Michigan football’s national title proves players can come from anywhere and any ranking

HOUSTON — Everyone will remember the interception, and rightly so. You don’t have to scan the web for long to find viral recordings of Mike Sainristil’s College Football Playoff title game-sealing theft, perhaps most memorably from the phones of Michigan football fans who recorded the defensive back’s pick while watching at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor on Monday night.

The roar was, dare I say … volcanic?

The moment will go down in history, as so much about U-M’s 34-13 win over Washington will — a night framed for the ages. Sainristil’s interception sent thousands of students and fans into the streets around the campus and helped give the Wolverines their first football title since 1997.

So, yeah, the interception, it’s a high-def part of the digital scrapbook. That it was Sainristil, the receiver-turned-defensive back whose family fled Haiti when he was a baby, only adds to the feels of those who love the maize and blue.

Michigan defensive back Mike Sainristil (0) intercepts a ball meant for Washington wide receiver Jalen McMillan (11) during the fourth quarter of the College Football Playoff national championship game against Washington at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas on Monday, January 8, 2024.

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Every title team has a player or two like Sainristil, a relatively unheralded recruit who becomes a captain and voice of the team. These Wolverines have a slew of them, and that is surely Jim Harbaugh’s secret sauce to this three-year run.

Though it’s not a secret anymore, not after U-M became the first team in the College Football Playoff era to win with a roster outside the top 10 in 247 Sports’ composite team talent rankings. Or, as Sainristil said in the run-up to the title game:

“We don’t…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/michigan-footballs-national-title-proves-111225850.html

Author : Detroit Free Press

Publish date : 2024-01-10 11:12:25

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