Michigan football proves what it knew along: The Wolverines belong among the best

PASADENA, Calif. — Of course, it was gonna come this way, in this season, with all that’s gone on and all this team, and these players, have gone through.

Overtime for the right to play for the national title?

Why not?

And why not the defense of this Michigan football team?

It had to be this defense on the field, needing a stop to win the game, trying to hold a seven-point lead, with Alabama down to its last play. The Crimson Tide needed 4 yards.

RAINER SABIN: Michigan football's comeback win in Rose Bowl extends dream season, allows fans to celebrate

Four yards to tie the score and get to another overtime period.

Four yards from the end of the season or a 27-20 victory and a trip to Houston for a Monday night date to win it all.

Jim Harbaugh may be an offensive coach, but he has always been a defensive guy in his soul, and he has never had a better defense than this one.

They bullied Alabama all afternoon here in the Rose Bowl, and except for a stretch late in the third quarter and early in the fourth, dominated the Crimson Tide. It’s not any more complicated than that. Just the way Harbaugh likes it, right?

Big-boy ball. A rock fight in the trenches. The kind of ball that the Michigan coach believes reveals so much about the inner workings of a person.

The kind of ball he hasn’t been able to play in the College Football Playoff the past two times. But the kind of ball he got to play here at the Rose Bowl, against the bullies of the sport.

The truth is, the Wolverines were better up front. Faster, quicker, more relentlessness and — for all the folks who had wondered about yet another Big Team coming up small in the CFP — shocking.

No, really, U-M's defensive line was the best unit on the field, and it wasn’t close. And so, when Alabama needed those 4 yards, it wasn’t a surprise that the defensive line swallowed Jalen Milroe. Oh, Josaiah Stewart got the official tackle, and he made a terrific play to stop Milroe a couple yards short of the end zone and seal the game.

But he wasn’t alone in blowing up the offensive line. In the end, everyone did, and everyone kept coming — they sacked Milroe six times. Think about that, and how disruptive that is, and how when the big fellas up front are wrecking things, the offense doesn’t need to do much.

Just a few plays. The Wolverines made them early and late, and then at the end on offense. Blake Corum led the way.

Who else?

A WILD START: Michigan's J.J. McCarthy saves trick play from disaster, converts deep pass play vs. Alabama

Corum, who missed this game a year ago in Arizona, who famously said “championship or bust" to begin this season, who couldn’t find much room in the second half, took the ball on first down on the first series of overtime and bulled his way for 8 yards.

On the next play, he got the ball again, cutting left, then back right, then spinning his way into the end zone on a 17-yard run. It was Corum’s best run of the year. The kind of run that has endeared him to so many in Ann Arbor the last four years.

He helped set up the drive that led to the tying touchdown, too, which began when J.J. McCarthy hit him with a swing pass.

That was followed by a designed run for McCarthy off the right side for 16 yards. A tipped pass that rose high before being brought down by Roman Wilson, who landed, regained his balance and sprinted 29 yards to set up a first-and-goal.

Finally, a 4-yard flip to Wilson again. Touchdown, and after the extra point, tie game. Alabama got the ball back with 1:34 left, a timeout and the best field goal kicker in the country.

Michigan gave up one first down and then rose up — again, forcing a punt. The problem, again, was the special teams. Harbaugh sent Jake Thaw in to receive the punt instead of Semaj Morgan, who had fumbled a punt early in the first quarter.

Instead of letting the punt bounce, likely into the end zone, Thaw tried to catch it, dropped it, then fell on it at Michigan's 2. What might have been a chance to win in regulation disappeared.

McCarthy took a knee to set up overtime.

Maybe in another season, or a different kind of season, the special teams mistakes would have cost the Wolverines. But not this team. Not this time.

Harbaugh has said this is the team all season. That this is his best team. The trick was to get them ready after a month off.

They talked about it last week, these Wolverines, how they spent too much time overthinking during the long gap between the Big Ten title game and the playoffs.

Or overanalyzing. Or over-practicing. They weren’t sure. They just knew something needed to change.

They needed to come out looser, yet more focused, and they did for the most part, other than mishandling a punt. But that was more of a tough break, as Morgan had to come up to grab it with the sun in his eyes.

Still, these are the moments that decide these games, the moments that cost U-M in last year’s loss to TCU. And the moments that looked like they might cost the Wolverines against Alabama.

Like passing just behind a receiver, for example, slowing his momentum and giving a defender enough time to catch up and make a tackle a couple yards short of a first down. Or throwing high.

Or missing a block.

The Wolverines may not have elite speed and playmaking on the outside, but their receivers got open enough to make a few plays, even as McCarthy struggled to get them the ball. He didn’t play poorly. He just didn’t play great, until the end, when games are won.

That’s what matters, right? That’s why Michigan has one more game.

Corum came back for this. He knew what this team had, and knew, like everyone now knows, that this defense, especially up front, is something to behold, and when it mattered, kept Alabama from those final 4 yards.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football's strength in the trenches prevails when it had to