Mark Norris/Houston Public Media
HOUSTON — A major power conference held its breath inside NRG Stadium Monday night.
The 2023 University of Michigan team earned college football immortality with its title game victory, but the Pac-12 Conference as we know it disappeared when the clock struck zero. Washington, a founding member of the league, played its final game representing the conference in its current configuration.
Will you live forever or will it be the end?
Michigan got off to a fast start, held a lead of at least a touchdown for most of the game, and built an irreversible advantage with two more touchdowns in the fourth quarter, winning its first national title since 1997. .
Michigan ran for 300 yards, including a 1-yard touchdown run by running back Blake Colm with less than four minutes left, sparking a frenzy among the packed Michigan faithful at the home of the Houston Texans. The rush was recorded.
“It couldn’t have gone any better. [The season] We went the way we wanted to win every game. There are off-the-field issues, but we are innocent and we stood strong and tall because we knew we were innocent,” Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh said after the game, shaking his team and team. He spoke in response to a question about the sign-stealing allegations. Sports.
“It went exactly the way we wanted it to go. It went exactly the way we wanted it to go.”
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NRG Stadium was, for those who know their college football history, an oddly appropriate venue for the title game. This is the second time the city of Houston has hosted the last of the major national conferences in the sport.
Just 3.5 miles away, Rice Stadium was the site of the 1995 Southwest Conference final game. Rice vs. Houston has been decided. A once-proud league disappeared, unable to withstand the constant changes in the sport.
Parallels exist between the demise of the SWC and the current demise of the Pac-12. Both leagues were separated by competing conferences as concerns over viability and television contracts destabilized the historic partnership. Some schools survived. Some are delegated to smaller or unrelated meetings.
Mark Norris/Houston Public Media
Washington has a life raft to the Big Ten. Yes, Michigan vs. Washington will be a conference game next season.
“I’m proud of us representing Pac-12 football, West Coast football, because I’m going to tell you right now, our conference and what we’ve been through every week has been tougher than any other team. ‘Because I think it spread across the country,’ Washington head coach Karen DeBoer said after the game.
Although the Huskies lost Monday, they won the realignment roulette and now live in college football’s newest centralized power structure. Death was avoidable.
“It’s sad to see the Pac-12 coming to an end right now, but I’m just happy to have been able to represent West Coast football, the Pac-12, like I did this year,” DeBoer said. .
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Next season will be the first of the playoffs to be expanded from four teams to 12 teams. More deaths, a four-team playoff that has existed for the past decade, and more change.
But after the confetti fell and he had time to come to terms with it, even the head coach of college football’s newest immortal team realized that he was destined to die and how he wanted to be remembered. Admitted.
“One day, when they throw dirt on me, if I was on this team when I played at the University of Michigan, or if any of my teammates come up to me and praise me, I don’t know if they just… If you say, “He was a Michigander.” “It means everything. It would mean everything to me,” Harbaugh said.
