This Michigan 'Momma' Says There's No * Just An ! On Wolverines' College Football National Championship | Patricia Babcock McGraw
It was so fun to talk to my son in the wake of Michigan’s college football national championship on Monday night.
Pure joy…and not even a sliver of concern about the dreaded…“asterisk.”
2024 CFP National Champion: Michigan*
Um, no. Big, fat NO!
HOUSTON - Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates following the CFP National Championship against the Washington Huskies on Monday at NRG Stadium. Michigan defeated Washington 34-13. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
My son is in his early 20s, but has been a Michigan fan for more than half his life. He’s an absolute diehard, and knows anything and everything about the program. Stats, history, recruits…you name it. He's on it. His dad went to Michigan. I went to Northwestern. He’ll loosely cheer for the Wildcats out of loyalty, but he likes following a consistent winner WAY more. Can’t blame him.
Gotta Love J.J.!
He also has a personal admiration and appreciation for Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy. McCarthy and my son, also a quarterback, ran in some of the same recruiting camp circles in high school.
HOUSTON - J.J. McCarthy of the Michigan Wolverines celebrates after defeating the Washington Huskies during the 2024 CFP National Championship game at NRG Stadium on Monday. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
My son knew all about J.J., a huge name in Chicago high school sports; but he never thought J.J. knew much about him. Until, one day, when a toothy, grinning and energetic McCarthy came barreling up to him at a recruiting camp and said hello and exchanged pleasantries. J.J. couldn’t have been nicer to my son that day.
No sense of entitlement or arrogance. Just kindness and genuineness.
Easy to cheer for a guy like that.
Hello? It's Mom...Let's Talk Michigan Football!
By association, I too have become a Michigan football fan…not just because I love that J.J. McCarthy story, but because it’s a great way for me to connect with my son and to lure him into long, long talks with his mother (lol!). My son is artful at making most conversations last for two minutes, but can talk for HOURS about Michigan football!
And I encourage it. (The latter!) Because honestly, I enjoy it. I enjoy cheering for the Wolverines, I enjoy the program’s tradition, the success, and this year’s team was so much fun.
15-0, baby!
“Asterisk” be damned.
Asterisk? Puhhhh-lease!
You had to know that the dreaded “asterisk” would be the word of the hour the second the national championship game ended.
The very first comment on a post that the Michigan football team put on its X/Twitter feed minutes after winning its first national title since 1997 was exhaustingly cliché, but completely expected.
Said someone named Fire Ham: “I speak for college football fans around the nation when I say that there will be an asterisk on this title.”
Yep, haters gonna hate.
When you fill a stadium of nearly 108,000 on football Saturdays, have arguably the biggest fan base in the country and boast the nation’s all-time record for wins, people are going to come at you, and turn mole hills into mountains. It’s human nature.
That’s right, sign-stealing, in my humble opinion, is nothing but a mole-hill, and not just because -- let’s be honest here: every team in college football likely does it. That’s not an excuse for Michigan to do it, or anyone else for that matter.
Let's Put Sign-Stealing In Perspective
But on the scale of misdeeds in modern day college football, sign-stealing is akin to a parking ticket, a late library book, a violation from your HOA for too many flower pots on the patio.
Connor Stalions was in the middle of the sign-stealing saga at Michigan. (Credit: USA Today Sports Network)
The NCAA has lost all authority and credibility to be an enforcer of rules or morals in college football. This is a “governing body” that has allowed the grimy, slimy transfer portal and NIL to operate like the Wild West and ruin any integrity or fairness left in the game.
But “sign-stealing”…ah, yes, now THAT’s what the NCAA wants to police hard, and hang its disingenuous shingle on. Hilarious.
NCAA Has Let Transfer Portal And NIL Make A Mess Of College Football
The transfer portal has made college football essentially NFL Jr. No loyalty to teams, no loyalty to players. Coaches who want something they don’t have (some other team’s A-list players) can go out and poach players through the portal if they have enough (NIL) money, which as OutKick’s Trey Wallace wrote recently, is crippling and, in some cases, decimating, lower-level, less wealthy Division I programs.
And players can pull their own leverage in the portal by testing their market value. If the price is right, to hell with the coaches who spent tons of time and money recruiting them out of high school and trying to develop them. They can leave a program and cash in whenever they want.
High Retention At Michigan
I like it that Michigan hasn’t tried to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild from year to year through the portal, ala Colorado and its massive roster overhaul prior to the 2023 season. I like it that Michigan has a lot of fourth- and fifth-year seniors on the team who have shown loyalty to the program and who have received loyalty from the program in return.
New Colorado coach Deion Sanders gutted his roster prior to the 2023 season. The Buffs started hot but finished 4-8 and missed making a bowl game. But Sports Illustrated named Sanders its Sportsperson of the Year anyway. (Credit: Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Name, Image and Likeness was supposed to reward talented, popular and marketable athletes already toiling on college campuses. The NIL wasn’t supposed to be turned into a collective that corporations and rich donors dump next-level money into so that their favorite colleges can go out and use millions of dollars to out-bid the competition for high school recruits.
Interestingly, Michigan is one team in the country that hasn’t used the NIL like a recruiting slush fund.
Michigan Has Been Careful With NIL...And It's Worked Well
Wary that NIL money given to unproven recruits still in high school rather than to veterans already on the team would cause divisiveness, the Michigan coaching staff reportedly treaded lightly and slowly.
According to a story in Sports Illustrated in September, the Wolverines are seemingly using NIL money in the way it was intended: older players who are doing the work and making the headlines and playing the most minutes are getting the money. Younger players who just arrived in Ann Arbor and were in high school barely five minutes ago settle in to learn and prove themselves while having something to aspire to.
Meanwhile, a locker room of cohesiveness and chemistry, free from toxicity and jealousy, develops and flourishes…all the way to a national title.
HOUSTON - Kris Jenkins of the Michigan Wolverines celebrates after defeating the Washington Huskies during the 2024 CFP National Championship game at NRG Stadium on Monday. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
National Champs, Baby!
So go ahead, haters: hate.
But, in my mind, Michigan did so, so much more right this season than “wrong.” Especially in relation to the rest of the current college football landscape.
And hands down, in terms of Xs and Os and performance, the Wolverines were the very best team in college football week in and week out, and throughout the playoffs. The sign-stealing didn’t benefit them in any meaningful way, and was a mere blip on an otherwise long and hard-fought journey.
Michigan earned the spoils.
There is no asterisk on this national championship…just an emphatic exclamation point for all of Michigan Nation, including my sweet, deliriously happy son, to enjoy forever.
HOUSTON - Michigan fans celebrate their victory after the CFP National Championship game between Washington and Michigan at NRG Stadium on Monday. (Photo by Steve Limentani/ISI Photos/Getty Images)