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Paolo Uggetti, ESPN
PASADENA, Calif. — Top-seeded Michigan outmatched No. 4 Alabama in a 27-20 overtime win at the Rose Bowl on Monday that clinched the Wolverines’ first-ever appearance in the College Football Playoff national championship game.
Blake Corum rushed for a 17-yard touchdown on the second snap of overtime and Michigan’s defense ended only the second overtime game in the 110 editions of the Rose Bowl when Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe was emphatically stopped as he attempted to sneak up the middle on fourth down from the Michigan 3.
For the better part of the past 15 years, Nick Saban’s Alabama teams have represented not only college football’s paragon, but also the sport’s most physically dominant entity. But during a season in which the Tide were forced to constantly survive rather than impose their will, Michigan (14-0) proved to be their end game.
Roman Wilson made a 4-yard TD catch with 1:34 left in regulation for the Wolverines, who hadn’t scored in the second half until that gritty 75-yard drive led by J.J. McCarthy.
McCarthy passed for 221 yards and three touchdowns for Michigan, earning the Offensive Player of the Game award. Milroe passed for 116 yards and rushed for 63 for the Tide, whose 11-game winning streak ended.
Jase McClellan rushed for 87 yards and two touchdowns for Alabama (12-2), which fell heartbreakingly short of the chance to play for Saban’s seventh national title at the school. The Tide led 20-13 on Will Reichard‘s 52-yard field goal with 4:41 to play, but their defense couldn’t preserve the lead.
Corum made quick work of things in overtime by running for 8 yards on the first play, only to follow it up with a 17-yard dash that gave him a school-record-tying 26th touchdown of the season.
All Michigan needed then was a stop and, as it had done for most of the game, the Wolverines’ front sealed the result by swarming the Tide’s backfield and stopping Milroe short of the goal line on fourth-and-goal from the 3-yard line.
The walk-off stop sent the Michigan-heavy Rose Bowl crowd into pandemonium and the team below rushing onto the field.
The stop was emblematic of Michigan’s physical dominance throughout the game, which showed itself over the course of the first half. The Wolverines’ defensive line turned Alabama’s backfield into its playground, limiting the Tide’s running game to 43 yards in the first half (116 passing yards in the entire game), suffocating their offensive line and sacking Milroe five times.
But things started to slide for the Wolverines in the second half. McClellan put the Tide ahead 17-13 with a 3-yard touchdown run on the second snap of the fourth quarter. Michigan’s James Turner missed a 49-yard field goal attempt after Milroe fumbled near midfield on Alabama’s next drive, and the Tide went up by seven on Reichard’s second field goal.
Michigan finally got moving with its season on the line, starting when Corum took a 27-yard reception to midfield with 3:10 left. After Wilson moved the Wolverines to the Alabama 5 with a clutch 29-yard reception, he got wide open for his 4-yard touchdown catch with 1:34 to play.
In what was a throwback game that featured 13 punts, eight fumbles (only two of them lost), a missed extra point and plenty of special teams blunders, every point, every snap and every mistake was magnified. And in the end, it was Jim Harbaugh’s team — following back-to-back seasons of losing in the CFP semifinals — that did enough to keep alive its undefeated season and chance to win the program’s first title since the 1997 season.
The Wolverines’ breakthrough win in the playoff comes amid a profoundly messy season bookended by two three-game suspensions for Harbaugh — the first issued preemptively by the school amid an investigation of possible recruiting violations, and the second mandated by the Big Ten over allegations of sign stealing and in-person scouting.
Harbaugh’s players said the turmoil actually made them a better, more cohesive team. They needed every bit of that cohesion against the Tide, who were a couple of defensive stops away from their seventh trip to the playoff final.
Michigan now awaits the winner of Monday night’s Sugar Bowl semifinal between No. 2 Washington and No. 3 Texas. The College Football Playoff championship game is Jan. 8 in Houston.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.