SportsMonday: Michigan is a football school. Don’t forget it.

About a month ago, I was sitting at Good Time Charley’s watching the Michigan men’s basketball team get thrashed by Rutgers in the Big Ten Tournament, the clock ticking down mercifully to end their NCAA Tournament hopes.

Before the ‘double zeroes’ even flashed across the screen, in a mix of jest and self-consolation, someone at my table chimed in:

“It doesn’t matter, we’re a hockey school anyway.” 

A “hockey school.”

That phrase — some sport with “school” tacked on the end — has cracked me up since Kentucky’s John Calipari and Mark Stoops got in a petty debate over the Wildcats’ athletic identity last year. 

In most scenarios, it seems equally as arbitrary as it is obvious. Kentucky is a basketball school (get over it, Mark), Alabama is football, Duke is basketball, Georgia is football and Michigan State is basketball.

See? Easy.

And regardless of whether the Crimson Tide have an up year in basketball or the Spartans have a down year under Tom Izzo, the label remains the same.

So, while in my friends’ case they were simply signaling their shift in focus to the then-on-a-roll Michigan hockey team and away from the anemic state of both Wolverine basketball programs, they weren’t correct in their assertion.

Michigan is not a “hockey school.” Nor is it a basketball school.

Say it with me:

It’s a football school.

And I don’t think it’s ever been more clear. No, the Wolverines haven’t won a national championship in over 25 years. And while they’re built to win a title now, they still might not in the next few years either (but that feels like a column for a different day). Yet that’s not what makes it so painstakingly clear to me that this is a football school.

Sure, the history helps, but when most living people have only witnessed one Michigan national championship and not a single current undergraduate student was alive the last time the Wolverines lifted the banner, that history loses its oomph. 

What makes it clear is that Michigan football is back.

Because it’s not just back from a down year or two — it’s back from the grave.

In my 22 years of life, the Wolverines have only beaten Ohio State four times, two of which came in the last two years. They’re also 11-11 against their second biggest rival, Michigan State, in the same time period. Not to mention a measly four wins in bowl games in my lifetime. A 15-29 record against its rivals and just four postseason wins in 22 years? That’s not “Michigan football” — that’s not the sign of a strong football program.

From the end of the Lloyd Carr era, to Rich Rod, to Brady Hoke, the Wolverines have been in the mud. Even the beginning of Jim Harbaugh’s tenure ushered in mixed feelings. Michigan might technically have been winning more, but not the important games. 

But after two consecutive wins over Ohio State, two consecutive Big Ten Championships and two consecutive College Football Playoff berths — not to mention a 2024 recruiting class currently ranked No. 2 while still picking up steam — the Wolverines have been resurrected.

It shows when Heisman-caliber and draft-eligible players like running back Blake Corum come back. It shows when five-star quarterback Jadyn Davis committed to Michigan and vowed to bring more players with him, just three years after star quarterback J.J. McCarthy did the same. And it shows when the Wolverines have set their sights on winning it all, from the coach down to the players.

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to win it all,” Corum said on the “In the Trenches” podcast Jan. 9. “I hope Team 144 is ready. I’m going to make sure they’re ready.” 

Before him, McCarthy’s “job’s not finished” statements after beating the Buckeyes and winning the Big Ten Championship implied it.

Before him, Harbaugh put it simply:

“We could win college football’s greatest trophy,” Harbaugh said in March of 2022. “We could win the national championship.”

The Michigan football program is not just alive again — its heart is beating, its stomach is hungry and its eyes are filled with fire. Just a few years ago, these Wolverines were nowhere to be seen, and they haven’t been seen for a long, long time.

And this Lazarushian story arc is what solidifies Michigan as a football school. Because that’s what “football school” or “basketball school” means.

It means a program that can’t truly die, no matter how lifeless it might look.

That’s Michigan football.

On any given year, the basketball teams, the ice hockey team, the gymnastics teams, the baseball team, the softball team or any other team that dons the maize and blue might be better than the football team in their respective sport. That doesn’t change the label.

That success, even when sustained, remains temporary and fragile. The elite level could slip, and any one of those programs could fall off completely.

But Michigan football can’t be felled. 

Michigan is, Michigan was, and Michigan always will be:

A football school.