'He's done everything for us': Kalel Mullings' redemptive arc to become Michigan's RB1

In a cavernous and crestfallen Michigan locker room, amid the stunned silence of a dream season gone unexpectedly and unfathomably awry, an unlikely protagonist waited for the inquest he knew was coming. Inch by inch, reporters tiptoed closer and closer to running back Kalel Mullings, a converted linebacker whose goal-line fumble in the second quarter had swung momentum even further toward the emboldened underdogs from Texas Christian. The media members danced around the ball security-shaped elephant in the room with questions about the stunning nature of the Wolverines' second consecutive loss in the College Football Playoff semifinals and about Mullings' move to tailback following a season-ending knee injury to starter Blake Corum.

But the unavoidable questions could only be avoided for so long. And soon enough, the painful subject was delicately broached: What happened on the botched handoff between quarterback J.J. McCarthy and Mullings, who was aligned as a fullback in a three-point stance and then lost the ball in a pile of bodies when Michigan faced first-and-goal from the 1-yard line, a double-figure deficit already showing on the State Farm Stadium scoreboard?

"I just went to take the handoff like usual," Mullings said. "I didn't really get it too cleanly. I kinda went to put it away and fall forward for that half yard, really. And then it just slipped, obviously. And then it took me like — I didn't even process that the ball had — it was so fast that, like, I didn't even process that the ball was on the ground. By the time I went to go try and get it, they're D1 football players, too. If the football is on the ground, they're gonna hop on that."

And sure enough, they did. The Horned Frogs recovered Mullings'