The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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30 THE WOLVERINE JANUARY 2022 fact, it only increased the resolve. They vowed to take the frustration out on their remaining opponents, and they did. "Jim Harbaugh has been the story of the year," ESPN's Paul Finebaum, one of Harbaugh's harshest critics, praised. "It was a year ago when some of his own people were starting to wonder if he was the right coach. He took a contract cut. He didn't say a word. I really admired that about Jim Harbaugh. A lot of people would whine and complain. He just put his head down and did what he is sup- posed to do. "… I really believe he's done the best coaching job of anyone in the country. He took a team that wasn't ranked, [and led it to] the playoff. You could have argued them as No. 1. It wouldn't have been the biggest upset in the world. … It's truly a storybook story about a guy who came into the Big Ten as one of the most heralded coaches we had seen in college football since Nick Saban and Ur- ban Meyer. It's beyond comprehension to think that Jim Harbaugh is in the playoff right now." Not to him, though, or his team. They set their goal in the spring to be the team that ended a 10-year drought against the Buckeyes and shocked the world by winning the Big Ten. The playoff, in that scenario, will almost always take care of itself — and it did. It didn't matter to Harbaugh or his team that they didn't make it as the No. 1 seed. People have doubted them all year, after all. They are being doubted again heading into the game. The Bulldogs opened as a 7.5-point favorite and were at 8.5 a few weeks b e fo re t h e ga m e — about the same spread U-M faced as an underdog to Ohio State. "The facts are, you've got to win two games to be the national champion," Harbaugh said. "My thoughts, and from what I can tell from all the players, it didn't make any dif- ference what seed we were. I even had a bunch of conversations with guys, and that's what their thoughts were. I echo those. "It's, 'Why stop now? Why not us?' … All the teams that are in the playoff are great teams, worthy. Yeah, we're happy to be one of them … and I don't see the great difference of whether it's going as two, three or four." BRING ON THE 'DAWGS The Bulldogs, though, are a different animal than U-M has seen all year, espe- cially defensively. Alabama carved them up through the air for 421 passing yards and ran just enough (115 yards on 4.4 per carry) to keep an elite Georgia front seven on its toes, but the 'Dawgs allowed only 9.5 points per game this year even after giving up 41 to the Crimson Tide. That's still 5.5 less than second-best Clemson. Georgia also ranks third nationally in run defense, allowing only 81.7 yards per game. In short, Michigan will be facing the best defense it's played all year. Palmer Thombs of DawgsHQ on the On3 network said despite the poor showing against Al- abama, this group is for real. "The strength of this team is still the defense, regardless of what that Alabama game showed," he said. "The strength of the defense is certainly in the front seven with the weakness being in the second- ary. A lot of times this season, the poten- tial weakness of that secondary has been covered by pressure on the quarterback, pretty much at will." Linemen Travon Walker and Nolan Smith are outstanding pass rushers. Na- kobe Dean, the Butkus Award winner as the nation's top linebacker, is also an elite blitzer, and the pressure is nonstop. Mammoth defensive lineman Jordan Da- vis (6-6, 340 pounds) doesn't put up huge numbers, but won the Outland Trophy as the nation's top interior lineman and the Bednarik Award as the country's best defensive player. The Bulldogs finished 14th na- tionally in sacks (3.15 per game). Senior Bowl director Jim Nagy predicted in September that "young Georgia fans will be telling their grandkids about this 2021 defense — one of the best units we've seen in CFB past 10-15 years," and he was right. Michigan will want to run the ball with its 10th-ranked rushing offense (223.8 yards per game), but it's been tough sled- ding for teams that have tried. "We haven't seen any team gash Geor- gia on the ground," Thombs said. "It re- ally is pretty impres- sive. The ability to stop the run and put opponents in situa- tions where they're forced to pass has helped them out. "Against 'Bama, that team didn't want to run. It wanted to pass each and every down. That put Georgia in a tough spot where they weren't able to dial up pres- sure every down as opposed to just third down." The big question, he added, is whether Michigan can win that way with quarter- back Cade McNamara. Georgia is similar Even noted Jim Harbaugh critic Paul Finebaum of ESPN called Michigan's head man "the story of the year" in college foot- ball after he had "done the best coaching job of anyone in the country." PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL Head coach Jim Harbaugh "The facts are, you've got to win two games to be the national champion. My thoughts, and from what I can tell from all the players, it didn't make any difference what seed we were. I even had a bunch of conversations with guys, and that's what their thoughts were. I echo those. It's, 'Why stop now? Why not us?'"