It wasn’t sweet music to the ears of many of the 72,220 fans filling Houston’s NRG Stadium for college football’s national championship game, but it was a tune frequently played to the delight of all those wearing maze & blue.
“Hail to the victors valiant. Hail to the conqu’ring heroes. Hail, hail to Michigan, the champions of the west,” was the blaring refrain played all too many times for Washington Huskies fans as the Wolverines rolled to a 34-13 victory to claim their 12th national championship and first since 1997 in becoming the sixth team to win the title with a perfect 15-0 record.
Current geography aside, Michigan was in the west of college football back in 1898 when Louis Elbol, a UM music student, put pen to paper in writing The Victors to celebrate the team’s 12-11 championship victory over Chicago University. A year later, John Phillips Sousa’s band first played the song to an appreciative crowd in Ann Arbor.
Confetti rained down upon embattled coach Jim Harbaugh’s post-game media interview, who, due to two three-game suspensions during the regular season, could only coach in nine of his team’s games. In the end, it mattered little to Harbaugh or the Michigan faithful, who now stand alone as the national champions, boasting an all-time best of 1,004 college football victories. Alabama, the team they defeated in the national semi-final, is second on the list with 965 wins, and Big Ten rival Ohio State is third with 964.
Even in his biggest moment of collegiate glory, speculation swirled relative to Harbaugh’s coaching future. The victory netted him a $3-million-dollar bonus to go alongside his annual salary of $7.05 million. NFL teams have shown interest in bringing him back to the professional game, which would certainly sweeten his bank account. His current college take is more than several NFL coaches are making. Cleveland’s Kevin Stefanski is the league’s lowest-paid coach, making $3.5 million. The Cowboys Mike McCarthy is next in line at $4 million. The Patriots Bill Belichick (if he’s still the coach by the time this column is read) tops the pay list at $20 million a year.
Dollars aside, Michigan’s national championship win restored some glory to the Big Ten that compiled a 4-4 bowl record without the Wolverines triumphs. Penn State, along with Big Ten’s supposed higher regarded teams Ohio, State, Iowa, and Wisconsin, all lost their bowl games. Conversely, Northwestern, Rutgers, Maryland, and Minnesota came out on top.
Should he take his coaching talent to the NFL, Harbaugh’s personality may find itself clashing with other NFL headmen who definitely take things personally at times.
The day before Michigan’s ultimate victory, the NFL ended its regular season complete with coaching dismissals and some challenging rhetoric between the Atlanta Falcons’ Arthur Smith (since fired) and New Orleans Saints’ coach Dennis Allen.
With New Orleans up 41-17 in the game’s final minute with the ball at the Falcons’ 1-yard line, Allen intended to knell and run out the clock. Backup quarterback Jameis Winston was sent in to take the final snap in victory formation, but instead, the team ran up the middle for a meaningless touchdown in a 48-17 win.
There is no mercy rule in the NFL, but there are unspoken rules of ‘sportsmanship’ that drew Smith’s ire as he confronted Allen.
Allen opened his post-game news conference by apologizing to Smith and the Falcons. He said the players made their own call, and the coaches never intended to try to score. “That’s not who we are; that’s not how we operate. We should’ve taken a knee.”
“They can do whatever they want; there’s no rules against it,” Smith said hours before his firing. “We didn’t stop them in the second half. It is what it is. Hats off to them. They kicked our you-know-what in the second half, made us pay, took advantage of turnovers. That’s their prerogative. It is also my prerogative to tell them how I feel, whether people like it or not.”
Despite Allen’s apology, in the heat of an NFL game after getting destroyed, Smith’s frustrations can be understood.
What may take a lot more understanding are the frustrations expressed by NFL fans, especially those of the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins, over last week’s exclusive airing of their teams’ game on Peacock.
The game, which aired exclusively on Peacock last Saturday night, is part of a deal between the NFL and NBCUniversal’s streaming service, for which Peacock paid $110 million. It was the first time an NFL post-season game contest was aired mainly on a streaming service. NBC stations in Kansas City and Miami carried the game to those local markets, but the rest of the country had to invest in Peacock to view the game.
While NFL fans across the country expressed their displeasure, sports TV deals are a business where sports fans are often held, hostage. More than likely, those fans will end up paying the ransom for more TV games in the future.
