All Blue at the Edge of Football Season

A friend of mine called me on Wednesday to ask when I knew. When did I know it was over, that Michigan had won the National Championship?

It's a hard question to answer. It's hard to piece together what I remember from seeing it in person or what I remember from having watched the game multiple times since. It's hard to sort out what is a memory of something real I thought during the game and what I have allowed myself to believe, that there was never a doubt.

"I don't think I ever thought we were going to lose," I said.

He pressed. What was the moment when I looked at the scoreboard and said, "this is over."

Was it the first Corum touchdown, putting Michigan up 14 with 7 to play against a team that would now have to more than double its previous output to win?

Was it the second the ball landed in Mike Sanristil's hands? When he got tackled at the 8-yard-line and me and the people around me looked around at each other and said "that would have been cool but for game clock reasons technically this is good?" When Corum put us up 21 two plays later?

Was it when Will Johnson started the second half by proving that we were not going to allow ourselves to be Penix'ed to death? Was it when, after a second Donovan Edwards TD run that somehow might not even be in the top 3 TD runs of his career, James Turner kicked what turned out to be the game's winning point?

The honest answer is this: two hours after the game ended, I had waited out the trophy ceremony, found my bus back to the hotel, rode that bus (the Alumni Travel Agency lady saying "we have water and Miller Lite" shortly after the bus pulled out of NRG Stadium ranks shockingly high in my personal "best moments of the day"), and gotten back up to my room. My brother-in-law turned to me and said "Michigan just won the National Championship." I said it back, like a handshake, "Michigan just won the National Championship."

I sat down right on the floor, head in my hands. I stayed like that for a while. That's when I knew.

I keep telling people I wasn't really in Houston. I was just at the National Championship.

From the time I got to DTW on Sunday to the time I got back to DTW on Tuesday, I can count on two hands the number of people I spoke to who were not going to the game. The majority of those are Uber drivers.

The mood at the airport bar, a maize-clad gaggle watching the Lions try to squeeze out one more win in what had become the best football season of my life, was subdued. I was excited the Lions were winning, they were excited the Lions were winning, but we were all just biding our time. This was a football game that I cared about, sure, but in the face of what was coming it was just a diversion. Something I could pretend to focus on while I was mostly focused on a different game that would not kick for over 24 hours.

An Airbus A319 carries 132 passengers, under Delta's standard configuration. I tried to count the people who weren't wearing Michigan apparel as I got on, it would have been much harder to try to count the people who were. There were about 5 people wearing Lions shirts, and we're going to go ahead and count them. There were 2 people wearing Washington shirts.

About five minutes into my flight, the person next to me turned to me and said, in a drawl that would have thrilled a casting director, "Is there something going on with Michigan in Houston?"

I've thought about her a lot since. Detroit was my row-mate's connector from London, she was just trying to get home. I had actually said to my spouse as she drove me to the airport "someone is about to walk on this flight having no idea what it means for everyone else on it", and as luck would have it I sat right next to my hypothetical person. When the traveler asked me the question, did she think there was any chance I would say no? Did she think it was possible that people from Michigan are just dressed like this all the time?

I have almost nothing to report from the some 20 hours between landing in Houston and boarding the bus to the game. I did not see a single guest at the hotel that was not wearing team colors (though how those handful of Washington fans ended up at a Michigan hotel is an open question).

When I forced myself to take a walk, it was all terse glances and nods, with the level of terseness depending on what the other person was wearing. If they were wearing maize and blue, maybe a little smile, maybe a Go Blue. If they were wearing purple, the terse nod would do. We were all on a business trip but only one of us was going to make the deal.

I bought lunch. Here's actually my only impression of downtown Houston, independent of the National Championship Game: where the fuck are all the restaurants? I tried to go to multiple breakfast places that turned out to be food courts. I just wanted a sit down restaurant and kept finding places called like The Grove or The Gathering Station and having various counter-service options. (I found some breakfast tacos at one of these places, they were fine.)

Despite Houston trying to impose its will on us, showing us what sort of Community Spaces they have, I do not think I left The National Championship Game during my excursion. Both places I stumbled into were filled with people who, like me, were dressed for the game, walked in and said "sure, I guess."

I went back to the hotel room to try to read some previews while I waited for the game but couldn't focus. I knew everything I would know about Michigan and Washington, there was no more to take in before kick-off. Somewhere in there I put up a Monday personal-best 3:03 in that day's New York Times crossword. (A good omen, I thought.) Eventually the bus showed up and I got on it. After spending almost a full day basically at the game, it was time to go to the game.

Ultimately it wasn't my scene. Despite the Sklars' best efforts (maybe just one Sklar? I honestly forget), there was something about the alumni tailgate that felt off to me. Maybe it was the venue, a convention center that was at NRG Stadium but not in NRG Stadium. Maybe it was the lack of band. Maybe it was just an extension of the overall surrealness of having spent a good 24 hours in Texas while interacting with way more people from home than Texans.

The good news is at this point in the day I had already purchased my Perry the Pylon. The National Championship has a very interesting set-up, you need to scan your ticket just to get into the grounds. That will be the last time anyone scans your ticket. Once you're in the parking lot, you're in. This cuts down on bottlenecks later in the evening, we did not wait in any sort of line to go into the stadium itself.

It seemed to me that the Alumni Travel folks wanted us to go straight to the tailgate. I did not do that. The weather was currently nice, the weather was about to be shitty, and I figured it would be a good time to get merch. I found my Perry at the second merch stand I stood in line for. I am an adult, the Perry was a gift for a second adult. The only person who turned to me and said "where did you get that" was some bro from Washington in a group of people that did not literally all have Pit Vipers but let's pretend they did for the story. I hope he got one.

Perry and I headed to the tailgate. It was fine. Santa spoke, and he was fine. Some other guys spoke. I think I was in a bathroom or beer line when Seth Fisher spoke but I know it happened. Is there another fanbase where a comedian could stand in front of a room full of fans and get people cheering for a website? I truly think that is a Michigan-specific experience.

There was food, which was fine, and there was Miller Lite, which was good, and then it was time to go watch football, which was terrifying.

After the game, my brother and I Facetimed. I know I skipped the game given where I am in the narrative but I promise I'm going somewhere with this. He said "we can talk about the actual football, but first I want to hear about your emotions." Later in the call, when I said I was a little disappointed Blake Corum had been named offensive MVP rather than Donovan, I explained that he had made a distinction that didn't really exist in my experience. Now that we're a few days out, I have things I could say about play-calling and strategy and execution and how the football game played out. On Monday night, it was all emotion. The football washed over me. What I remember is what I felt.

In the first quarter I allowed myself to dream. Too much, maybe. What does my night look like if Michigan wraps this thing up early? I had prepared myself for misery, for spending all this time and money and absolutely hating the experience until, if all went well, very suddenly I didn't hate it at all. The first quarter made me reconsider how much fun I might allow myself to have.

The second quarter reminded me I had been right the first time. This is Michigan. It would not be easy, it would not be seamless. Jim Harbaugh did not care about whether or not I was having any fun. The game plan called for mucking it up a bit in the middle, the sort of slow plodding that absolutely works but doesn't make you feel good in the stands.

At halftime and through the third, I said all the necessary platitudes. The game was happening at Michigan's speed. Anytime you hold Washington to a field goal it's a win. Penix still hadn't made the big play.

Somewhere, a Washington fan was telling their companions the opposite platitudes. They were staying in it. The defense was performing admirably, given the relative rankings of the Michigan offense and Washington defense. Penix still had the big play in him.

I clung to my set of clichés and like to think I really believed them. I think I really believed that maybe the score would end 20-13 or even 23-13, but that Michigan could just take the air out of the building, slowly and methodically, over the fourth and that would be that. That maybe Penix would have the chance but I saw overtime in the Rose Bowl (on my couch, to be clear), Michigan would do what it needed on the final play.

As you know, it didn't come to that. Michigan forced a 3-and-out with just under 10 to play, JJ McCarthy found Colston Loveland open and Colston found the yards after catch (is that when I knew? It's up there). The rest of the drive was a pretty standard Michigan drive, especially considering the plodding that led up to it.

When Corum finally found himself in the end zone, 27-13, it felt safe to admit that all of the sudden the scoreboard looked how the game felt. Michigan was better. We knew it the whole time, we just did not let ourselves say it for fear of being proven wrong.

This was both a close game (Penix had the ball looking at a drive to tie with under 10 to play) and a blowout (21 point final score). This was both a close game (at one point they traded ten straight drives where neither team found the end zone) and a blowout (140 total yard advantage, 2 turnover advantage). I knew it the whole time but admitting it to myself would be giving up the game too early. I think most sports fans kind of like sitting in the misery, because it's worth what comes after.

I personally found the worst part of the game to be the part between the second Corum touchdown and the clock hitting zeroes. Had we had a whole quarter of garbage time I think that would have been fun, letting the excitement build until the game was finally over.

Having exactly 3:37 of garbage time? Excruciating, and made more so by a targeting review no one in the building cared about at all. I was personally unable to transition from the terror of a one score title game to the joys of winning comfortably in such little time. I needed to see the 0:00s.

Michigan won. Michigan won the National Championship. The Michigan Wolverines are the National Champions. How many different ways have you said it to yourself? Have you texted it without context to your friends, tweeted it, remembered it as you dozed off to sleep?

You've seen the videos. Harbaugh avoided the Gatorade bath until he didn't. He put on the Buffs to lift the trophy. They played Mr. Brightside. On the way out I passed a couple who were just sitting there, one with their arm around the other, taking it in for a few last minutes. People started cheers in the stairwells. I got out a couple "Who's got it better than us?"-es. The answer came. You know the answer.

Did I know it was real the next morning, as my brother-in-law departed our hotel room several hours before I would, leaving me unable to fall back asleep knowing my phone was filled with videos I had not managed to watch the night before?

Did I know when I packed to leave, still wearing all maize and blue, with Perry's eyes peeking out of my backpack at whoever was with me in the elevator?

Did I know when I got into an Uber to go to IAH, and after about ten minutes of silence my driver said, "did you go to the game?" And when I said yes, he said he had been an Ohio State fan since immigrating from Vietnam to Columbus in the late seventies, but he was happy for us. He then told me all about the Pho cart he was about to open in Houston. I sincerely hope it goes well for him, that guy ruled.

Did I know when for the second straight flight, I found myself next to the only person who did not know what everyone else was there for?

It's been enough time now that I am not thinking about it quite as constantly. You're in a meeting or you're making dinner and you're thinking about the stuff you normally do when doing those things and then you remember, Michigan won the National Championship. I know because I was there.

I get to spend the rest of my life knowing that.