After more than 300 yards rushing, Michigan football linemen reign supreme

HOUSTON — Drake Nugent remembers almost feeling guilty when he arrived in Ann Arbor last spring.

Michigan football had won back-to-back Big Ten championships and reached the the College Football Playoff twice, yet here he was, injured and trying to join the mix after winning just three games at Stanford the year before.

"I was kind of reaping the benefits of their last season almost, I felt bad in a way," Nugent explained Monday night as he removed tape in front of his locker at NRG Stadium. "I was going on trips, meeting alumni and stuff like that, really reaping the rewards that they fought for. I missed spring ball (with an injury) so I still wasn't able to help the team.

"I just wanted to live up to the expectations of Michigan football. ... Do my job on every play and be someone they can rely on and just kick ass."

RAINER SABIN: Michigan football is the last team standing – it feels like their destiny

Nugent, like so many of the transfers brought into the fold over the 2022-23 offseason, proved entirely reliable as he helped propel the Wolverines to a 34-13 victory over Washington in the national championship game to put the finishing touches on a program-record 15-0 season, 15-0.

Fitting in and dominating was on the minds of many members of U-M's transfer class. When the secondary took UMass transfer Josh Wallace out to dinner at The Chop House in Ann Arbor, they told him he could be one of the keys to putting the Wolverines over the top.

Tight end A.J. Barner, coming from Indiana, got that same speech, too. On Monday night, the former Hoosier said that despite several of the transfers coming from schools without recent success — Arizona State, Indiana, Nebraska, Stanford and UMass among them — there was never a doubt they would make a difference.

"All of us had a supreme confidence in ourselves," Barner said. "The opportunity to come here — iron sharpens iron — we all made each other better and this opportunity probably doesn't come around if we'd all stayed in the places we were at."

Those transfer days feel like a long time ago. At least according to left tackle LaDarius Henderson, shortly before the teammate who lined up directly to his right, Trevor Keegan, confirmed most of the offensive line is going to get "15-0" tattoos "right on that ass."

Earlier in the week, Keegan had described the offensive line room as a "brotherhood" and that he imagines his future kids will call most of his teammates "uncle.". It was that bond, Henderson added Monday, that helped him feel like he could contribute to this team and that Monday's title wasn't just a pipe dream, but a potential reality.

"It feels amazing to come here, be really accepted by them and be a Michigan man in the history books," Henderson said. "We don't feel like transfers anymore, we just feel like brothers on the team.

"Right around the start of the season it felt like I'm really a part of this thing. The guys accepted me early and it's been awesome ever since I've been here.

SHAWN WINDSOR: Michigan football's national title perfectly embodies what makes Jim Harbaugh who he is

Joe Moore Award cursed?

Just a year ago, the Wolverines were celebrating their second straight Joe Moore Award as the nation's top offensive line. This year, Washington took home the honor.

What does that mean?

"The Joe Moore Award is definitely cursed, you heard it here first," senior Trente Jones said. "If you win it, you probably won't win much after that, it's very unfortunate how it works. Nah, I'm joking, but somebody should look into that, like how does that work?

"But I knew we were the best offensive line in the country, and today we showed that."

The Wolverines showed that, in particular, in the ground game, where they ran 38 times for 303 yards ( an average of nearly 8 yards per carry) and four touchdowns. They paved the way for Donovan Edwards to run six times for 104 yards and two first-half touchdowns and Blake Corum to run 21 times for 134 yards and two second-half touchdowns; that duo became the first pair of teammates to run for more than 100 yards each in the CFP title game.

"Double teams," Jones said of what was working well. "Working out to the linebackers, getting your feet in the ground, hands tight, straining, straining, smashing and then a little bit more straining."

Edwards' first carry was a 41-yard run to the end zone, the second longest in CFP history. His second touch was topped less than 8 minutes later with a 46-yard touchdown run. Corum added a 59-yard carry, and quarterback J.J. McCarthy had a 22-yarder of his own. In all, U-M had five ballcarriers with multiple touches who averaged better than 6 yards per attempt.

"To rush for 300 yards in a national championship game, that's an ass-kicking, loved it," Nugent said. "Even though we were a little stale there as an offense in the third quarter, we came out (expletive) blasting."

Family affairs

Jim Harbaugh has embraced a lot of clichés — some are more confounding than others, but there's one that's perfectly clear: His affinity for his family.

He calls his blood-family and his football-family, his "two greatest loves," and on Monday they were all under one roof at NRG Stadium. His father, Jack, stood next to his mother, Jackie, at midfield as he explained all but one grandchild was in attendance for the national championship.

One of those grandchildren, Jay Harbaugh, is Jim's son and Michigan's special teams coordinator. As he walked off the field Monday night toward his wife and children, he tried, and admittedly failed, to describe the moment.

"It's indescribable," he said. "Hard to find the words to say how special it is or our family and this team. Honestly, it was a ton of commotion, so we all hugged, but we'll talk about it more later."

He's not the only one who got to hug a fellow coach and family member. Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter shared a long embrace with his father, Rick, the team's recently appointed linebackers coach.

When Jesse left his job as Vanderbilt's defensive coordinator to take the same job in Ann Arbor, he recruited his father — a longtime head coach at Cincinnati — to be an analyst on staff. But earlier this fall, when Chris Partridge was fired for allegedly violating his contract during the sign-stealing investigation, Rick was tabbed to take over the linebackers.

Little did he know, Jesse had this thought in mind when he agreed to join.

"It's a dream," he said. "I remember being a 10-year-old kid, he was the DC at Notre Dame, they beat Florida State in 1993 in the game of the century. So we're No. 1 one game away, potentially, from winning a national title and they lost the next week. ... That's as close as he had gotten.

"We came here in '22, I don't think I ever told him, but that was a goal of mine: I'd love to give him a national championship ring and we did it. Mission accomplished."

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football's national title about family for Harbaughs, Minters