What makes this Michigan-Washington showdown in CFP title game so unique
The most distinctive aspect of Monday night's College Football Playoff national championship game is right there in front of you: Michigan and Washington.
One team from the Midwest. Another from the West Coast. None from the SEC.
Excluding Ohio State, which recently won in 2014 and 2002, Michigan is the first school from the Midwest footprint to play for the national championship since Notre Dame in 2012.
With a win, the Wolverines would become the first current Big Ten program other than the Buckeyes to win an unshared championship since Nebraska in 1995 (who was then a member of the Big Eight) − and among historic members of the conference, the first other than Ohio State to do so outright since Minnesota in 1960.
Washington is the first Pac-12 school to play for the championship since Oregon in 2014. USC captured the conference's last championship in 2004.
But what makes Monday night stand out even more is each team's roster breakdown and recruiting credentials. Based on that factor, this ranks among the most unique championship game matchups in the playoff and Bowl Championship Series era.
West Coast meets Midwest
Washington's roster is built primarily from players in the program's backyard. Of the team's 118-man postseason roster, 101 originally hail from western states: Washington, California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah and Alaska.
Overall, the Huskies players represent 20 different states plus one player originally from Germany in sophomore edge rusher Maurice Heims, though Heims spent his final two seasons of high school in Southern California.
Players from Washington and California constitute a huge chunk of the roster. Those two states comprise 68.7% of the Huskies' postseason makeup − there are 42 in-state players on the roster and 39 players from California.
Of the 23 starters on offense and defense listed for Monday night, all but four are from western states.
Michigan's roster has more of a national feel. The Wolverines come from 28 states, plus from Germany, Quebec and France. The program also has a bigger postseason roster, with 143 players listed as eligible for Monday night's game.
The Wolverines are still built largely by focusing on Midwest recruits. Forty-six players come from Michigan and Illinois. More broadly, 60 players, or 41.2% of the roster, are originally from midwestern states: Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Nebraska and Wisconsin.
Transfers and the national championship
Like every FBS program, Washington has been boosted by additions through the transfer portal. Three key pieces behind this year's top-ranked offense began their college careers elsewhere: quarterback Michael Penix at Indiana, running back Dillon Johnson at Mississippi State and wide receiver Ja'Lynn Polk at Texas Tech.
Penix is originally from Tampa, Florida; Johnson hails from Greenville, Mississippi; and Polk is from Lufkin, Texas.
Overall, the Huskies include 15 transfers from four-year schools, the majority coming from fellow Power Five programs. This includes one transfer from Michigan in wide receiver Giles Jackson, who earned honorable mention all-conference honors as a returner for the Wolverines in 2019 and has 50 receptions across three seasons since joining the Huskies.
Michigan's roster has 13 transfers from four-year schools, including nine added before this season. All nine additions played a part in the unbeaten run to Monday night, some as key starters. That includes first-team all-conference center Drake Nugent, fellow offensive linemen Myles Hinton and LaDarius Henderson, linebacker Ernest Hausmann and edge rusher Josiah Stewart.
A new kind of national champion
Whether it's Michigan or Washington, Monday's winner will stand out among recent national champions in one very distinct respect.
Recruiting is an inexact science, especially at a time when rosters are constructed with a combination of traditional prospects recruited out of high school and established FBS players added through the transfer portal.
But according to the team talent composite rankings from 247Sports.com, which looks at teams' overall talent level since 2015 based on recent recruiting efforts, the Wolverines or Huskies would represent an enormous outlier during the playoff era.
Every national champion since 2015 has ranked in the top nine of the team talent composite: Alabama ranked first in 2015, Clemson ranked ninth in 2016, Alabama first in 2017, Clemson sixth in 2018, LSU fifth in 2019, Alabama second in 2020 and Georgia second in 2021 and 2022.
Ohio State's four recruiting classes before winning the 2014 national championship ranked sixth, fifth, second and third nationally, according to 247Sports.
According to this year's team talent composite, Michigan's roster ranks 14th in the FBS. Of the 85 scholarship players, two earned five-star status − defensive back Will Johnson and quarterback J.J. McCarthy − while 45 were rated as four stars and 38 as three-star prospects.
The Wolverines' past four recruiting classes ranked 12th, 13th, 12th and 20th nationally, per 247Sports.
In comparison, Alabama's top-rated 2023 roster consisted of 18 five-star recruits and another 56 that earned a four-star rating. That didn't prevent the Wolverines from pulling off a 27-20 overtime win in the Rose Bowl to advance to Monday night.
Washington's roster ranks 26th in the FBS, according to 247Sports. The Huskies have no five-star recruits, 27 four-star signees and 55 players given three or fewer stars.
Again, recruiting ratings didn't matter in the semifinals: Texas, the Huskies' opponent in the Sugar Bowl, ranked sixth in the 247Sports composite with nine five-star and 47 four-star recruits.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michigan, Washington make CFP title game clash different than others
