Michigan football draws No. 2 playoff seed, TCU in Fiesta Bowl

INDIANAPOLIS — For a second straight year, Michigan has earned a berth in the College Football Playoff as the No. 2 seed.

Jim Harbaugh’s Wolverines, fresh off another Big Ten championship, will play No. 3 Texas Christian in the Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31 in Glendale, Ariz., it was unveiled Sunday.

No. 1 Georgia, the defending national champions, will play No. 4 Ohio State on Dec. 31 in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.

Michigan is 13-0 for the first time in school history after a 43-22 victory over Purdue on Saturday night, completing a perfect road through the Big Ten.

But now better competition awaits, and it first comes in the form of TCU, a Big-12 team that went 12-1 and lost its conference championship game to Kansas State, 31-28, in overtime.

More: ‘Job’s not finished.’ After Big Ten win, U-M football eyes playoff run

This will be the first-ever meeting between the two programs, both successful in their own regard. Michigan is in Year 8 under Jim Harbaugh, who has charged a resurgence in Ann Arbor the last two years following a disappointing 2020 season.

The Horned Frogs are led by Sonny Dykes, who is in his first season as head coach. He came to TCU from SMU, where he posted four winning seasons but never won an American Athletic Conference championship.

TCU has regular-season victories over Oklahoma, Kansas, Oklahoma State and Kansas State this year. Led by quarterback Max Duggan, a Hesiman Trophy contender, the Horned Frogs boast a top-10 scoring offense by averaging 40.3 points per game.

Michigan currently sits No. 7 in the country in scoring, with a top-5 defense.

This will mark Michigan’s first Fiesta Bowl appearance since 1986, when the Wolverines beat Nebraska, 27-23.