A Letter of Love and Thanks: to you, to us, to Michigan.

Last year after the TCU loss, I said that a Michigan National Championship was the first thing I ever wanted. It is true. I am not old enough to remember 1997. Michigan greatness and 1997 was a memory for my parents' generation. Something I heard about when I was young. It wasn't something that existed in the present. I remember as a kid flipping through the 1997 commemorative book at home, dreaming of one day seeing a season like that. I remember losing to Ohio State in the 2006 Game of the Century, then getting slaughtered by USC. I remember crying my eyes out after the App State game, my first real taste of an upset. I remember losing to Toledo. I also grew up in the South. My family left Ann Arbor when I was young. Talking football in the cafeteria at school for me was hearing about how great the SEC was for my entire childhood. Some people wanted to just beat Ohio State. While I certainly wanted that, as a kid what I wanted more than anything was to see Michigan at the top of the entire country. I am sure at some point along the way I wanted an ice cream cone, but a Michigan national title was the first big desire.

I grew to believe this was not possible. After years of heartbreak and pain and missed opportunities, as an adult, I developed a bit of a numb acceptance that this was not a place Michigan could reach. Losing to Ohio State in 2018 and 2019, followed by the 2020 disaster, I began to believe that Michigan was not structurally capable of getting to the place I had always dreamed of. I was wrong.

This team means more to me than I can say. I am so thankful to have Michigan football in my life. I am thankful for JJ McCarthy, Donovan Edwards, Mason Graham, Will Johnson, and Kris Jenkins. I am thankful for Zak Zinter, for Blake Corum, for Mike Sainristil. I am thankful for Jim Harbaugh, for coming home. For Jesse Minter. For Sherrone Moore. For countless others. I am thankful for Delta Airlines, who had a seat available on a last-second flight to Detroit to watch the 2021 Washington game, when little did I know I would be watching the start of an epic trilogy. I am thankful for the snowfall as Ohio State was finally vanquished. I am thankful for the phone call from my brother after Donovan Edwards took over Columbus, Ohio. I am thankful for the new friends I have made from watching Team 144. For the members of my family that I have grown closer to by watching this team each and every Saturday. I am thankful for anonymous message board posters who have helped carry me through long days and nervous nights, always there with humor and insight. I am thankful for the unwavering and unmatched blog writers and beat writers and reporters, who keep me connected to the team I love. I am thankful for the Big House. I am thankful to my future wife, whose hand I held as Zak lay on the turf, and I am thankful for the embrace of friends as Blake broke to the left and made the pylon. I am thankful for the roar of that crowd as Rod Moore picked the ball off and finished the three-peat. I am thankful to God, or fate, or luck, or whatever the hell you believe in, for keeping that ball spiraling as Roman Wilson ascended the Pasadena sky. I am thankful to Blake Corum, for giving life and limb for Michigan, for running one for the ages to take down the SEC's best in overtime. I am thankful to the people who held me as I wept as Mike Sainristil returned a fourth-quarter interception and sealed a National Championship.

I am sure in the future I will find a way to complain. About officiating, or the lack of first down play action, or unfortunate dumb luck that goes against Michigan. But I will never again believe something is impossible. Today, I am still as in love with Michigan Football as I was at four years old, holding my parents' hands as I walked into Michigan Stadium for the first time.

I am thankful to Mom and Dad most of all, because in this life, they gave me the gift of loving Michigan.

Go Blue.