Three years ago, Jim Harbaugh was just about done. Harbaugh had rebuilt Stanford into a top-five program, led the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl and quickly restored Michigan to respectability. His Wolverines had come up ever so slightly short of a Big Ten championship (and likely College Football Playoff) bid in 2016, but by the end of 2020, they had lost six of their last eight, and he had to take a pay cut to keep his job. Surely the end was in sight.
Two years ago, Kalen DeBoer was taking on a pretty epic challenge. A three-time NAIA national champion, he had slowly moved up the ladder, from FCS offensive coordinator, to lower-FBS, to higher-FBS. In his first FBS head-coaching job, at Fresno State, he lost four of his first eight, then won nine of his next 11. Now he was taking on what appeared to be a pretty significant challenge: Restoring Washington's luster. The Huskies had lost nine of their previous 13 games under Jimmy Lake. The offense was a mess. Surely this was going to take a while.
Next Monday, these two coaches, and these two schools, will meet in the College Football Playoff National Championship game. It will be either Michigan's first title in 26 years or Washington's first in 32. Harbaugh has now pulled off a double turnaround of sorts, culminating in Monday's victory over Nick Saban's Alabama in the Rose Bowl presented by Prudential. DeBoer has won 21 in a row at UW, 10 straight by 10 or fewer and took down Texas in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Here's how these two brilliant teams pulled off their brilliant semifinal wins.
Jump to a section:
Michigan overcomes its issues
Washington flips the script
Ranking best CFP games
Early title game thoughts
Michigan overcame Bama and itself
I was getting severe Ohio State-Clemson vibes. In the Fiesta Bowl in the 2019 College Football Playoff, Justin Fields and Ohio State owned Trevor Lawrence and Clemson for the first 25 minutes or so, scoring four times and forcing four straight punts. The Buckeyes were an incredible team that year, and they were proving it ... except they kept settling for field goals. Those four scores generated only 16 points, and when Clemson finally got going with two straight touchdowns late in the first half, the halftime score was just 16-14 Buckeyes. Two Travis Etienne touchdowns, a controversial replay call and a late interception were enough to flip the game and send the Tigers to the national championship with a 29-23 win. Ohio State gained 99 more yards and had seven more first downs but went home.
Twenty-six minutes into Monday's Rose Bowl, Michigan had gained 199 yards to Alabama's 39. The Wolverines had sacked Alabama's Jalen Milroe four times in six pass attempts. This was a one-sided affair, but Michigan led just 13-7.
Red zone failures hadn't held Michigan back like was the case for Ohio State four years earlier, but plenty of other mistakes had. A muffed punt had set up a short-field touchdown for Alabama, silly miscues had ended Michigan drives early, and even when the Wolverines scored their second touchdown of the evening, they botched the snap and hold on the point after attempt. Bama managed to move the ball enough for Will Reichard to bomb in a 50-yard field goal, and it was 13-10 at halftime. Michigan could have easily led by double figures.
With less than five minutes left in regulation, it was 20-13 Bama. And you could make an argument that the entire difference in the game had come on special teams. Michigan came into the game ranked fourth in special teams SP+. Including PATs, James Turner had missed just one kick under 40 yards, and he was 6-for-8 from 40-plus. Tommy Doman was averaging a good-not-great 40.1 net yards per punt, but 45% of his punts had been downed inside the 20. Jake Thaw was averaging a healthy 7.6 yards per punt return, and on freshman Semaj Morgan's only punt return of the season, he took it 87 yards.
In this game, however, there was self-destruction everywhere you looked. Morgan dropped the ball attempting to field an early punt on the run, setting up Alabama's first TD. The botched PAT certainly wasn't Turner's fault, but he missed a vital 49-yarder early in the fourth quarter. Doman's six punts had a net average of 39.8 yards, and none were downed inside the 20; his counterpart, Alabama's James Burnip, bombed four punts over 50 yards, and his seven kicks averaged a net of 49.9 yards. On average, every time the teams traded punts, Alabama gained 10 yards of field position. The Tide tilted the field severely for most of the second half and averaged a plus-7.7 yards per drive field position margin for the game.
Then there was poor Thaw. The senior special teams whiz nearly committed the gravest error in the history of the CFP, muffing a Burnip punt at his 6 and barely keeping the ball out of the end zone before he got rocked at the 1 with 44 seconds left in regulation.
Michigan's Jake Thaw narrowly avoids a turnover to Alabama, almost fumbling the ball near the end of regulation.
No harm, no foul, but ... there was almost so, so much harm.
And yet, despite all these unforgivable and uncharacteristic mistakes, the Wolverines advanced. Having plowed through a mostly iffy schedule with minimal issues in 2023, they faced their first genuine, must-score-here drive of the season when they got the ball down seven with 4:41 remaining in regulation. But just because they hadn't been asked to come through in that regard yet didn't mean they couldn't when asked. Over the last 23 plays from scrimmage in regulation and overtime (not including a kneel down), they gained 111 yards in 11 plays, and Alabama gained 36 in 12. They converted a fourth-and-2 on a beautiful, quick strike to Blake Corum, who raced upfield and was credited for 27 yards after an illegal block nullified some of his gain. (Another mistake!) Then quarterback J.J. McCarthy took off for 16 yards inside the Alabama 40. When Alabama's Deontae Lawson got a hand on a McCarthy pass to Roman Wilson -- Bama defenders were credited with five deflections on the evening -- Wilson leaped to still make the catch anyway, preventing an almost sure interception and then racing around wrong-footed defenders for 29 yards. A play later, Wilson was in the end zone after a short catch and run with 1:34 left.
It was easy to think that the Wolverines might have left Bama too much time to get into field goal range, but after a couple of short passes moved the chains, Bama stalled out. It set up Thaw's near-disaster, but it forced overtime, where Michigan gained 25 yards in two plays and Bama gained only 23 in six. Corum scored on an intensely physical 17-yard run, and a last-ditch Jalen Milroe effort came up 2 yards short.
JALEN MILROE IS STOPPED ON 4TH DOWN😱
— ESPN (@espn) January 2, 2024
THE WOLVERINES ARE HEADED TO THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 🏆 #CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/X2x3tPzwqr
This was a sloppy, frazzled game, one that ended up featuring eight fumbles (five from Bama), epic special teams miscues and offenses that went a combined 5-for-24 on third down. But in the end, the more successfully physical team won. For most of the last 15 years, Alabama has been that team seemingly 90-something percent of the time. But the Wolverines made 10 tackles for loss (six sacks) to the Crimson Tide's one. They averaged 5.9 yards per play to Bama's 4.4, and with the game on the line, they blocked like crazy, then blew up Bama's blocking on the final series of the Tide's season.
Michigan has cleared seemingly impossible hurdles in recent years. The Wolverines turned things around after a dreadful 2020. They ended a miserable, decade-long losing streak to Ohio State. They ended a nearly two-decade-long Big Ten title drought. And after two straight disappointing CFP appearances, they've now won their first playoff game. Will they end one more title drought in Houston?
Washington broke the game script immediately
In soccer, they call it a smash-and-grab. It's when a team that has been clearly inferior over the course of a game makes just the right combination of plays at just the right time and steals the game. Texas nearly did that in the Sugar Bowl.
The Longhorns trailed the Huskies in yardage all game. Texas trailed on the scoreboard on four separate occasions. It was pretty clear who was supposed to win this game. But a muffed punt -- it was an epidemic on Jan. 1! -- handed Texas some easy early points, and a fourth-down stuff in the red zone bought the Horns some time. With a chance to put things away in the second half, the Huskies kept settling for field goals.
Even while hogging the ball for what seemed like the entire second half, the Huskies never led by more than 13. Down only six, the Longhorns were supposed to get the ball back with mere seconds remaining, but when UW's Dillon Johnson got hurt on a third-down run, the clock stopped -- an utterly atrocious rule, by the way, that seems to incentivize injuring players -- and UT suddenly had 45 seconds to drive 70 yards to steal the win. They nearly pulled it off.
I honestly couldn't decide what I expected from Michigan-Alabama, but for this one, I at least knew what the mile markers were. Texas, so brilliant at scripting the opening portion of games, had led nine of 11 power conference opponents by double digits in the first half. The Longhorns were likely to piece together an early advantage, but UW has been so good at scoring in bunches that the longer this game stayed close, the more it favored a Huskies team seemingly overflowing with clutchitude. If Washington, a 3.5-point underdog, could avoid an early deficit, it seemed that might flip things in the Huskies' favor.
In the end, however, the roles were reversed. Washington was clearly the sharper team early on, and Texas nearly came through in the clutch. Texas' Quinn Ewers completed 14 of his first 20 fourth-quarter passes for 216 yards. After benefiting from both the appalling clock stoppage and a kick catch interference penalty, Ewers lobbed a beautiful ball to Jordan Whittington for 41 yards to the Washington 28, then feathered another lovely pass to Jaydon Blue for 16 with 15 seconds left.
A lob to Adonai Mitchell -- a Georgia transfer who has caught touchdown passes in three straight CFPs, the exact person you want to throw the ball to on a make-or-break play -- fell incomplete, and then Washington ended Texas' season with two perfect plays. First, Mishael Powell pressured Ewers and forced an incompletion. Then Elijah Jackson demonstrably broke up a final-second pass to Mitchell.
WASHINGTON HOLDS ON‼️
— ESPN (@espn) January 2, 2024
THE HUSKIES ARE GOING TO THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP 🏆 #CFBPlayoff pic.twitter.com/RMYUyfbYiJ
No smash-and-grab here. The Huskies advanced. It was a just result. For that matter, anything good that happens to Michael Penix Jr. is just.
You know Penix's story by now. Former Indiana quarterback. Epic potential. Nearly guided the Hoosiers to a division title in 2020. Suffered season-ending injuries for four straight years, including two ACL tears. Followed DeBoer, the former IU offensive coordinator, to Seattle. Penix had looked so shaky in 2021, following the second ACL tear, that even with his familiarity in DeBoer's offense it was hard to expect much from him. But he threw for 4,641 yards and 31 touchdowns in 2022. He was Joe Burrow Incarnate this September, throwing for 1,999 yards and 16 touchdowns in his first five games, then hitting Oregon for 302 and four, respectively, in the Huskies' epic 36-33 win over the Ducks.
Penix's production waned over the second half of the season, as Washington settled into a nonstop grind of tight finishes. The Huskies leaned far more heavily on running back Dillon Johnson, and as rumors of injured ribs and other maladies swirled, Penix just didn't look the same. UW kept surviving and advancing, and he threw for 319 yards and a score in the Pac-12 championship game against Oregon. But against Texas' ridiculously strong run front, Washington was probably going to need September Penix to advance. That's what they got.
Indeed, Johnson managed just 49 rushing yards in 21 carries against T'Vondre Sweat, Byron Murphy II and the brilliant Texas front. But for three quarters, Penix was otherworldly. After three quarters, he was 23-for-27 for 372 yards and two touchdowns. He completed passes to seven different receivers. Go-to guys Rome Odunze and Ja'Lynn Polk combined for 11 catches and 247 yards. Slot man Jalen McMillan caught five passes for four first downs and a touchdown. Tight end Jack Westover moved the chains three times. Germie Bernard, who filled in capably as McMillan was battling injury, made up for his muffed punt with three catches for 48 yards. Penix's pocket movement was impeccable. He even rushed three times for 31 yards.
This brilliant attack seemed to lose focus early in the fourth quarter. Penix began the quarter 2-for-6 for minus-1 yards, and when the Huskies got the ball back with 12:47, up 13 with a chance to put the game away, they punted. They killed nearly five minutes on a field goal drive later in the fourth, and Penix finished with 430 yards. The Huskies' offense handed the game to the defense, and it ever-so-narrowly came through. And now Penix gets one more game and an opportunity to pen the most incredible imaginable ending to this incredible, unimaginable career.
Ranking CFP games to date
From 1983 to 1994, as the NFL's popularity was exploding, the Super Bowl produced dud after dud. We got a couple of classics with San Francisco's last-minute win over Cincinnati in Super Bowl XXIII and the Giants' Wide Right win over Buffalo in Super Bowl XXV, but the other 10 games in this stretch were decided by an average of 27.1 points. Our reward for weathering this period of big, boring games? An incredible run in the 2000s. From 2001 to 2012, we got eight games decided by three to six points and only one decided by more than 14. We got Adam Vinatieri's repeated heroics, and the Giants' all-time upset of the Patriots, and Ben Roethlisberger-to-Santonio Holmes, and another classic Giants-over-Pats game.
As we were dealing with semifinal dud after semifinal dud in the early years of the CFP, I kept reminding myself of the Super Bowl's ups and downs. In theory, we would eventually get some classics to balance out the blowouts, right?
Right! After really only seeing three good semis in the first eight years of the CFP, we've gotten four in the past two. And 10 years into the CFP era, with expansion on its way, we finally have enough games for a pretty epic Best CFP Games list -- a list good enough that neither of Monday's games made the top five. Here's my top 10 (okay, it's really a top 11):
T-10. Ohio State 42, Alabama 35 (2014 semis)
T-10. Georgia 33, Alabama 18 (2021 championship)
9. Washington 37, Texas 31 (2023 semis)
8. Clemson 29, Ohio State 23 (2019 semis)
7. Michigan 27, Alabama 20 (2023 semis)
6. Georgia 42, Ohio State 41 (2022 semis)
5. TCU 51, Michigan 45 (2022 semis)
4. Alabama 45, Clemson 40 (2015 championship)
3. Clemson 35, Alabama 31 (2016 championship)
2. Alabama 26, Georgia 23 (2017 championship)
1. Georgia 54, Oklahoma 48 (2017 semis)
For now, I'm going to rank these two semis below last year's. The Michigan-Alabama game was indeed pretty sloppy, and for half of Washington-Texas it felt like the Huskies were about to pull away before the Longhorns' late charge. But we're fleshing out the depth chart nicely now! And here's hoping we have a new No. 1 after next Monday night.
Read more: 19 games that defined the four-team CFP era
An early glance at the title game
On Oct. 5, in a sign of just how much the college football world is changing in a short amount of time, Michigan will head to Seattle to battle new conferencemate Washington. That was always going to be a pretty neat matchup, as the Wolverines and Huskies played in four Rose Bowls between 1977 and 1992, and a couple of them were epics.
The 1978 Rose Bowl saw Warren Moon and Washington bolt to a 24-0 lead before Michigan's Rick Leach led a fierce comeback. With the score 27-20 with a minute left, Washington's Michael Jackson yanked the ball from Michigan's Stanley Edwards at the Washington 4, and the Huskies prevailed. In the 1993 Rose Bowl, a year after UW had pummeled Michigan to lock up a share of the national title, the teams traded six lead changes. Michigan's Tyrone Wheatley scored on runs of 56, 88 and 24 yards before missing the fourth quarter with back spasms; Michigan stopped a Mark Brunell red zone scramble just short of the sticks with three minutes left, then made another late stop after Washington blocked a punt.
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS 🔥
— ESPN (@espn) January 2, 2024
Michigan vs. Washington in H-Town for the Natty 🏆 pic.twitter.com/K3v5kYniBC
Now, this soon-to-be conference matchup will also forever be a title game rematch. And it could be awfully fun. The contrast in styles here is pretty spectacular. Washington wings the ball around, goes deep often, and, though Bralen Trice and the Huskies' defensive front were pretty aggressive and effective against Texas, plays mostly bend-don't-break defense. Michigan, meanwhile, just beat Alabama with physicality. The Wolverines rarely go deep but specialize in body blows.
Washington has by far the best passing game Michigan has seen all season, and Michigan has by far the best defense Washington has seen. Obviously, Dillon Johnson's injury -- which DeBoer called an extension of a foot injury he's been battling for a while -- could redefine UW's offense a bit if he's limited or out. Johnson's backups, freshman waterbug Tybo Rogers and 202-pound Nebraska transfer Will Nixon, flashed potential, but they've combined for just 74 carries on the season. Johnson's workhorse capabilities provided an extra dimension the Huskies needed to survive so many close games.
Regardless, the matchups here -- Penix vs. McCarthy, Washington's amazing receiving corps vs. Michigan's incredible secondary, et cetera -- are going to be awfully fun to talk about over the next week. Two title game debutants, led by two coaches who have pulled off incredible turnarounds, will look to secure their first ring since the pre-BCS era.