Wolverine TV podcast: Early thoughts on the Alabama matchup
The Michigan Wolverines and Alabama Crimson Tide will do battle on Jan. 1 in the Rose Bowl with a trip to the national championship on the line, putting the nation’s top team against college football’s gold standard program.
Michigan has had a national championship or bust mentality all season long but has a 1-6 record in bowl games under Jim Harbaugh. To slay its demons, it has to take down a Nick Saban squad that has won six straight CFP semifinal games. But both teams have to go out west to make it happen in arguably the sport’s most iconic venue.
The Wolverine’s Anthony Broome, Chris Balas and Clayton Sayfie discussed the draw in this week’s Monday night show and took questions from the message board on several topics. But the chief item of business was discussing what the Crimson Tide bring to the table.
“Treat this almost like the Ohio State game where you come out with your best game plan of the year,” Balas said. “You can’t just do what you’ve been doing and think and expect to push these guys around. And these are better athletes you guys. I’ve watched Alabama several times this year. They often play to the level of their competition, but they are capable of playing up as well. That’s what they did against Georgia. They’ve got huge athletes that move extremely well on both lines. They’ve got cornerbacks that are gonna lock down Michigan’s receivers, so where is the advantage?
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Some people are saying that teams have been able to run a bit on Alabama, but Michigan hasn’t run on just about anybody this year. I can think of one game, Nebraska, where they really moved the ball pretty well on the ground very effectively. Other than that, it was hit or miss. They’re gonna need to dial some stuff up and rely on J.J. McCarthy a little bit more on his feet and to make plays, because if they beat Alabama, he’s gonna be the reason why, in my opinion.”
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