PASADENA, California. – Kris Jenkins has heard all about the big, bad Southeastern Conference. Actually, he’s heard too much about it.
“We’re not big enough,” Michigan’s star defensive lineman said, raising his voice as he spoke Monday night in a postgame locker room filled with rose petals. “We are not strong enough. We are not fast enough. “We can’t keep up with the SEC.”
That narrative helped drive it. He helped boost Michigan’s entire roster, especially those who had been on the field or sideline when the Wolverines lost to Georgia two years ago in the program’s first trip to the College Football Playoff.
“So, you know, bet,” Jenkins said. “We said, ‘We’re going to show you. Let’s remind them what this ‘Block M’ means.”
Next stop: Houston
We’re headed to the Natty!#Go Blue pic.twitter.com/cHFX7EPFpO
– Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) January 2, 2024
And that’s precisely what Michigan did against Alabama on the hallowed grounds of the Rose Bowl on Monday night. In their 27-20 victory, the Wolverines showed not only the Crimson Tide but also the nation that they were not simply the product of a weak Big Ten conference with poor quarterback play. They were, finally, one of the best in the country. Because they could beat the program that has been the gold standard in the sport for more than a decade, led by the greatest in the history of the sport.
Because they beat Bama.
Michigan’s victory over Alabama in the Rose Bowl wasn’t just because of these two teams or just this year. It was about his brothers and their shared history: years and years of quite unbalanced history. Since the 2000 season, the SEC had gone 8-2 against the Big Ten in matchups between two AP top-10 teams, and six of those wins were by at least 23 points. The Big Ten’s only wins during that span came over Ohio State, with the Buckeyes beating Arkansas in 2010 and Alabama in 2014, the first year of the College Football Playoff.
The Buckeyes are often the only ones to have carried the conference flag in the sport’s highest-stakes games. Before Monday, they were the only Big Ten team to have played in a national championship game since the start of the BCS era. (There wasn’t even a true national championship game when Michigan last won the title: a split championship with Nebraska in 1997.)
So yes. Michigan beating Alabama meant a lot, especially with the way the Wolverines did it. They were physical at the point of attack. They dominated Alabama’s offensive line for much of the first half and then again at the end, when it mattered most, at the end of the fourth quarter and on that fateful fourth-and-3 with the game on the line in overtime. They also recorded a season-high six sacks of Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe.
“We had to intimidate the bully,” Michigan defensive lineman Kenneth Grant said. “Everyone talks about how big and bad Alabama is, how different the SEC is. What it says on paper and how they look out there are two totally different things. We just had to go out and intimidate the bully.”
The Wolverines were just as big, just as bad. They were just as fast, ending the concept of “SEC speed” when rarely used receiver Tyler Morris outran the entire Alabama defense in the second quarter to score Michigan’s second touchdown. Running back Blake Corum dazzled and seemed to get stronger as the game went on, more explosive than he had been all season, all against a Nick Saban defense. It was fitting, of course, that he scored the only touchdown in overtime on a 17-yard run.
That’s not to say Michigan played a perfect game. Far from it, with mistake after mistake on special teams nearly costing the Wolverines the game. Alabama also played sloppily, with many blown plays and blown coverages. No one would mistake Monday night’s game for a masterpiece, but that didn’t matter. All it accomplished was the Big Ten champion stopping the SEC’s best to earn a chance to play for a national championship.
“In the SEC, they say it just means more,” defenseman Braiden McGregor said. “That should be ours now.”
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(Photo: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
