We won. That's it. That's all I got.

Yeah, I think he's got a bright future. Like I said, he reminds me so much of Blake (Corum). The way he approaches his business, and what he does off the field to take care of his body, and you obviously saw how he runs. He's a physical runner, he can make people miss, he can run you over, he obviously has that burst. And all the credit in the world to Alabama and the way they play defense – physical style of defense — but I thought our guys really bowed up and played physical ball. But Jordan Marshall's gonna be a special back. He's got a lot of ability, but he works really hard, so I think that's the piece that really makes him different.

It was outstanding. You talk about one of the most explosive people in college football players in Jalen Milroe. He can hurt you with his legs, he can hurt you with his arm, and I thought they did a really good job of funneling him in the pocket and making it uncomfortable for him, hitting him. I thought our d-line just did an outstanding job. Coach Espo, Coach Wilkins, Coach C., Coach Lewis, all those guys that work with the d-line, it was unbelievable to watch them. And credit to the players. You don't have Mason Graham, you don't have Kenneth Grant, and people think there's this big fall off. No. Those are two incredible players, but our guys really take a lot of pride in being physical and we wanted to do that all training and all the ball camp, and we really did. Tried to tune up the physicality, make sure we're fundamentally sound and I thought those guys did a really good job.

Yeah, I mean, we just want to finish. Obviously you want to win every game, and we didn't do that, so it took a lot of pride. We played Indiana, then we had a bye week and really honed in on the recommitment on things we needed to get better at, and it was really the fundamentals, the little pieces. Doing those things really, really well and those usually end up in those results. So, we refocused, we retooled and we're really proud of our staff and our players.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just so happy we got those wins. It was exciting to get those wins, to work to get those wins, and yeah, we want to be physical on defense and on offense, but we want to be explosive on offense. Those are things we got to work on in the offseason to make sure that we're more explosive, especially in the passing game. We had a great throw to Fred by Davis that was a great ball in that back corner of the end zone, so that was awesome to see, but we want to be more explosive on offense, which we're gonna work to do that. But our defense played lights out. To end the year, Northwestern, hold them to six, Ohio, hold them to 10, these guys, 13, you talk about, especially Ohio, these explosive offenses that can put up points on the scoreboard. I don't know what Ohio their average game, I think it's in the 40s, and these guys were in the high 30s, so our defense played incredible these last three games, and big shoutout to coach Wink.

Yeah, we talked about not losses, lessons. We had a lot of lessons throughout the year, and just learn from them. So we learned the things that we needed to learn to ultimately end up on the plus side, and we did that in these last few games, and finishing on a strong note was huge for us. Building great momentum into the offseason. We feel like we've got a bright future the way we're recruiting, the guys we're bringing in, the guys we're keeping, to make sure this Michigan is the best version of Michigan it can be. And that's all we're worried about. When we get to winter workouts, that's the first cycle we got, we're gonna attack that as much as we can and get better there, and then we're gonna go in the spring, go in the summer, and then we'll go into fall camp and work to what that final piece will look like after fall camp. But we're gonna celebrate this one. We've got a happy flight coming up, so we're gonna celebrate this one.

There was some hard hitting going on on both sides. You could hear the pads popping. Our guys delivering their hits, them delivering the hits, 3-yard runs, those dirty runs. Those aren't bad plays. Those are like body blows. And there's a lot of that on both sides of the ball and physicality, but I thought our guys stepped up the most when they needed to. Our offense took a five-minute drive to get down and get a field goal for Zvada, and our defense holding them in the red zone was huge. So the physicality was there. We knew it would be that type of game, so we were ready for it.

Not sure exactly what the injury is. Lower body injury, but we'll figure that out and get him right. But I was really proud of the way he carried himself and what he did in the game. He took control of the offense, and he was really like that throughout the whole bowl prep. And then Orji came in and handled it well. We just felt like the way the game was going, our defense was holding them up, that we needed to possess the ball. I think we were at 38 minutes in time of possession, so that's what we wanted to do and executed that at a high level.

We'll see. Like I said in my media availability, it's leaning that way, but those are conversations that we'll have to have.

We'll see.

We got a great culture. We got great kids, and no one person wins a game. No one person. No two people. It's a team. It always will be a team sport, and if you look at it any different, then you got issues. We're always gonna look at it as a team sport and be the best team we can be — whoever's out on the field.

Yeah it was crazy. So we had a lot of presentations, our staff did an excellent job presenting things throughout bowl camp and we talked about plus-two, and Coach Morgan talked about being plus-two and I think in that time we were plus-three. And I'm like, 'We're plus-three right now. We got a chance to win this game. We're gonna go win this game now.' The coolest part of that was that it started to rain, and the boys went crazy. It was like a party. I was like, 'What's going on?' They just love that. They love stuff like that. They love adverse environments that people don't expect, but they enjoy that. But it was awesome to watch our guys. We talked about being plus-two, and to get plus-three right there was huge for us.

Yeah. Orji practiced really well throughout the bowl prep, and (we) thought the best chance to win was having him in the game with the threat of his legs, so that's what we did at that time.

When you rush for over 100 yards against Alabama, it's good. But I haven't watched. I saw some of it and felt like in protection, because those are the things that you can see the most without the detail, it did pretty good. As far as the run game, those things we always got to clean up, but it felt like we were getting the movement necessary to get the runs going, and when you have those type of drives when you're leaning on people and you're getting five-minute drives, it means those guys up front are doing a good job. So, felt like they were in a good place.

We don't look at is as trying to make a statement or do anything to prove anybody wrong, but it's all about us getting better and proving ourselves right. We don't care about the opinions of other people and all that. But I think it's shown that throughout the years, last year and this year, that the Big Ten is as competitive a conference in college football as any. So, I don't think there's a question about the Big Ten, SEC. Two great conferences. They're two great conferences. So, I'll leave it at that.

It was awesome. Again, just a lot of shoutouts to those guys, the staff, the players, it was a team effort. And so many guys made plays. I gave game balls to everybody on the team. But the defensive front started it all. And then it just permeated through everybody else. And those guys just all played phenomenal.

When you live in Michigan, you go through every season. So, snow, rain, sleet, it could happen in one day. So, our guys just don't get bothered by anything. We just keep going. It could be rain, it can be snow, it can be sleet, it can be whatever it is, sunshine, it could be super hot. So, our guys don't really care about the weather or the conditions and we just adjust to whatever it is. Just really proud of them.

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