This is an opinion column.

They’re done talking.

For nearly a month, debates ranged from who belonged in the Rose Bowl semifinal both on the merits and the morality.

That’s over now.

It’s time for football as we put the four-team playoff era to bed with a classic matchup in a postcard setting.

Just one more issue to resolve as the sun sets on the San Gabriel Mountains on Monday evening.

Is Michigan ready?

Seriously, the No. 1 team in the nation. And while that could sound blatantly disrespectful given the fact they’re … the No. 1 team in the nation, it’s valid.

Here’s why.

First, they’re 1-6 in bowl games under Jim Harbaugh. Alabama’s Nick Saban is 11-3 in postseason games since Harbaugh arrived as his alma mater’s savior. All three losses came in CFP championship games. Harbaugh’s lone postseason win at Michigan came at the Citrus Bowl in Year 1.

All that’s practically trivia but the Wolverines are 0-2 in playoff semifinals the past two seasons. It didn’t have a prayer against Georgia two years ago, clearly in another class despite entering with a 12-1 record and a Big Ten title.

Then a year ago, TCU raced to a 34-16 lead and eventually a 51-45 win in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal.

The Horned Frogs proved their value a week later when Georgia stuffed them in a SoFi Stadium locker with a 65-7 title-game undressing.

Michigan wasn’t ready the last two times they were here. Fool me twice?

But this is more about the 2023 season on the first day of 2024.

Michigan’s been the monster of the Midwest, devouring the Big Ten with assembly-line precision. Unbeaten and barely tested is great and the only real objective with which any team should enter a season.

Of course there’s a reason for that, at least partially. Michigan wasn’t tested until November because they played nothing but tin cans the first two months.

Even when facing its first ranked opponent, No. 9 Penn State brought just enough offense to get its coordinator fired a day after losing 24-15 to Michigan.

No. 2 Ohio State was clearly the biggest challenge, one that Michigan passed with a 30-24 home win before heading to the Big Ten title game. There it beat Iowa, 26-0. Consider Big Ten West champ Iowa’s offense averaged the lowest yardage output (239.2 yards per game) of any Power 5 offense since Wake Forest (216.3) in 2014, and the league’s balance comes into serious question.

Alabama, earlier that day, outslugged then-No. 1 and two-time defending national champion Georgia in a practical road game.

Those two games aren’t the same.

Point is Michigan hasn’t had to sweat. Alabama’s done nothing but sweat all season.

Is Michigan gonna be ready if things are tight entering the fourth quarter? It hasn’t trailed a single second of a game after halftime this year.

We could get into the whole discrepancy in athleticism between the two. Michigan’s clearly sick of hearing about SEC speed instead of the Big Ten’s.

“Yeah, I do, because I mean, I really don’t buy into that little SEC bias thing,” Michigan safety Rod Moore said Wednesday. “It’s just football at the end of the day. Maybe they are faster. Maybe they are not. The film shows it. We’ll see. We’ll see on Monday.”

Indeed.

And that’s a lot to prove, putting Michigan and Alabama in uniquely different roles Monday night. This is a Crimson Tide program that’s accustomed to carrying the weight of six recent national title trophies and the crushing pressure of dynasty maintenance.

This time, they’re the party crashers — written off early when taking a 10-point home loss to Texas before becoming the most unlikely underdog story.

Michigan, meanwhile, is lugging that unbeaten and untested albatross along with a few others. They’re fighting for their possibly allegedly tainted dignity that comes with a twice-suspended head coach and still-open investigations.

Flat out: They’ve been credibly accused of cheating. They have to operate knowing even the CFP best-case scenario will be viewed as tainted.

Bonus points for doing the impossible. Michigan managed to make Alabama the least hateable option for the casual viewer tuning in from outside of these two bubbles.

Michigan will have to overcome its recent CFP semifinal struggles against an Alabama program that’s 6-1 in such games. They’ll be facing the best team it’ll see all season with little experience in a meat grinder.

They’re not as athletic as Alabama and will have all the pressure.

Ready or not, here they come.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.