The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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FEBRUARY 2024 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 15 ball game right here, and I promised you all, along with my other teammates … we would win a national championship, and a whole year later, on Monday, Jan. 8, 2024, what'd we do? We won a national championship. Team 144, I love you all. Coach [Jim] Harbaugh, to [athletics di- rector] Warde [Manuel], to the guys, I love you all." McCarthy wasn't a senior, but he like the others found himself in his last season in a Michigan uniform. He stood just as confident in the quest, and just as de- termined to make the dream come true. He ex p l a i n e d to WXYT-TV after the national championship game win over Wash- ington why he carried such bravado, re- garding Michigan's return to the biggest stage in 2023. "The only reason I said that last year was I knew the team that was coming back," McCarthy said. "It's such a special group. "It's bittersweet, because I'll never get to play with these guys again. But what a way to come out on top! With everything we went through, it's just absolutely glo- rious." Harbaugh gently stiff-arms probes into his legendary "guarantee" that his team would beat Ohio State back in 1986. There's little doubt it's because he's been asked to discuss the vow roughly 1,789,413 times before. He delivers some version of "I think that's ground we've thoroughly plowed already." Well, his 2023 crew out- did his prediction. It didn't promise a victory over Ohio State. It forecast a victory over the entire college foot- ball world. National cham- pionship or bust. Returning for the grand prize. It's safe to imagine this aggregation won't tire of plowing the '23 ground — wins at Penn State and over Ohio State without Harbaugh in the stadium, a third straight Big Ten championship, and vic- tories over Alabama in the Rose Bowl and previously undefeated Washington in the title game — for de- cades to come. They'll plow it for their children, and their children's children. They'll plow their legendary response to Zinter's dev- astating injury, and him hoisting the ulti- mate hardware. They'll plow the togeth- erness of overcoming for Harbaugh, even through his unfair exile. They'll plow over and over the 15-0 march to the national championship, arguably the greatest sea- son in the history of Michigan football. "It has been nothing but an honor and a privilege to be a part of this Michigan family," Jenkins said. "Everybody said that Michigan was special. But you don't know it until you come into the city of Ann Ar- bor just how big college football is, just how big Michigan football is." It's big. And it's bigger than it's been since the last national title, in 1997. Maybe bigger than it's ever been. THAT OLD CHAMPIONSHIP FEELING Jon Jansen knows what it's like. Some 26 years ago, the two-time Michigan cap- tain, All-American and now radio analyst stood on the podium in Pasadena, as a newly minted national champion. He ad- mitted feeling plenty of nostalgia when the Wolverines got it done against Wash- ington. "I sure did," Jansen acknowledged. "I said before I came out of the broadcast booth and before I came down to the field to talk to Coach Harbaugh, I remembered Coach Carr coming into the locker room — everybody's heard this part of it — that 'You have just won the national champi- onship.' It was such a special moment for the fans, for the players. "There have been so many changes over five years, 10 years, 20 years, and everybody says the kids are different. All of those things are true, but there are some things that never change. "The same excitement I felt, I saw after the game. When I was looking up at the kids on the podium, I had this flashback. I saw Trevor Keegan in No. 77, and I saw myself. There's [sophomore defensive tackle] Mason Graham, and it was Glen Steele. And there was Mike Barrett, and it was Rob Swett. There was J.J., and obvi- ously Brian Griese. "Every moment since that game, I've had flashbacks." All the veterans of '23 will no doubt share that sensation, whenever the Wol- verines reach the ultimate prize in the fu- ture. For now, they're revel- ing in the fact that they've done something no one can ever take away. The NCAA and the Big Ten tried to chip away at what they were in the process of accomplishing. But even NCAA President Charlie Baker gave it up for the Wolverines after watching them steamroll top team after top team down the stretch. "At the end of the day, no one believes at this point that Michigan didn't win the national title fair and square," Baker acknowl- edged. The Wolverines pre- vailed. Certainly, the veter- ans on this team provided ❱ Zak Zinter "… When I sat down and talked to friends, Blake, Trevor, C.J., we all decided we wanted to come back and really win this thing and do it together." Guards Trevor Keegan (left) and Zak Zinter walked off the field a year ago with the bit- ter taste of losing to TCU in the Fiesta Bowl and decided that they would return for the 2023 season for another chance at capturing a national championship. PHOTO BY DOMINICK SOKOTOFF