Michigan's title reign is over. What is the championship legacy of the 2023 team?
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For the past 378 days, Michigan fans have been able to wake up as supporters of college football’s reigning National Champions. After a quarter century dry spell, it was long overdue. And it’s been incredibly enjoyable, even during times when the 2024 season wasn’t exactly going swimmingly.
Tuesday morning, that perk no longer exists. And to make things worse, that spoil has been transferred to bitter rival Ohio State.
And while that absolutely sucks and I’m not going to spend any time trying to gaslight you or myself that it doesn’t, it’s also not a cry for widespread panic or mourning. You may not be rooting on the reigning National Champion anymore, but you also don’t have to quit being excited about Michigan’s title that happened just 12 short months ago. The YouTube clips won’t disappear. The National Championship apparel won’t be taken away. Nobody is showing up with one of those Men In Black memory eraser pens.
But at the same time, there absolutely is a different feeling when it comes to being a fan of a recent National Champion and the most recent National Champion.
So what comes next?
To me, now feels like an appropriate time to formally close the book on the reigning National Champions. And what better way to do that than by examining just where Jim Harbaugh, J.J. McCarthy, Mike Sainristil and the rest of the 2023 edition of the Michigan Wolverine football program sit among other modern-day National Champions. So below the paywall jump, I’ll do just that — by sharing my rankings of the CFP-era National Champions.
Let’s get to it. 👇
