Nick Saban Explains How Michigan Football Stopped Final Play

PASADENA — Yesterday, Michigan football downed Alabama football in overtime, winning the Rose Bowl Game and punching their ticket to the national championship game against Washington in Houston, TX. After the game, Bama head coach Nick Saban explained how the Wolverines kept Jalen Milroe from tying the game from the 3-yard line. From well-timed timeouts to explosive defensive production against the Tide’s massive offensive line, here’s how it all went down on Monday night.

Nick Saban explains how Michigan football won the game, stopping Jalen Milroe at the goal line

The Wolverines started overtime hot with a 17-yard touchdown from Blake Corum. Alabama needed a touchdown to keep the game alive, and the Wolverines held strong to set up fourth and goal. Here’s how Alabama football coach Nick Saban described the final play of the game which resulted in quarterback Jalen Milroe getting swarmed at the line of scrimmage.

“We called three plays,” Nick Saban said after losing to Michigan football in the Rose Bowl. “One they called time-out, one we called time-out, and the last one that didn’t work. The fact that it didn’t work made it a really bad call. You know what I mean? But we called time-out because we had a bad look. We had a good look on the first one. They must have known it. Tommy (Rees) just felt like the best thing that we could do was have a quarterback run, which was kind of our two-point play, one of our two-point plays for this game.

“The ball was on the 3-yard line, which is just like a two-point play, but we didn’t get it blocked so it didn’t work,” Saban continued. “We didn’t execute it very well and it didn’t work. They pressured and we thought they would pressure, but we thought we could gap them and block them and make it work, and it didn’t.”

Below is our view of the game’s final play, via the Blue by Ninety Twitter/X account.

The moment #Michigan won the Rose Bowl. #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/DGWNAXsFfb

— Blue By 90 (@bluebyninety) January 2, 2024

Michigan won by a final score of 27-20 and will head to Houston next week to face the Washington Huskies in the College Football Playoff National Championship.

Thank you for reading Blue by Ninety. For more Michigan Athletics and Big Ten content from Blue by Ninety, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also subscribe to our YouTube Channel. For feedback, questions, concerns, or to apply for a writing position, please email our Publisher at Cj@BluebyNinety.com. Also, be sure to check out our shop and our podcast, which is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all other streaming platforms. It is because of your support that we have become one of the fastest-growing and most influential Michigan media outlets there is!