Washington credits Michigan, laments missed opportunities – ‘we beat ourselves’
HOUSTON — Neither Michigan nor Washington played its best game Monday night in U-M’s 34-13 National Championship Game win. The Wolverines got clunky on offense in the second and third quarters, while the Huskies missed a couple big plays that could have kept them in it longer.
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But there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the better team won. U-M won the battles in both trenches — you won’t lose too many football games when that happens — and made Washington quarterback Michael Penix uncomfortable for most of the game with pressures and mixing coverages. The U-W offense was playing from behind all game, going on fourth downs early in the game just to stay in it.
“Just congrats to Coach [Jim] Harbaugh and Michigan on a great season and a well-played game tonight,” Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer said. “Obviously, a very good football team. I think even just a two-score game, it has happened a couple times over the last two seasons … I keep telling the game’s going to come back to them, and putting one more score on the board is always going to put pressure on the team because they know what we’re capable of.
“We just couldn’t make that one play here and there. And when we did, a penalty, maybe bringing the play back, a holding call, things like that … we just couldn’t get over the hump. We couldn’t finish the drive the way that we’re used to. That’s a credit to Michigan. There’s a piece where I agree with Michael, we had some self-inflicted wounds that we did to ourselves — just some penalties, some plays that we are usually going to be making, and we just didn’t quite make them.”
Penix was only sacked once but hounded much of the game by U-M’s four-man front. They went to a checkdown, nickel and dime attack as a result and missed some plays. For the most part, though, the Michigan coverage was outstanding.
“We didn’t execute the moment whenever we needed to,” Penix said. “I feel like as far as the whole exotic stuff that they were doing on film and stuff that we saw against Alabama, I don’t feel like we were confused or anything like that. I just feel like it came down to executing. I missed a couple of throws … just a couple of reads on routes and stuff like that, small details within our system that we do great all the time.
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“It’s shifts and motions coming out of the huddle. It’s small details and stuff like that caused us to be in a position where we didn’t want to be in. They’re a good team. We just didn’t execute in the moments when we needed to. It’s just about executing. I don’t feel like they did anything — I feel like we beat ourselves. And there were times we definitely had opportunities to make big-time plays, to make the game a lot different. But it comes down to executing. They’re a good team, but we had a lot of opportunities.”
At the end of the day, Michigan made more of theirs than the Huskies. As a result, the Wolverines are celebrating their first national title since 1997 while Washington is lamenting what might have been.
“It’s just such a fine line,” DeBoer said. “We’ve seen it all season between winning and losing. I know what the score looks like, but I feel like that fine line was right there again tonight, and we weren’t that far off.
“There’s not a doubt in my mind that we have a good enough football team to go out there and win a national championship. We’ve just got to make a play here and there, get us over the hump, and it could have been a different outcome.”
