The Victors: Wolverines dominate in face of chaos for national title - ESPN

HOUSTON — The barrier between very good and truly great has always appeared thin. It is not. The distance that separates one's chances to make their dreams come true can feel like inches, and sometimes, yes, that is the accurate measurement. A fingertip. A splinter of a second on a game clock. A single point on the scoreboard. But when you are forced to keep adding up those fractions and decimal points and missed-it-by-that-much chances year after year, results that were tiny and conciliatory pile up to create mountains of cruelty.

That has been the maize and blue Sisyphus-cursed life of the Michigan Wolverines. Check that, had been.

On Monday night in Houston, when the NRG Stadium clock hit zeroes on a CFP National Championship win over the Washington Huskies — a game that was much tighter than the 34-13 score would indicate — all of that pain seemed swept away with each stroke of the dozens of Michigan players who laid down on the field to make confetti snow angels.

«That's what a Michigan Man does,» coach Jim Harbaugh said after the completion of his team's 15-0 season, six wins earned as he was forced to sit at home for a pair of three-game suspensions. «He makes it right.»

The list of gridiron accomplishments in Ann Arbor is staggering by any measure. The most wins of any team in the 154-year history of college football, the 1,004th coming on Monday night. Second-most weeks spent in the AP Top 25. Third all time with 88 consensus All-Americans. Third all time with 45 conference championships. And third all time now among current FBS schools with 10 national championships.

Yet it all has seemingly come with an asterisk. Always so close to glory, but always just a few yards short. Fifty-two bowl appearances, but 29