Michigan and Washington were two of the oldest teams in college football when they met in the College Football Playoff championship game nine months ago in Houston. Saturday, they will meet again as Big Ten opponents in what might be called the Before and After Bowl. Both head coaches from Michigan’s championship game victory, Jim Harbaugh and Kalen DeBoer, are gone to other jobs.
Both starting quarterbacks: gone. Every offensive line starter: gone. Defensive coordinators, strength coaches, support staffers: gone, gone and gone.
Advertisement At this point in the comparison, Washington coach Jedd Fisch has a few points of clarification to make. Yes, Fisch and Michigan coach Sherrone Moore have navigated some of the same challenges since taking over for DeBoer and Harbaugh. Yes, both programs lost coaches, NFL Draft picks and multiyear starters.
But no, these two rebuilds are not the same. “I think their situation is very different,” Fisch said. “Sherrone was on the staff for six years.
Everybody remained on the team that was recruited to be on that team. They kept half of their coaching staff. There’s been a lot of, let’s call it, continuity.
” If life after the national championship game has felt disorienting for Michigan, imagine how it feels for Washington. The Huskies played 71 offensive snaps in the CFP championship game, which adds up to 781 when multiplied by 11 players. Of those 781 snaps, four came from players currently on the roster: three from wide re.
