The Wolverines: What Have They Learned About Their State, and How They’ve Solved Theirs? A Family History of Two Big College Football Teams – from Michigan to Washington and back
The team’s listings of their players’ hometowns show that fans in California can claim more players in the title game than they can in either Michigan or Washington.
Just 34 Wolverines are listed as being from Michigan on its roster, which runs to 143 players. In-state players make up 25% of the team.
Top college teams have been scouting and attracting talent around the U.S., and beyond, for years. But a look at these two teams shows how that trend has evolved — especially when we compare their current rosters to their championship teams of the 1990s.
In 1997 the UM recruited in Texas and Florida, two big states that produce talented athletes. Four players from California, including Tom Brady, were on that team.
The 1991 team included 49 players from California and 60 from Washington, meaning that around 44% of the roster was home-grown. Washington has used a new strategy to win:recruiting transfers from other schools.
The list of transfers making an impact at Washington is long. It includes Penix, who came most recently from Indiana, and Johnson, a defensive back from Mississippi State, as well as Muhammad who was the leading pick in the nation after coming from Oklahoma State.
Bralen Trice is a leader of the Huskies and has 7 sacks. Running back Dillon Johnson, a Mississippi native, scored 16 touchdowns for the Huskies — but his status has been in question for the final, due to an injury in the last minute of the Sugar Bowl win over No. 3 Texas a week ago.
The running backs for Michigan in the next decade are led by one from Virginia, and who scored a touchdown in Michigan’s last game, against Alabama.
Homegrown players do help their teams, but not in the same way. Highly regarded cornerback Will Johnson — whose side of the field often gets tellingly quiet during games — is from Detroit, for instance.
Junior Colson is the leading tackler for the Wolverines while Roman Wilson is its leading receiver. Its imposing defense relies on players from Tampa, Fla. (edge rusher Jaylen Harrell), Olney, Md. (defensive tackle Kris Jenkins), and Everett, Mass. (defensive back Mike Sainristil), and elsewhere.
Highly coveted athletes are more often joined by programs outside of their home state. Since 2010, there have not been any winners of the trophy who lived in the same state where they attended high school.
Michigan and Washington arrived at the national title game by playing to different strengths. The Wolverines rely on elite defense and control at the line of scrimmage, while the Huskies deploy an offense led by Penix and a corps of talented receivers.
The transfer portal is one of the strategies used by both teams to find talented players, and it paid off for Washington.
Washington is playing for it all just two years after going 4-8 in the 2021-2022 season. After that losing record, it hired Kalen DeBoer — a talented head coach who arrived in the same year the NCAA’s transfer rules changed to no longer require a player who switches schools for the first time to sit out one year before suiting up.
Washington’s departure from the PAC-12 to join Michigan in the Big Ten helped put the conference into a death spiral.
Still, this year’s title game is a stark contrast to last year’s, when both contenders’ rosters were dominated by homegrown players. Some 78 players from Texas were listed by Texas Christian University in that game. There are 77 players from Georgia listed on the other side of the field.
The Hive: What’s good for the Bee, and what’s not? How Michigan players are preparing to play NCAA football next year
“We could do things with each other, because of the guys we have in this room and the group of brothers,” Michigan sixth-year middle linebacker Michael Barrett told the AP. “We talked about what’s good for the hive is good for the bee, and what’s good for the bee is good for the hive.”
Fourteen of Washington’s 22 offensive and defensive starters are in their fifth or sixth season, while Michigan has nine starters in their fifth or sixth season.
NCAA players who would have lost a year of eligibility to the pandemic-shortened 2020 season were granted an extra year on the roster. Both teams have experience that has arisen from the COVID-19 exemption.
Jim Harbaugh, in his ninth season as the Michigan coach, took his alma mater to the semifinals in the past two years. He won the title after a rough season in which he received six game suspensions, three for recruiting violations, and one related to a sign-stealing scandal.