Michigan students pack Crisler Center for College Football Playoff National Championship

Monday night, Michigan is looking to do something it hasn’t since 1997: win a national championship. The energy was palpable at NRG Stadium in Houston, where the Wolverines are taking on Washington, but it was even stronger in Ann Arbor at the Crisler Center.

Michigan hosted students for an on-campus watch party on the jumbotron, and they showed out. Wolverines faithful filled the upper bowl and part of the lower bowl of the arena to watch their football team take on a future conference rival with a College Football Playoff national championship on the line.

They saw quite a show on the opening drive, too.

These #Michigan students are a small microcosm of the energy the entire fanbase has right now. But man, they sure are ready. #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/QIhxp8WuE9

— Zach Libby (@LibbyOn3) January 9, 2024

Michigan marched down the field for an eight-play, 84-yard drive that ended with Donovan Edwards taking a carry 41 yards to the end zone to put the Wolverines on top 7-0 to start the game with a bang.

This year marked Michigan’s third straight trip to the College Football Playoff, but the Wolverines lost in the first round the first two times. That changed on New Year’s Day with a victory over Alabama in the Rose Bowl to reach the title game.

Now, Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines will try to bring the trophy home to Ann Arbor. If anyone knows how much that would mean for the university, it’s Harbaugh, and he talked about that this week.

“It would mean so much for our players, for them to know what it’s like to be champions,” Harbaugh said one day before kickoff. “Just be simply referred to as national champions. And for their parents, for their parents to have their son be a champion, a national champion; for their grandparents to have a grandson; for their brothers and sisters to have a brother who is a grandson.

“What it would mean to me, for my kids to know their dad is a national champion. And for my parents and my brother and my sister. That’s the overwhelming thing, just that so many people would be able to enjoy that, be a part of that. For my wife, for her husband to be a national champion. For me, not so much, but for everybody else, yeah, that would be huge.”

Michigan and Washington both bring 14-0 records into the game, and the winner will be the sixth team to ever go 15-0 or better in history. The Huskies got a field goal on their first drive, keeping Michigan in front, 7-3.