MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Even when it ended, Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh felt like things were just beginning.
Minutes removed from his team’s lopsided loss to Georgia in the College Football Playoff semifinals, Harbaugh invoked a phrase he coined following the win over Ohio State to conclude the regular season. That was when Harbaugh declared it “feels like the beginning” for the Wolverines, who defeated the Buckeyes for the first time since 2011 and just the second time since 2003. His team would roll into Indianapolis and capture Harbaugh’s first Big Ten Championship and etch the 2021 campaign into U-M history books regardless of what happened in the Orange Bowl.