INDIANAPOLIS 
— 
Nobody 
took Jim Harbaugh and Aidan 
Hutchinson seriously back in July. 
Yet there they were, sitting behind 
a podium at Lucas Oil Stadium 
during Big Ten Media Days, 
insisting the Michigan football 
team was ready to take the next 
step. 
Asked 
about 
beating 
Ohio 
State and reaching the Big Ten 
Championship Game, Harbaugh 
said the Wolverines would “get 
there or die trying.” Hutchinson, 
too, affirmed his willingness to die 
for it. Given Michigan’s dismal 2-4 
season in 2020, it was easy to scoff 
at claims of culture change and 
national contention.
But on Saturday night, their July 
words came to life.
The second-ranked Wolverines 
(12-1 overall, 9-1 Big Ten) defeated 

No. 13 Iowa (10-3, 7-3), 42-3, 
capturing the program’s first Big 
Ten title since 2004. When the 
clock ticked down to double-zeros, 
maize and blue confetti rained 
down on the same field where 
everyone wrote off Harbaugh and 
Hutchinson in July.
“We defied all expectations,” 
Hutchinson said. “Nobody thought 
we could do this. Nobody thought 
we could ever do this, especially 
not this season. And, man, we did 
it. And we did it in a very dominant 
fashion.”
Standing outside the postgame 
locker room, shouts of “6-6” 
and “two percent” reverberated 
through the tunnel — references 
to 
the 
Wolverines’ 
projected 
6-6 record and the 2% chance 
ESPN’s preseason algorithm gave 
Michigan to win the Big Ten East. 
ESPN’s calculations also estimated 
the Wolverines had a 0.7% chance 
to win the Big Ten Championship 
and a 0.0% chance to make the 

College Football Playoff.
“There’s 
always 
that 
little 
external 
motivation,” 
sixth-
year offensive lineman Andrew 
Vastardis said. “… Sometimes, just 
some of the stuff that’s out there, 
you just take it and ride with it 
and (add) fuel to the fire. So that’s 
where that was from.”
That fuel was apparent on 
Saturday night. From an identity 
standpoint, Michigan and the 
Hawkeyes appeared to be mirror 
images entering this week. Both 
programs pride themselves on 
physical, run-first football.
When they stepped foot on the 
field, however, it quickly became 
apparent that wasn’t the case. 
Iowa hadn’t allowed a run of 
30-plus yards all season, but it 
didn’t take long for Blake Corum 
to change that. The sophomore 
running back took an inside handoff 
67 yards for a touchdown on the 
Wolverines’ second possession.
On their next offensive play from 

scrimmage, 
junior 
quarterback 
Cade McNamara threw a lateral to 
running back Donovan Edwards in 
the flat. But instead of turning the 
corner, the freshman reared off his 
back foot and threw a deep ball to 
junior receiver Roman Wilson, who 
ran streaking behind the defense 
all alone. The double-pass went 
for a 75-yard touchdown, giving 
Michigan a quick two-score lead.
“(That play) has been ready for 
prime time about seven weeks,” 
Harbaugh said. “… We had it 
planned early. As soon as we got 
into the left hash after the fourth 
play, we were going to run that. 
And (Edwards) has never missed 
on that throw. Sometimes he 
throws it off his left, his right foot. 
He’s always on the move running 
when he throws it. And every time, 
it’s a dime.”
On the other side of the ball, 
that was more than the Wolverines 
needed.
After allowing a field goal late 

in the first quarter, Michigan’s 
defense gave up just 160 more 
yards. The Wolverines held Iowa 
to a 5-for-18 mark on third down 
and didn’t surrender a single 
point following the first frame. 
Hutchinson recorded four tackles, 
a sack and two quarterback hurries 
en route to Big Ten Championship 
Game MVP honors.
He’s the first defensive player 
to ever win the award, but his 
teammates believe he belongs in 
the conversation for a bigger one.
“It’s 
pretty 
self-explanatory. 
He deserves to be the Heisman 
Trophy winner,” Vastardis said. 
“He showed out every week, been a 
game-changer.”
Senior running back Hassan 
Haskins padded the Wolverines’ 
lead with a pair of second-half 
rushing touchdowns, becoming 
the first player in program history 
to tally 20 in a single-season. 
Michigan’s 42 points were the most 
the Hawkeyes’ vaunted defense had 

allowed since the 2015 Rose Bowl, 
sealing their worst postseason 
losing margin in program history.
Saturday’s victory cements the 
Wolverines’ 
first-ever 
College 
Football Playoff berth, helping 
Harbaugh restore his alma mater’s 
place in the upper echelon of college 
football. Prior to 2021, Michigan’s 
seventh-year coach had yet to beat 
Ohio State, claim a conference 
title or lead his team to the College 
Football Playoff. The fact that he 
checked all three of those boxes 
during the past week solidifies this 
season as an inflection point for the 
program.
Most players on the Wolverines’ 
roster 
hadn’t 
even 
started 
elementary school the last time 
Michigan won a Big Ten title. Now, 
that drought is over. And it ended 
in the very stadium where nobody 
thought it was possible in July.
That is, except for Harbaugh, 
Hutchinson and the rest of the 
Wolverines.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Michigan captures elusive Big Ten Championship in 42-3 win over Iowa

Graduation Edition 2023 — 15
Sports

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Three 
hundred and sixty-five days ago, the 
Michigan football team experienced 
agony.
After a long, arduous season, tears 
ran and hopes were broken after the 
Wolverines had their spirits crushed 
by Georgia in the College Football 
Playoff.
Everything Michigan worked 
toward was washed away by red and 
black confetti.
Saturday, 
a 
full 
year 
later, 
Michigan got another chance.
Once 
again, 
the 
Wolverines 
were enveloped in their opponents’ 
colors. No. 3 seed TCU’s purple 
and white permeated the air while 
No. 2 seed Michigan looked down 
at the ground — the site of another 
disappointment. In the 51-45 loss, 
the score didn’t matter as much 
as the outcome; any margin of 
defeat spelled the same result: the 
Wolverines’ season, and any hope 
of a national championship, would 
be over.
And now, it is.
“When we were winning the 
games, it was like nothing was 
wrong,” senior defensive tackle 
Mazi Smith told The Daily. “So 
sometimes, things don’t go your 
way. It’s the game of football. It’s a 
will versus a will, and they wanted 

it too.”
The evidence that something 
was 
wrong, 
though, 
appeared 
early. At the beginning of the game, 
Michigan looked lost.
The Wolverines capped their 
first three drives with a turnover 
on downs at TCU’s two-yard line, 
a pick six and a three-and-out. The 
Horned Frogs quickly jumped out 
to a 14-point lead and Michigan was 
floundering.
For the remainder of the half, the 
Wolverines squandered drives.
Most notably, junior running 
back Kalel Mullings fumbled on the 
goal line after the defense brought in 
an interception against quarterback 
Max Duggan. The play before the 
turnover, sophomore quarterback 
J.J. McCarthy delivered a bomb 
to junior receiver Roman Wilson. 
Initially, the play was called a 
touchdown. But after review, the 
call was overturned, placing the ball 
on the half-yard line.
Whether the initial play should’ve 
resulted in a touchdown or not, 
Michigan’s next job was simple.
“We got to execute on the goal line 
there and put it in,” senior offensive 
lineman Trevor Keegan told The 
Daily. “And that’s what we’ve done 
all season. There’s no excuse for us 
not to get in there.”
Between 
gut-wrenching 
turnovers and anemic Wolverine 
drives, Duggan began to work his 
magic. While the ship Duggan 

commanded 
sailed 
to 
another 
touchdown, Michigan’s mistakes 
sank it to depths where it would 
eventually drown — no matter how 
close it got to resurfacing. 
“We were so close,” junior 
defensive lineman Kris Jenkins told 
The Daily. “(But) we made too many 
mistakes — they kind of got the best 
of us.”
A last second 59-yard field goal by 
graduate kicker Jake Moody made it 
21-6 at the half, but the Wolverines 
were still flailing. For any chance of 
a turnaround, Michigan needed to 
change something during the break 
— and fast.
At first, the Wolverines appeared 
to do that.
Out of half time, the defense got a 
stop. A sputter in the red zone, and 
Moody made it 21-9. A flea-flicker 
touchdown to graduate receiver 
Ronnie Bell cut the game to five 
points. But just as Michigan gained 
momentum, TCU took it away. A 
marching touchdown drive and 
their second pick six of the day put 
the Horned Frogs up 34-16.
Then, all hell broke loose.
In three minutes and forty 
seconds, 
there 
were 
five 
touchdowns. McCarthy and Duggan 
rushing touchdowns went back-to-
back, followed by a touchdown run 
from Mullings. After Smith forced 
and recovered a fumble, an 18-yard 
rushing touchdown from Wilson cut 
the deficit to three. Then, a 76-yard 
touchdown reception from receiver 
Quentin Johnston put TCU back up 
by 10.
“In the moment, I can’t lie, it’s kind 
of exciting,” Wilson said. “Battling 
with my friends, my teammates, and 
just bouncing back. It sucks that we 
lost, but it’s fun going back and forth, 
being there just playing football.”
And the back and forth simply 
continued.
The Horned Frogs notched a 
field goal, while Michigan’s offense 
briefly stalled. Then, the Wolverines 
marched down the field, and with 
McCarthy rolling right, a TCU 
pursuer nipping at his heels, he 
lobbed the ball to a wide-open 

TCU ends Michigan’s season in stunning 
Fiesta Bowl, 51-45

The 2021 gymnastics National 
Championship came down to 
the very last routine of the meet. 
Junior Abby Heiskell stared 
down the beam as she mounted 
it. As she performed her routine, 
she completed each skill with 
an intention to do it perfectly, 
a lesson Michigan coach Bev 
Plocki has drilled into the mind 
of her gymnasts all season. 
Heiskell showed no ounce of 
doubt in any of her skills, and 
when she finished the routine 
with a stuck dismount, she 
proved that she was capable of 
being there for her team in the 
moment it needed it most.
Heiskell, 
joined 
by 
her 
teammates, could not peel their 
eyes from the scoreboard, and 
neither could Oklahoma. Waiting 
for only junior Olivia Trautman’s 
score on floor and Heiskell’s 
score on beam, the teams sat 
tied at 198.0750. Trautman’s 
score came in at a 9.9375, leaving 
Heiskell’s routine to need a score 
of 9.8500 or better to win the 
meet for the Wolverines. 
When the number came in 
on the scoreboard, a 9.9250, the 
team, the coaches and the fans 
erupted. Michigan would be 
the 2021 National Champion, 
the first Michigan women’s 
gymnastics team to ever win a 
National 
Championship. 
The 
team clinched a program record 
198.2500 in the competition of 
its life. 
“We’ve talked about this for 
so long, and we were like, ‘Oh my 
gosh, this is actually happening. 
Oh my gosh, the meet is over, 
and we’re national champions,’ 
” sophomore Sierra Brooks said. 
“So much went into this, it’s so 
amazing seeing our hard work 
pay off.”
Michigan clinched the win, 
in the end, by securing the 
lead they held onto the entire 
meet. Coming into the Finals, 
Oklahoma was ranked first and 

Michigan second, based on the 
semifinal scores, but the Sooners 
were never given a chance to 
shine. 
Michigan started the meet on 
floor with six strong routines, 
all counted scores at a 9.9125 or 
higher. Junior Natalie Wojcik 
led the pack, scoring a 9.9500, 
landing all of her tumbling 
passes smoothly and without 
fault. Sophomore Gabby Wilson 
also 
posted 
an 
impressive 
score of 9.9375, and the solid 
performance 
from 
the 
rest 
of her teammates landed the 
Wolverines at a 49.6250, only 
0.0250 points short of their 
record floor score yesterday. 
Oklahoma’s start on vault left 
them trailing by 0.0500 to start 
the meet, a deficit they never 
overcame. Utah had a solid 
bars rotation as well, scoring 
a 49.4250. Florida, who, prior 
to the weekend, was seeded to 
place first, had two falls on the 
beam, forcing the team to count 
one extremely low score that 
they would never recover from. 
Michigan carried their energy 
to the vault for the second 
rotation, where it was not only 
seeded first in the country, but 
had the highest team start value 
of any team in the competition, 
all vaults starting with a 10.0 
start value. Heiskell began the 
event, sticking her one and a half 

Yurchenko, forcing the judges 
to search for any deduction. Her 
vault, and its score of a 9.9750 
started the consistency of the 
event, which was followed up by 
another stuck vault from Wojcik, 
earning herself a 9.9375 and 
Brooks, who notched a 9.9750. 
The team’s vault performance 
extended their lead over the rest 
of the field even further, gaining 
a 0.1375 lead over Oklahoma at 
the halfway mark.
“(Vault’s) just been amazing,” 
Michigan coach Bev Plocki said. 
“At the beginning of the year, 
we were doing big vaults, but we 
couldn’t get the landings, and 
it was a process. We absolutely 
peaked at the right time this year. 
… Right before the championship 
part of the season, we started 
being able to nail those 1.5s.”
Heiskell 
started 
off 
Michigan’s next rotation on 
bars with a stuck dismount. The 
Wolverines’ top scores of the 
rotation came from Brooks and 
junior Abby Brenner in her first 
competitive routine in months 
since hurting her ankle at the 
Big Five meet on Feb. 27. Their 
clutch 
performances 
earned 
both gymnasts a 9.9250, and kept 
Michigan with the same lead 
over Oklahoma as they had going 
into the event. 

DANIEL DASH
2021 Daily Sports Editor

NICHOLAS STOLL
2022 Managing Sports Editor

Michigan clinches first National 
Championship title in school history

SAMI RUUD
Daily Sports Writer

ALUM MILES MACKLIN/Daily

TESS CROWLEY/Daily
 Read more at MichiganDaily.com
ALUM ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily

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