Michigan has chip on its shoulder ahead of CFP: 'I'm sitting here talking like the underdog'
LOS ANGELES — Michigan Wolverines football defensive standouts took the podium for media obligations Thursday morning. Many of the questions revolved around the speed, physicality and strong track record of Rose Bowl opponent Alabama.
But it’s the Wolverines who are No. 1 in the country, having been ranked in the top three all season long, against a team with a loss and some close calls. Despite talking heads picking the Tide, Michigan remains the favorite according to Vegas oddsmakers.
“I’m sitting here talking like the underdog, like we’re not the No. 1 team in the country,” Michigan graduate linebacker Michael Barrett said. “I get it. It’s ‘Bama. It is what it is. Let everybody talk to the game. That’s kind of how I see it.”
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The Wolverines are a self-motivated group, but they’ve used outside factors — sign-stealing accusations, etc. — as motivators throughout the season. However, they’ve kept most of that in-house.
“Monday, January 1st, that’s where we do the talking, with our pads,” senior EDGE Jaylen Harrell said. “That’s all we can really do, not really get into the SEC talk, stuff like that. They’re a great team. We’re a great team. Good on good. Let’s go battle it out.
It’s how it goes when an SEC team — let alone Alabama, which has won six national championships over the last decade and a half — is the opponent. The conference has won 16 of 27 CFP games since the four-team event began in 2014. The Big Ten, meanwhile, has won three. Michigan, despite appearing in the playoff the last two seasons, is 0-2.
“The SEC, their fans … I kind of know how all that goes down there, just football down South,” Barrett, a Georgia native, said. “There’s a lot more, I think, trash talk or just talk in general. I feel like just their — I don’t know. I don’t want to say too much.”
‘It just means more,’ is the SEC slogan … and that pretty much says it all.
Barrett, though, admitted that the confidence outsiders have in Alabama and the questions they have for Michigan come from the SEC’s dominance.
“They’ve had success here over the years, especially the SEC,” the Michigan linebacker said. “They’ve had a lot of success on these stages over the years. The Big Ten hasn’t.
“So, yeah, they’re just going off of what they can see, what they’ve seen in the past, and that’s kind of all we can base this game off of. That’s kind of where everybody is basing this game off of, kind of the past SEC, the past Big Ten, the past of what’s happened. I guess we’re here now to kind of just show what’s going on.”
As Barrett went on to note, however, things are one way until they aren’t. Michigan ‘couldn’t’ beat Ohio State according to the so-called pundits … until it did. Narratives form, and at some point, they die.
“Everybody kept telling me I wasn’t going to be able to beat Ohio State,” Barrett continued. “We never beat them, and here we are. The tide turns at some point.”
Michael Barrett discusses Michigan CFP reaction
Another narrative: The national media and fans on social media ran with the idea that Michigan was ‘scared’ of Alabama due to its reaction after the Tide was selected in the CFP over undefeated Florida State.
We were in the Indianapolis hotel ball room and didn’t realize it went viral until an hour later because, from an up-close perspective, the reaction didn’t move the needle. It was more shock than anything, Barrett said.
“It’s funny that I keep hearing everybody say we’re scared because we got ‘Bama, and it was more like the shock of not seeing an undefeated Power 5 team get picked,” the Michigan linebacker said. “We kind of figured that all the undefeated teams were going to come, and we were just debating on who would slip into that fourth spot.
“So not seeing Florida State in there, it was kind of a shock to everybody. It wasn’t really like fear, never that, of any team. It was just more that shock. We kind of just were already expecting, okay, if they got them at 3, then they’ve got to be Florida State at 4, things like that.
“It’s funny that I keep hearing about it like everybody is y’all were scared. I saw y’all in that video. Okay, it is what it is. Everybody’s going to talk. Everybody’s going to have their opinions. Yeah, it was just more shock of them leaving FSU out of the playoffs.”
Why wouldn’t Michigan hope to play a Florida State team without its starting quarterback, Barrett pondered aloud.
“I feel like that’s kind of what that shock was. Like, oh, dang, we probably could have caught them slipping or whatever, whatever,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re here now. We have who we have, and we’re about to go handle business.”
There are only a few more days separating Michigan from the Rose Bowl.
