Michigan’s win over Alabama and the death of the super team

Alabama was 3 yards away from extending a classic Rose Bowl to a second overtime and keeping its national title hopes alive, so Nick Saban and offensive coordinator Tommy Rees didn’t complicate it. Alabama had better players, and talent always wins out on this stage.

In a convert-or-die situation, Alabama put the ball in the hands of its blue-chip quarterback and ran him behind an ultra-talented offensive line. The simple play call would assuredly work because athletic freaks always trump lower-rated players who have developed well.

But as Jalen Milroe, a former top-100 player in the 247Sports Composite, grabbed a low snap and charged ahead behind an offensive line bookended by two former five-star tackles and two more blue-chippers on the interior, he got stoned at the line of scrimmage.

On the play, Alabama’s five-star right tackle, JC Latham, who will likely be a 2024 first-round NFL Draft pick, got pushed onto his back directly into the running lane by Josaiah Stewart, a former three-star prospect who transferred to Michigan after beginning his career at Coastal Carolina.

Stars Matter. They always will.

But Michigan, which won the Rose Bowl and advanced to the national title game in Houston next week, proved that in today’s college football, stars aren’t the only thing that matter.

Michigan did something I’ve repeatedly said is impossible.

Michigan proved me wrong. As a result, it has forever changed how I view the sport.

Win or lose, I have to hand it to Michigan. This team has already accomplished far more than I thought was possible given the recruiting results it has had.

— Ari Wasserman (@AriWasserman) January 2, 2024

For the entire College Football Playoff era — dating back to the 2014 season — the four-team field has been dominated by super teams that have consistently destroyed their peers on this stage, year after year, game after game, title after title. Until Michigan on Monday.

That may sound odd given Michigan was an undefeated Big Ten champion and a 2.5-point favorite over Alabama heading into the Rose Bowl. But it’s true.

So how are super teams defined? It’s all roster makeup based on recruiting rankings, the results of which are readily available in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite.

There are two types of teams we find on this stage. First, the super teams built like Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia, the types of programs that have recruited so well over the previous four or five cycles that they have future draft picks sitting on the bench. They often have double-digit five-star prospects and enough top-100 players on top of that to have a huge margin of error in recruiting hits and misses.

The second type is the “developmental teams,” the ones that recruit pretty well and do a tremendous job of evaluating and finding good fits. These teams are very good, but their overall roster strength pales in comparison to that of the super teams.

People repeatedly counter the “stars matter” mantra with things like “coaching matters” and “development matters,” but that was always so tiresome to hear because it’s not like Alabama and Georgia don’t evaluate and develop their players. Their players just often naturally do things physically that lower-ranked players can never do, regardless of development, heart or time spent in the gym and film room.

The super teams always, always, always beat the developmental teams at the end of the year.

Well, Michigan just proved it’s not always.

The 2023 Alabama team boasts the second-most talented roster — on paper — in the modern recruiting era (dating back to 2002). The average scholarship player on this team was a top-100 recruit coming out of high school. That is an absurd statistic. Even if half of the signees didn’t pan out, Alabama would still have 40-ish players who lived up to their recruiting hype and would be among the best players at their position in the country. That’s basically an entire two-deep. It’s unfathomable how many good players are on this team.

Michigan, meanwhile, ranks No. 14 in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite and has 16 fewer five-star prospects on its roster than Alabama. That doesn’t even account for how much more highly rated Alabama’s four-stars are than Michigan’s.

The result? Michigan, a senior-laden team, beat the crap out of the Crimson Tide. Sure, there were moments when it felt as though Alabama was going to win in the second half, but anyone who watched that game saw the Wolverines physically impose their will on Alabama, all the way to the final play.

Yes, Michigan has highly rated guys like quarterback J.J. McCarthy, running backs Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards and cornerback Will Johnson, but it had lower-rated four-stars and three-stars all over the field dominating its ultra-talented opponent. The three-stars were manhandling the five-stars, which, again, isn’t supposed to happen in such a physical game.

This is the first time a super team has lost to a developmental team in the College Football Playoff. Yes, TCU advanced to the national title game a year ago, but it didn’t have to beat Alabama or Georgia to get there. That’s the distinction.

Michigan has regularly had very good teams under Jim Harbaugh, even before the Wolverines broke through and beat Ohio State in 2021. But even after Michigan beat the Buckeyes (another super team), it still felt impossible that it could then go on to win the Big Ten title game and two Playoff games (against teams like Georgia and Alabama) to win a national championship. History has always shown us there is a physical threshold that can’t be overcome. It never happened before.

It has happened now. Michigan has evaluated and developed so well that the Wolverines have taken a roster comprised of uninspiring recruiting classes and built a team that may have more than 15 players drafted in April. That is done through top-notch evaluation in the high school ranks — identifying undervalued players who fit Michigan’s scheme and makeup — and also by attacking the transfer portal and adding players who can come in and contribute immediately. Harbaugh’s program has been masterful at this.

We have to consider that the transfer portal has changed how we evaluate which teams can and cannot win a national title. It’s no longer as simple as looking at the four teams atop the 247Sports Composite and choosing one. Michigan has as many as five big-time contributors who didn’t start their careers with the program. Florida State, though left out of the CFP after finishing the season as an unbeaten ACC champ, built a national title-worthy roster seemingly entirely through the portal.

Let’s not forget that Washington (ranked No. 26 — 14 spots lower than Michigan — in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite) is also playing in the national title game. The Huskies won the Joe Moore Award for having the best offensive line in college football and did so with five prospects who came to the program out of high school (and none ranked in the top 170 nationally). The Huskies added a quarterback out of the portal who went on to be a Heisman finalist in former three-star prospect Michael Penix Jr., along with big-time playmakers like running back Dillon Johnson and receiver Ja’Lynn Polk. It’s a different world now.

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Washington beat Oregon twice this year and beat Texas in the CFP semifinals on Monday, but Michigan gets the spotlight in this discussion because it has defeated super teams Ohio State and Alabama in two of its last three games.

There have been only three teams since 2000 that have won national titles without having signed a top-five class in any of the previous four years — 2010 Auburn, 2016 Clemson and 2018 Clemson. The quarterbacks for those teams were Cam Newton, Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence, and all of those teams signed at least one top-10 class in the previous four years.

With a win on Monday, Michigan can now become the fourth. Washington, too, would be the fourth, but Michigan’s path to get there featured two more super teams than the Huskies faced. McCarthy is a really nice player, but the Wolverines are doing this by outmuscling their opponents and playing assignment-oriented football. Nobody would compare McCarthy to Newton, Watson or Lawrence, at least when it relates to college production and star power.

A lot of this is experience, too. Michigan features a senior-laden team that came into the game with 3,000 more cumulative snaps from its two-deep than Alabama. Experience accounts for a lot.

But until this year, the super teams didn’t lose games like this. Georgia dropped 60 on the lovable developmental Horned Frogs in the national title game a year ago. That was always the fate for the Little Engines That Could that were brave enough to make it to the College Football Playoff and look across the sideline at the freaks who awaited them.

Super teams will still be more likely to sustain year-over-year success than teams like Michigan, which is going to lose a large portion of its production after the season. The Wolverines won’t be able to play the “next man up” game the same way Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State will. High school recruiting is always going to be the backbone for top-notch programs that expect to win a national title every year regardless of roster and/or staff attrition.

But in the right year with the right circumstances? Michigan — and teams built like it — can win the national title in today’s college football.

I wouldn’t have said that a year ago or even six months ago. Today, I am.

Because of Michigan.

(Photo of Jalen Milroe and Michael Barrett: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)