Michigan football's comeback win in Rose Bowl extends dream season, allows fans to celebrate
PASADENA, Calif. — As the sun set over the San Gabriel Mountains on Monday and light turned to darkness, the aperture of Michigan football’s season started to close and Alabama’s grip over the Wolverines began to tighten.
The running lanes that were once there had suddenly narrowed. The passing windows that were available earlier in the game were now closed. Then the lead the Wolverines held for more than 19 minutes vanished just like that.
When Jase McClellan coasted in the end zone on the second play of the fourth quarter to help Alabama retake the lead in Michigan’s 27-20 overtime victory in the semifinal round of the College Football Playoff, the maize-and-blue crowd on the west side of Rose Bowl Stadium shuddered.
It felt as if this was the beginning of the end, when the Wolverines’ dreams of a national championship would be dashed by Nick Saban’s joyless murderball juggernaut on the sport’s most majestic stage, in its most picturesque setting.
It seemed so cruel because only an hour or so before the same melancholy fans were buzzing with excitement. They had been invited to stand up and cheer by a pack of Michigan players who spent the first half delivering one body blow to Alabama after another. Matthew Hibner and Jimmy Rolder had just rocked Crimson Tide returner Kendrick Law on a kickoff. The thunderous hit reverberated moments after Tyler Morris snatched a pass from J.J. McCarthy, zipping up the sideline for a 38-yard touchdown that gave the Wolverines their first-ever lead in the College Football Playoff.
The euphoric sequence of events, which unfolded in a matter of seconds, tickled the imagination of Michigan supporters and offered definitive proof their favorite team finally belonged on this big stage. The Wolverines yearned for this opportunity ever since their stunning defeat to TCU one year ago.
That loss in the semifinal round solidified the perception that Michigan couldn’t beat the best teams outside of its conference footprint, that its rugged formula would lose its potency beyond the Big Ten. But it only made the Wolverines more determined to prove their skeptics wrong. Back in February, running back Blake Corum proclaimed that the next Michigan team would win it all and go down in history. The goal was to not only return this point but also get past it.
Now, under the fading sunlight, it all seemed to be slipping away and a brilliant performance, marked by a relentless defensive effort that featured six sacks of the elusive Milroe, was about to be rendered meaningless. But then something unexpected happened; Michigan dug deep, finding one more lifeline to extend its season and preserve its year-long fantasy.
"We never flinched," linebacker Michael Barrett said.
A team that weathered two separate suspensions of coach Jim Harbaugh, one controversy after another, a much-publicized cheating scandal and a season-ending injury to its best offensive lineman, reversed the tide in the game.
"We promised our fans we were going to go win it all," Corum said. "We had to stand on that and we were able to come together....There was a lot that went into it."
Trailing by seven points with about 4 minutes left in regulation, they embarked on an eight-play, 75-yard drive that revealed the grit of this Michigan team. Not surprisingly, it was spearheaded by Corum, the heartbeat of the team, McCarthy, its fearless leader, and Roman Wilson, the Wolverines’ underdog receiver.
They delivered the biggest plays that launched Michigan’s surprising comeback.
"The mentality that we had going into that last drive, it was unbelievable," Wilson recalled afterwards.
On 4th-and-2 at the Wolverines' own 33-yard line, in what amounted to a do-or-die moment, McCarthy found Blake Corum to sustain Michigan's last-ditch effort and supply it with momentum. Michigan's audacious quarterback then pushed the Wolverines into Alabama territory with a 16-yard run. The best was still yet to come, as Wilson made an acrobatic 29-yard catch to carry Michigan to the edge of the Tide's end zone before he crossed the goal line two plays later on a four-yard reception that tied the score at 20 with about 90 seconds left.
The dreams were still alive and faith had been restored among Michigan fans.
What came next for them was sheer ecstasy.
In overtime, Corum slipped through a hole, found a lane and then spun through a pack of Alabama defenders before arriving in the end zone. The 17-yard score sent the west side of the Rose Bowl stadium into delirium.
But the biggest roars from the maize-and-blue faithful would come minutes later, when the Wolverines stopped Jalen Milroe 2 yards short of the end zone on fourth down — killing off Alabama’s last chance and kicking off a wild celebration. The entire Michigan team emptied onto the field from the sideline, tossing their helmets and throwing their arms in the air. The fans behind them jumped up and down.
Under the bright stadium lights, in the backdrop of Hollywood, everything was clear again now that Michigan was going to the national championship game.
It was an incredible sight.
"It doesn't get better than this," Corum said.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football's comeback win in Rose Bowl extends dream season
