Michigan football may not have wanted Alabama. But the Crimson Tide is coming anyway.
INDIANAPOLIS — When the suspense was finally over and the last team selected for the College Football Playoff was announced, it felt as if a vacuum had sucked the air out the large banquet room on The Westin hotel's second floor.
An audible gasp was heard and then a hush fell over the expectant crowd of Michigan players mere minutes after they turned away from their buffet breakfast to boisterously cheer the committee’s decision to slot them No. 1. Their brief euphoria had been quickly supplanted by the sobering realization that the Wolverines had been matched against fourth-seeded Alabama in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day.
The newly minted SEC champion may have pried its way into the exclusive tournament after overcoming a bumpy start to its season. It may have shown the kind of vulnerabilities rarely seen in the decorated squads the Crimson Tide has fielded in the past. But this was still Alabama, the powerhouse that has been the dominant program in this sport over the last 15 years. Six national titles during that span have imbued Alabama with an enduring mystique and fear factor that has already caused Michigan’s sixth-year linebacker Michael Barrett to fret.
“My biggest concern about Alabama?” Barrett said. “Just the hype of the name honestly. I just want all the guys to know it’s a nameless, faceless opponent.”
The muted response from Barrett’s teammates after they learned they had drawn the Crimson Tide suggested his wish won’t come easily.
Alabama has proven it can succeed in this four-team competition, where the Crimson Tide boasts a 6-1 record in the semifinal round. Michigan, on the other hand, has not. It failed to win each of the last two years in the CFP, further tarnishing the program’s dismal postseason record that is besmirched with 29 losses in 50 bowl games. Because of that dodgy track record, there were reasonable questions about whether Michigan could succeed beyond the Big Ten, where they have won 25 straight games and claimed the past three titles.
The skepticism only grew more pronounced after league commissioner Tony Petitti confirmed the existence of a “years-long” impermissible sign-stealing scheme that was largely conducted within the conference footprint. Since late October, the scandal has hovered over Schembechler Hall and fueled critics who have tried to undercut Michigan’s legitimacy as a contender.
“We’ve got to prove that we can hang with the best of them,” said defensive tackle Kris Jenkins. “Right now, we’ve got a shot to play with the best of them.”
It’s an opportunity Michigan can’t afford to squander.
Before the season, Jim Harbaugh set his sights on making it back to this stage. The roster he built had fully ripened to the point that Harbaugh estimated in July that 20 Michigan players could be taken in the 2024 draft. Most saw this team as the best and most complete of Harbaugh’s tenure long before it played a down. It was now or never if Michigan were to make a run at a national title.
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“Win or bust,” star running back Blake Corum declared.
So, Harbaugh implemented a “Beat Georgia” period in practice with the expectation that the Wolverines would eventually encounter the reigning champions of the past two years. But, in a strange twist, they will instead meet Alabama, the progenitor of Kirby Smart’s SEC behemoth and the team that snapped the mighty Bulldogs’ 29-game winning streak Saturday.
“It’s iconic,” Harbaugh said. “It’s Alabama. It’s 'Roll Tide.' ... It’s gonna be competition. That’s what this team lives for.”
Harbaugh tried to convince a dubious audience of reporters that the Wolverines relished the prospect of facing Alabama and its legendary coach, Nick Saban. But it was a hard sell. Saban offers his program an advantage over the rest of the CFP field, which features three teams with coaches who have never won a game in this tournament.
Saban has been victorious in nine of them and he also once led the Crimson Tide to a national championship as the No. 4 seed in 2017, the year Tua Tagovailoa delivered that memorable 41-yard strike to DeVonta Smith in overtime to snatch the title.
Some of the star players on that Alabama squad were still around two years later when the Wolverines lost by 19 points to the Crimson Tide in the Citrus Bowl.
“That team was loaded,” Barrett recalled as he listed the names of some current NFL stars that powered the Tide back then.
This current Alabama team doesn’t boast the same embarrassment of riches. But it has Saban and it still transmits an ineffable aura that gives it a unique psychological edge.
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Corum, a proud Michigan Man, doesn’t buy that.
“We’re not going to say that is Alabama, a team that has won, won, won, won,” the running back said. “The committee chose us to being the No. 1 team. So, I’m not going to act like we’re not.”
But in the moment when the Wolverines learned the Tide was coming for them, they didn’t react as if they were the higher seed.
The instant lull heard in the Westin banquet room was telling. Pitted against the team that inspired the famous “We want Bama” chant, Michigan’s initial response implied that it would rather play some other team.
Considering what Alabama represents, it’s hard to blame the top-ranked Wolverines for feeling that way.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.