Hail to the Victors Valiant!

 

Go Blue!

A national championship!

How long have I waited to say those magic words!

Well, there was 1997 with that weird co-championship with Nebraska. That was rare, and the asterisk interfered with the glory.

No, you must go back to 1948 to find the last time the Wolverines were the sole National Champions.

Growing up, the most legendary game was when the Bo Schembechler Wolverines beat the Woody Hayes led Ohio State Buckeyes. I remember seeing a Sports Illustrated story before that game that declared Ohio State might be the best college football team of the century. And then the Wolverines beat them 24-12. Other than the '68 Tigers, it was the bestest sports memory of my youth.

Michigan was not just a school I liked; it was my alma mater. Yes, I attended the University of Michigan from September 1973 to April 1977. I've been at the Big House (Michigan's 100,000-plus capacity stadium), enjoying many blowout games, and the fans were almost as entertaining as the game. It's where I remember the smell of Boone's Farm. 

Every year, the big game would be the final game of the regular season against Ohio State. Ohio State won three out of the four years I was there, including one heartbreaker on a last-second missed field goal. The joke among my college buddies is that we all needed to try out to be the next field goal kicker because surely we could do better than that guy. In reality, most of us would even whiff at making contact with the football.

I had college classes with a few of the college players. One of the lowlights of my college experience was when I and another intellectual student went up against two college football players in debate class. We lost, and we lost badly. Their arguments were slightly off-center, and I don't always think well on my feet. I did try to take some lessons from it, and later, I coached a high school debate team that finished 3rd in the state, the best performance in the school's history.  

Living in the South since 1978, I experienced a lot of dismissive talk about the Big Ten, including Michigan. Here, the SEC was the dominant conference, the only one that mattered. I'm not entirely anti all the SEC schools. I love Georgia, which is also the alma mater of my middle son, Doug. But the drumbeat about how the Big Ten was an inferior conference just wore at me.

I worked for over two decades at a CPA firm, where my closest co-worker was an Alabama fan. The overt smug superiority of Alabama was depressing. I longed for the day Michigan would play Alabama and show my co-worker they could beat Bama. Well, it took forever, but it finally happened! The first person to text me congratulations was that co-worker. I don't think he could hardly believe it, but he had to acknowledge that it did happen.

The opponent that Michigan beat in the championship, Washington Huskies, will join the Big Ten next season. It's almost like two Big Ten teams played for the National Championship!

Next year, many of the Michigan players will graduate and/or go to the pros. Heck, there's a good chance Jim Harbaugh will return to the pros. The playoffs expand to 12 teams next year, so you'll have to win even more games to get to the top. For instance, an expanded playoff this last season would have included Georgia. Honestly, I don't know how Michigan would have fared against Georgia.

I would love for Michigan to repeat. But whatever happens, they can't take this year away from us!

GO BLUE!!!