AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
In the end, there he stood. The most polarizing figure in college athletics couldn’t help but smile, and how can you blame him after all that.
While a smile will never look quite right plastered across Jim Harbaugh’s face, his emotion was real and on time. As he did everything in his power to avoid saying the least amount required, Harbaugh’s parting shots in the afterglow of his team’s win over Alabama in the Rose Bowl, one of the greatest football games in recent memory, said it all.
“Who has it better than us?”
Sure, he was talking to the Michigan faithful around the world celebrating the program’s breakthrough. It’s been a year for Michigan in so many ways, after all.
The scandal before the season. The suspension. The scandal during the season. The second suspension. The headlines have been written and rewritten.
But those six words didn’t just ring true to Michigan fans as they stood defiantly through it all; they perfectly encapsulate the emotions felt by so many college football fans in that moment.
With the stakes enormous and the sun setting at one of the greatest settings in all of sports, Michigan delivered an all-time win over a program that has won more than anyone else of late.
It was ugly at times, filled with mistakes on both sides. It was an imperfect back-and-forth tussle between two desperate teams manned by two ultra-competitive coaches.
In short, it was damn near perfection in large part because of its blemishes. It was college football personified.
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The Wolverines outlasted Alabama 27-20 in overtime, stopping Alabama QB Jalen Milroe on fourth down to secure the win. The final play was so well guarded, it seemed almost anticlimactic as Alabama came up short.
But the moments that led to that specific moment—the touchdowns and the turnovers and the immense drama in between—painted the perfect football picture.
For Michigan, which has made the playoff and lost the previous two seasons, this was a joyful exorcism. And it never came easy.
Special teams’ miscues, a long stretch of offensive struggles coupled with a slew of mistakes that would have been endlessly analyzed if the team ultimately lost plagued Michigan for much of the game.
In the end, the Wolverines were able to overcome the mistakes thanks to the legs of running back Blake Corum and three touchdowns courtesy of quarterback J.J. McCarthy. Both were held in check for much of the second half only to find life late in the game and in overtime.
AP Photo/Kyusung Gong
On the Alabama side, this looked like another Nick Saban special in the making. After crashing the playoff in controversial style, a slow start put the Crimson Tide in a small hole.
