The stage is set. Michigan football will play in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, a College Football Playoff semifinal, against TCU.
While some Wolverines had paid attention to the Horned Frogs recently, the same can’t quite be said for TCU head coach Sonny Dykes, who saw a little of the Big Ten Championship, but hasn’t really seen much out of the maize and blue this year.
Dykes met with the media via Zoom on Sunday afternoon, and while he tried to get a peek at the Wolverines, he came away with only a handful of takeaways.
“You know, honestly, I haven’t had a chance to look at much of Michigan so far,” Dykes said. “Watched them a little bit last night. I was on kid duty, quite frankly, taking care of some of my kids and my daughters and my 6-year-old son and trying to help my wife, Kate, get them to bed and things last night. So I didn’t get a chance to see a lot of them.
“The little bit I saw, looked like a very physical football team. I think that certainly at the end of the game, they were very physically imposing last night against Purdue. Saw the quarterback (J.J. McCarthy) make a ton of plays, improvised outside the pocket. Was really impressed with the things that he can do, what kind of athlete he was, how accurate he was moving outside of the pocket. And they just looked like a very, very good football team.
“Defensively, they were what you would expect. Big up front, physical. Saw the corner, No. 2 (Will Johnson), had a couple of interceptions. Really looked like he was a very productive player last night. So it was a big win for Michigan last night against a good Purdue team.
“They look like a very talented football team. As I said, we haven’t had a chance to dive in deep yet and look at them. But just on the outside looking in, it looked like a heck of a team.”
See the 2022 Big Ten Championship game program here
Dykes had a little in-conference overlap with Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh some years back. Harbaugh was at Stanford at the same time Dykes was the offensive coordinator at Pac-12 Conference foe Arizona.
From what he can tell now, Harbaugh’s Michigan is quite similar to what he had at the Cardinal.
“I remember they were really good. They had some really good players, Andrew Luck and some guys that were really, really good football players,” Dykes said. “They had a really physical football team. I think that’s the one trademark of Jim Harbaugh teams. Certainly Stanford, and I would assume Michigan as well, they are going to be tough, physical, hard-nosed football teams. I think that’s Jim’s mentality. And I think that’s why he’s been so successful.
“His teams always play hard. They are going to be well-coached, they’re going to be physical, and they are going to be competitive and play tough. And those are all key ingredients to having a good football team.
“I don’t know Jim that well. I have been around him a number of occasions, but look forward to getting to know him better through the process and have a lot of respect for him as a coach and what he’s done at Michigan.”
Michigan football and TCU will kick off on Dec. 31 at 4 p.m. EST in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl. It will be the first-ever meeting between the Wolverines and Horned Frogs.
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