Opinion: After monumental year, Orange Bowl loss shows how far Michigan still has to go to be truly elite
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — It was over almost as soon as it began, a month of build-up obliterated with each punishing hit and each punishing blow.
The Georgia Bulldogs took the opening kickoff Friday night and ripped through the Michigan Wolverines like a 10-year-old through wrapping paper on Christmas morning. And then they did it again, and again, and again, and again, scoring on their first five drives and sending U-M fans home before halftime.
It was that thorough, and a reminder that the Wolverines’ unexpected ascent this fall hit a hard and painful ceiling: the difference between the best couple of teams every year and everyone else is as wide as the difference between U-M and Rutgers.
Georgia’s speed and physicality left little room for the Wolverines to do anything, anywhere on the field and if not for head coach Kirby Smart easing off the gas in the second half the 34-11 drubbing could have been worse.
More demoralizing still for U-M's aspirations is that by top-shelf SEC standards, the Bulldogs didn’t arrive at the Orange Bowl with a great offense. It’s also testament to Smart’s game plan, built on quick outs and slants and finding mismatches, nullifying the best part of U-M's defense — it's ends.
Mistakes didn’t help, either.
Quarterback Cade McNamara throwing off his back foot just inside the red zone, a perfect pass to … Derion Kendrick, who caught in the corner of the end zone, a few yards behind Daylen Baldwin.
Defensive back Vincent Gray losing a deep ball and hesitating as he ran step for step with Jermaine Burton. Burton kept running and caught a 57-yard touchdown pass.
Blake Corum fumbling after picking up a third-and-short. Josh Gattis calling a double fake after U-M completed a long pass, a design that’s fine against Northwestern but not so much going against the speed and strength up front Georgia has.
Harbaugh going for a fourth down in the first quarter and giving Georgia a shorter field, when U-M only trailed by seven.
There were a few dropped passes. Several blown coverages, especially on the first drive when Brock Bowers, the Bulldogs’ freshman tight end, got loose for three catches and a touchdown.
So, yeah, mistakes, magnified by the margin for error, which was none.
But really, this night magnified the talent and speed difference, especially up front — on both sides of the line of scrimmage, and the distance Harbaugh must travel.
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They’ll be plenty more time to document that distance, to consider the widest gaps. For now, though, remember the distance already traveled, how far Harbaugh and his team have come from just a year ago.
As he said after the game: “To me it feels like a beginning.”
And it may well be.
These Wolverines may be remembered for this game, for this performance, in the same way Michigan State’s playoff loss to Alabama in 2015 floats around these parts, but Friday night in South Florida was always going to be gravy.
And I'd bet in the end, beating Ohio State and storming the field in the snow is what sticks. It should. It was the kind of breakthrough — and cleansing — that the program and fan base thought might never come.
Harbaugh consolidated the stunning win over the Buckeyes by thumping Iowa and earning a ticket to the Orange Bowl. Did they belong? Absolutely.
They just didn’t belong on the same field with Georgia. Most programs didn’t this season. In fact, only one did, and now the Bulldogs get the chance to avenge their only loss of the year when they play Alabama in the title game.
U-M probably wouldn’t have fared much better if they’d drawn the Crimson Tide in the semifinal. But then no one else would have either.
And that’s the point.
The Wolverines rejoined the national conversation and made themselves relevant in a year when no one saw it coming outside Schembechler Hall.
But there’s relevancy and then there’s what the top of the SEC rolls out almost every year — or what Clemson was for a while. Some years, Ohio State fields a team with enough speed and talent to compete at this rarefied level.
Outside of the Buckeyes, no one else has.
Play this game back nine more times and the Bulldogs win every one of them.
Yet I’d bet a handful of them would be a bit more competitive. You learn a few things on a stage like this, against a team that's been stockpiling the best recruits in the country for the last half-decade.
The Wolverines have a bevy of promising young players, including the quarterback who played the bulk of the fourth quarter — J.J. McCarthy. The freshman’s speed and elusiveness allowed him to escape the volcanic pressure of Georgia’s front seven a few times. He even spun from a defensive tackle’s grasp at one point, rolled to his left and lifted a pass downfield.
It fell incomplete. But his ability to avoid the sack and give the play a chance is something Harbaugh will have to consider heading into next season.
He isn’t the only skill player that belonged on the field against Georgia. Running back Donovan Edwards had a few nice moments. So did receivers Andrel Anthony and Roman Wilson.
There is more building to do, certainly, up the middle defensively, on the edges there as well. And as good as the offensive line has been this season, it struggled to protect McNamara or open much for Hassan Haskins.
Harbaugh got a good, tough look at the final steps he has to take. The recruiting momentum he has enjoyed since beating the Buckeyes should help.
So, too, should the vibe and connectedness reset inside his program. The last rung of college football won’t be easy to reach.
Yet if U-M can climb as much as it did this season, then there is no reason to think it can’t climb the rest of the way.
A beginning indeed.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.