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Podcast: What to watch for, predictions — Michigan vs. Washington in national championship game

clayton-sayfieby:Clayton Sayfie•01/07/24•

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Jim Harbaugh
(Photo by Dominick Sokotoff / TheWolverine.com)

On this episode of TheWolverine.com podcast, Clayton Sayfie and Anthony Broome preview Michigan Wolverines football vs. Washington in the national championship game, offer final score predictions and discuss the legacy to this point of head coach Jim Harbaugh.

Watch this episode in the video player above or on our YouTube channel. Listen in the embed below or search ‘The Wolverine’ wherever you get your podcasts.

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The two hosts discussed Michigan’s offense and how it can help out the defense by going on long drives and keeping Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and Co. off the field.

“A huge key here is being able to control time of possession,” Sayfie said. “Keep Michael Penix and that great offense off the field, limit the possessions in this game — because then, and Joel Klatt was talking about this on his podcast earlier this week and I thought he made a good point that — every stop that you get from there is going to feel like two stops, because if you limit those possessions — the margins are so slim — Washington is going to put pressure on themselves to score on every drive. And if you can hold them to field goals or make them punt, those are going to be huge victories.”

“Absolutely,” Broome said. “[Michigan defensive coordinator] Jesse Minter, when I spoke to him, said that ‘every stop that you get in this game’ … whether that be forcing field goals, because those are stops, when you have an offense that is as high powered as Washington is. They’re going to run plays that are designed to score pretty much every time out. Getting off the field on third down is huge. Getting off the field in the red zone. Forcing field goals. And finishing drives, too, on the offensive side of the ball. So much of this, when you look at the storylines between these two teams, it’s going to be … I know there is going to be a lot of eye candy in terms of Washington’s offense.

“There’s a lot of — for people that like physical, smash mouth football — there’s a lot of eye candy for what Michigan does in this game. But when you boil down this game and distill it to this most basic form, I think that’s what it winds up coming down to, getting off the field. I think it does look a lot like 2021 Ohio State — to a certain extent 2022. But this is no cake walk, it’s no walk in the park. Just getting here doesn’t ensure success here. So, gotta regroup, gotta play well on both sides of the ball.”

Much more was discussed in the podcast, which you can find on all platforms.

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