2021 Big Ten Football Championship Game
The 2021 Big Ten Football Championship Game was a college football game played on December 4, 2021, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. It was the 11th edition of the Big Ten Football Championship Game and determined the champion of the Big Ten Conference for the 2021 season. The game began at 8:19 p.m. EST and aired on Fox. The game featured the No. 2 [2021 Michigan Wolverines football|Michigan Wolverines football team|Michigan Wolverines], the East Division champions, and the No. 13 [2021 2021 Iowa Hawkeyes football team|Iowa Hawkeyes football team|Iowa Hawkeyes], the West Division champions. The game was officially known as the Big Ten Championship Game presented by Discover, owing to its sponsorship by the credit card company.
Teams
The 2021 Big Ten Championship Game featured the Michigan Wolverines, champions of the East Division, and the Iowa Hawkeyes, champions of the West Division. This was the teams' 62nd all-time meeting, with Michigan entering the game leading the series 42–15–4. The teams first met in 1900 and have met frequently since the early 1950s as Big Ten Conference opponents. They last met in 2019, a game which resulted in a 10–3 Michigan win. Further, this was the first time that Michigan and Iowa met in the postseason.In its eleventh year of existence, this year marked Michigan's first-ever appearance in the Big Ten Championship Game. Iowa made its second appearance after debuting in 2015 in a loss to the Michigan State Spartans. Michigan entered the game seeking its 43rd all-time conference championship, while Iowa entered seeking its 12th; each team's last title came in 2004, when the Wolverines and Hawkeyes shared the conference crown. This game also marked the first time since 2016 that the East Division was not represented by Ohio State.
Michigan Wolverines
Seventh-year head coach Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines began their 2021 season with a series of four straight home games at Michigan Stadium. The first, against Western Michigan, saw the Wolverines dominate the Broncos by five touchdowns, before defeating Washington in a game that drew considerably less hype after the Huskies' upset loss to Montana the week prior. The Wolverines earned a spot at No. 25 in the AP Poll entering their third game, a matchup with Northern Illinois, which they won handily. Michigan then claimed a close decision against Rutgers on homecoming, improving the Wolverines to 4–0 and placing them into the top 15. Entering October, the Wolverines faced their first road conference games; they first faced [2021 2021 Wisconsin Badgers football team|Wisconsin Badgers football team|Wisconsin], whom they defeated by three touchdowns, and then took down Nebraska, though only by three points, thanks to a Jake Moody field goal with under two minutes remaining. This set up the Wolverines for one of the most anticipated matchups of the season so far, a rivalry faceoff between No. 6 Michigan and No. 8 Michigan State, marking the first time since 1964 that the teams had met while each in the top ten. After a back-and-forth game, the Spartans prevailed with a four-point win, handing Michigan its first loss of the season. The Wolverines were able to bounce back, as they began November with a win over Indiana, and followed it up with a road win in State College against the Penn State Nittany Lions. In its final road game, Michigan routed [2021 2021 Maryland Terrapins football team|Maryland Terrapins football team|Maryland], winning by 41 points. After this win the Wolverines were ranked fifth in the College Football Playoff poll entering their home finale against archrivals No. 2 [2021 Ohio State Buckeyes football|Ohio State Buckeyes football team|Ohio State]. For the first time ever under Harbaugh, and the first time since 2011, the Wolverines defeated the Buckeyes and, with the victory, clinched its spot in the championship game with a 8–1 conference record and a head-to-head tiebreaker against Ohio State. As a result of the win, Michigan rose to No. 2 in the College Football Playoff poll entering the Big Ten Championship, behind only No. 1 Georgia.On December 2, Michigan announced that it would wear a special jersey patch to honor the victims of the 2021 Oxford High School shooting that had taken place in Oxford Township, Michigan on November 30, 2021.