Three years ago, Jim Harbaugh was just about done. Harbaugh had rebuilt Stanford into a top-five program, led the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl and quickly restored Michigan to respectability. His Wolverines had come up ever so slightly short of a Big Ten championship (and likely College Football Playoff) bid in 2016, but by the end of 2020, they had lost six of their last eight, and he had to take a pay cut to keep his job. Surely the end was in sight.
Two years ago, Kalen DeBoer was taking on a pretty epic challenge. A three-time NAIA national champion, he had slowly moved up the ladder, from FCS offensive coordinator, to lower-FBS, to higher-FBS. In his first FBS head-coaching job, at Fresno State, he lost four of his first eight, then won nine of his next 11. Now he was taking on what appeared to be a pretty significant challenge: Restoring Washington's luster. The Huskies had lost nine of their previous 13 games under Jimmy Lake. The offense was a mess. Surely this was going to take a while.
Next Monday, these two coaches, and these two schools, will meet in the College Football Playoff National Championship game. It will be either Michigan's first title in 26 years or Washington's first in 32. Harbaugh has now pulled off a double turnaround of sorts, culminating in Monday's victory over Nick Saban's Alabama in the Rose Bowl presented by Prudential. DeBoer has won 21 in a row at UW, 10 straight by 10 or fewer and took down Texas in the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Here's how these two brilliant teams pulled off their brilliant semifinal wins.
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Michigan overcomes its issues
Washington flips the script
Ranking best CFP games
Early title game thoughts
Michigan overcame Bama and itself
I was getting severe Ohio State-Clemson vibes. In the Fiesta Bowl in the 2019 College Football Playoff, Justin Fields and Ohio State owned Trevor Lawrence and Clemson for the first 25 minutes or so, scoring four times and forcing four straight punts. The Buckeyes were an incredible team that year, and they were proving it ... except they kept settling for field goals. Those four scores generated only 16 points, and when Clemson finally got going with two straight touchdowns late in the first half, the halftime score was just 16-14 Buckeyes. Two Travis Etienne touchdowns, a controversial replay call and a late interception were enough to flip the game and send the Tigers to the national championship with a 29-23 win. Ohio State gained 99 more yards and had seven more first downs but went home.