night in Phoenix, they would be back. His team didn't just talk the talk, they walked the walk.
"I thought it was possible right then and there, when we walked off that field, right when J.J. said we would be back, I thought it was possible," Harbaugh said. "And then to watch the repetition every day of what our guys were doing, how they went right back to work. As I said, what you do speaks so loudly that we can't even hear what you're saying. What our guys do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis speaks so loudly."
The hard work is not over yet. The Wolverines are not just happy to be in Houston. Michigan wants to leave with some hardware.
"It would mean everything," Michigan cornerback Mike Sainristil said. "I wanted to be a part of the class that was able to do so. Like I mentioned, a few of us came back for this reason, to say that we were part of the team that won a National Championship and would be one of the leaders on this team to get that accomplished. It would just feel good to be able to get that done. That's the goal. That's what the goal has been all off-season. We're here. We're here. That's what we want to do."
Michigan can win its first national title since 1997 on Monday night against the Washington Huskies in Houston, Texas. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. on ESPN.
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