Postgame Notes: #1 Michigan 34, #2 Washington 13
1/8/2024 11:34:00 PM | Football
• The Wolverines are 2023 CFP national champions. It is the 12th national title in program history and the first since the end of the 1997 season.
• After a 0-2 mark in the College Football Playoffs in 2021 and 2022, the Wolverines are now 2-2 in the postseason event. The CFP expands to include 12 teams, as opposed to four, at the end of the 2024 regular season.
• U-M ends the season with a perfect 15-0 record. Clemson (2018), LSU (2019), and Georgia (2022) are the only other teams in college football history to achieve a single-season record of 15 wins without a loss. It is the winningest season in Michigan history. U-M's 28 wins over the past two seasons (2022-23) and 40 wins over the past three seasons (2021-22-23) are program records over two- and three-year stretches.
• Michigan is the second Big Ten team to win a national championship in the CFP era (Ohio State, 2014).
• Michigan is the first national championship team to lead at halftime in every one of its games since the 2001 University of Miami squad.
• Donovan Edwards' first-quarter rushing touchdown (41 yards) broke open the scoring. It was Edwards' longest run of the season and the second-longest touchdown run in the history of the College Football Playoff National Title Game (Derrick Henry, 50 yards vs. Clemson, Jan. 11, 2016), until it was pushed down to third all-time by Edwards' next run.
• On the very next offensive possession, Edwards burst through for a 46-yard score. That marked the new second-longest touchdown run in CFP title game history, and Edwards' new longest run of the season. His previous long rush during the 2023 season was 22 yards.
• Edwards is the first player in CFP National Title Game history to run for two touchdowns of 40-plus yards.
• Michigan's offense was explosive in the first half, with four plays of 35-plus yards. Three run plays of 40-plus yards, including a 59-yard run from Blake Corum (his season long), helped produce 174 total rush yards in the first quarter, a season-best for the Wolverines. U-M's 209 first-half rush yards were also a single-half season-best.
• Michigan is the first team in CFP history to record three 40-plus yard rushes in one half of a CFP game. Georgia (2018 Rose Bowl Semifinal vs. Oklahoma) is the only other team with three 40-plus yard rushes in a CFP game.
• In the fourth quarter, Corum finished off a five-play, 71-yard-drive with a 12-yard touchdown run. It was Corum's 26th touchdown on the season, 57th in his career, and capped off a wire-to-wire season-long streak of Corum recording a rushing touchdown in a game.
• Both Corum and Edwards eclipsed 100-yards rushing. It was the first time this season that multiple U-M ball carriers cracked the 100-yard mark (last: 2022 at Rutgers). It was the first time in CFP Title Game history that a team produced two 100-yard rushers in the game.
• It is the third time in the last two seasons that both Corum and Edwards went over 100 yards rushing in the same game (2022 vs. Penn State, at Rutgers).
• Both Corum and Edwards also recorded two rushing touchdowns in the game. It was the first time since September 18, 2021, that multiple U-M ball carriers recorded multiple rushing touchdowns, and the second time in CFP Title Game history that a team produced the feat (2022 Georgia).
• Corum finished his U-M career with 61 total touchdowns and 58 rushing touchdowns, both program records. His 27 rushing touchdowns this season mark a single-season program record.
• Corum ends the year with 1,245 rushing yards. He is the first Wolverine with back-to-back 1,000-yard rushing seasons since Denard Robinson in 2010 (1,702), 2011 (1,176), and 2012 (1,266). The last back to accomplish the feat before Corum was Mike Hart in 2006 (1,563) and 2007 (1,361).
• Corum ends his career with 3,737 rushing yards, good for seventh all-time after he passed Chris Perry during the national title game.
• He scored 28 touchdowns overall this season, the most by any player in any era of Michigan Football history.
• Corum also scored 356 career points, passing his former teammate Jake Moody's career record (355) by one. He added to his single-season scoring record, finishing with 168 points in 2023.
• Quarterback J.J. McCarthy improves to 27-1 as a starter for a winning percentage of 96.4, the best mark by any quarterback (minimum 20 starts) since at least 1971, when Toledo's Chuck Ealey ended his career with a 35-0 record as a starter. Oklahoma's Jimmy Harris (25-0) is the only other FBS quarterback with at least 20 starts and no losses.
• McCarthy finishes the season with 2,991 pass yards, fourth for a single season all-time at Michigan and just nine yards shy of becoming the program's fourth 3,000-yard passer for a single year. He currently ranks sixth with 6,226 passing yards.
• The offense finished with 304 total rushing yards, both a season-high for the Wolverines and a CFP Title Game high. It was U-M's fourth time with over 200-plus team rushing yards rushing this season.
• The 10 points Washington scored in the first half marked its second-lowest scoring half of the season. In the second half, U-M forced the tied-fewest points by the Huskies in any half this year (three), matching UW's output in first half against Arizona State. UW entered the game averaging 37.6 points per game, 10th-most in the nation.
• The U-M defense finished the year averaging 10.4 points per game allowed, the fewest by a Big Ten team since U-M's last national title-winning team in 1997 (9.5 ppg). All 15 opponents were held under 25 points per game, making U-M the first FBS team to hold 15 different opponents under that threshold in a single season since the 1903 Minnesota team that went 14-0-1 with a 6-6 tie to Michigan.
• On the first scrimmage play of the second half, Will Johnson intercepted Washington quarterback Michael Penix. It was Johnson's fourth pick of the year.
• In the fourth quarter, Mike Sainristil recorded his team-leading sixth interception of the season, returning it for a season-long 81 yards. It was the longest interception return in CFP Title game history, and the second longest in CFP history (86 yards, Clemson, 2016 Fiesta Bowl).
• Sainristil's 81 interception return yards bring him to 232 for the season, setting a new single-season record at U-M (previous: Tom Curtis, 182, 1968). He ranks second all-time with 240 career return yards (Curtis, 431). It was the longest interception return in National Championship Game history (CFP era) and the second-longest of any interception return in any CFP game (Van Smith, Clemson vs. Ohio State, 2016 - 86 yards).
• The Huskies' season high in punts was six (against Washington State). In the CFP Title Game, the Wolverines forced five.
