chris olave

Welllllllll it's #HateWeek everybody and that means it's time to examine the most fearsome unit in America, the Ohio State offense. As it stands presently, the OSU offense is a mindboggling product that can rip a defense to shreds by having the best talent of any offense in the country, which is perfectly calibrated to fit its scheme. The numbers are staggering: 559.5 yards per game and 47.2 points per game. 7.9 yards per play, a full 0.7 yards better than the next best team. They just hung 56 points on the only team that Michigan has lost to this season, including seven touchdowns on their first seven possessions in that game. Three future first-round NFL receivers. Two probable first-round NFL offensive tackles. A Heisman candidate at QB. Two running backs who average >7 yards per carry. Their SP+ offensive rating is 47.2, a full 4.4 points better than #2 Alabama and starting to challenge 2019 LSU as perhaps the greatest offense of the analytics era. How the f*** do you beat these guys? 

Let's try our best to examine a path to keeping the offense in the yard, while also pointing out the many places this sociopathic grizzly bear wielding a flamethrower could completely incinerate your defense. 

The Film: There are some roadmaps to stopping OSU's offense, between Nebraska, Penn State, and Oregon, three teams that all kept OSU under 30 points on offense (the Buckeyes notched a defensive TD against PSU to get over 30). That said, it would also be wildly unfair to use just one of those games, because it would depict a more neutered Buckeye offense and not the one that has obliterated most opposing defenses it has faced. Normally I stick to just one game, but for this column, since it's in preparation for the biggest game of the season, I said "why not just go crazy with it?": 

So, while I only graded the PSU game, I'm going to draw upon tape from the Michigan State game as a way to show the Buckeye offense in much more dangerous light, while also incorporating clips from a number of other games. This will be the longest and most detailed FFFF of the season, but that's what a week with these stakes calls for, eh? 

Personnel:

[Seth note: I previously sent Alex a version of this with Turner starred and Ojabo shielded before I got too deep into the defensive UFR. Turner...did not make it. Ojabo is a 1st rounder on his potential but this game emphasized a major hole in his game currently, and I didn't feel it was right to put him on the level the other shields on this graphic are playing at right now.] 

PAIN. 

CJ Stroud has stepped into the QB job vacated by Justin Fields and has put together a dominant season, delivering very good balls to the wide receiver group that is almost always open. His utter obliteration of Michigan State last week (32/35 for 432 yards, 6 TD, 0 INT (!!!!!!!!!)) has made him the Vegas favorite for the Heisman, and we will certainly discuss him at length later in the piece. Stroud never comes off the field unless the game is over, but I still decided to include Kyle McCord on the chart because I was reminded that each of the last three Michigan-Ohio State meetings have featured the backup QB on the field for some (non-garbage time) stretch of the game for Ohio State. McCord is only a true freshman and he has looked like one this season. 

The Buckeyes entered the season with Miyan Williams and Master Teague III sharing the starting responsibilities but as your author predicted in August, true freshman TreVeyon Henderson ascended to the starting job rather quickly. He's been electric as the lead back, with 14 TDs and 1098 rushing yards on 7.3 YPC, taking the holes his offensive line gives him and turning them into home runs with the blazing speed that his 5* status conveys. Williams and Teague do not have Henderson's raw tools and that's why he's become the JK Dobbins to their Mike Weber. Henderson does play a role in the passing game, having hauled in 18 catches for 231 yards and three additional scores on the season. 

It will take years of hindsight and an examination of how these players end up in the NFL to really determine whether this is the best NCAA wide receiver group of all-time, but boy it feels like it has a chance. LSU's 2019 group of Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson were legendary, but this is a fully three-headed monster that also has impeccable depth. Chris Olave has been terrorizing the B1G for years and passed up a first round draft slot to return to Columbus so he could rescue his grandmother who was locked in Ryan Day's basement. Olave leads the receiving corps in TDs, but trails in the other statistical categories to Garrett Wilson, the lightning fast outside receiver who torched Michigan as a true freshman in 2019, as well as Jaxon Smith-Njigba, a sophomore slot type who Michigan has yet to see. Both Wilson and JSN were 5* recruits who have accented Olave to put together this unstoppable tank. Olave and Wilson will be first rounders in April (unless Day also abducts Wilson's grandma) and JSN seems to be a lock to be one in April 2023 already. 

Those three have combined for 73% of OSU's pass yardage this season, but the remaining 27% is scattered between a litany of other talented options, including the next wave of guys who will be gut-punching the B1G for the next several years. That includes Emeka Egbuka, a true freshman who was the nation's #10 overall recruit this spring (and is also the team's kick returner), Marvin Harrison Jr., son of that Marvin Harrison and a top 100 recruit himself, and Julian Fleming, who was the nation's #3 overall recruit last spring. The amount of weapons that Ohio State has at the skill positions is so disturbing that the FBI ought to have put the team on the terror watchlist by now. 

If there's one area that isn't quite up to snuff with the rest of the team, it's tight end. Jeremy Ruckert was *surprise* a top 50 recruit himself (and a Michigan target) once upon a time, but he's become only alright. A decent receiving option but nothing to write home about (I know that me saying that means he will have 200 yards on Saturday). The backup TEs include Cade Stover, who comes on as more of a blocker in two TE sets, and then half-TE, half-FB Mitch Rossi, who actually started his NCAA career as a linebacker. Rossi comes on in the situational moments when OSU goes under center. 

The offensive line is anchored by the tackle positions, where the Buckeyes could have both OTs get drafted in the top 45 picks this spring. That tandem is former 5* (and Michigan target) LT Nicholas Petit-Frere, as well as mountainous (6'8, 360) RT Dawand Jones, who both possess sparkling PFF grades and have provided clean pockets for Stroud all year long. The guards are not as highly thought of from an NFL standpoint but have been good too, 5* RG Paris Johnson Jr. and LG Thayer Munford. Munford is a name you probably remember, a multi-year starter at tackle who they shifted inside to make room for Jones at RT. The center spot is held by Luke Wypler, a highly touted recruit who has settled in as a starter this season. The OL has had a great bill of clean health this season, so swingman Matthew Jones is the only reserve worth discussing. Jones has been very good this season when called upon either at OT or OG. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: why can't there be any cyans?????]

Now we get to part three of our series ranking opposing teams that Michigan will see on their 2021 schedule based on positional group. So far we've covered QB and RB, and today we arrive on the receivers. For receivers, we're talking about both WR and TE, but not RB's who catch passes. They were included in our last piece on RB's specifically. As always, this ranking is based on a mixture of both star players who headline the positional group, as well as the quality of depth, since injuries and football go together like peanut butter and jelly. At the top of the list, well, you know what's coming: 

1. Ohio State 

Yep. Because Ryan Day has been attending Tom Izzo's classes on how to hold the grandparents of key players hostage as a way to coerce them to return to school, the Buckeyes returned Chris Olave, despite him being considered a lock to go in the first round. Olave was a nondescript freshman who I didn't even have on my spotting board when I broadcasted the 2018 Michigan-Ohio State game on the radio, a game that then saw Olave torch Michigan for two TD catches + blocking a punt that was returned by Sevyn Banks for a TD. My reaction when the first TD pass happened was to furiously comb through the roster and look for the number 17 because my overriding thought was "who the hell was that guy?". Well, nearly three years later and Michigan fans— and B1G fans broadly— are very aware of who Olave is. After that coming out party, he caught 48 passes for 840 yards in 2019 and then 50 passes for 729 yards and seven scores last season in just seven games. Olave's blazing speed and NCAA production made him seem guaranteed to depart to the NFL... until he came back to Columbus. As a senior this fall, you can pretty much guarantee Olave to be 1st team All-B1G again so long as he's healthy. 

But what makes this group so good is the fact they also returned Garrett Wilson, who caught 43 passes for 723 yards and six touchdowns last season, en route to also being 1st team All-B1G. Wilson was a true sophomore in 2020, so Day didn't need to abduct Wilson's grandma to get him to return to OSU. Wilson had the honors of torching Michigan in 2019 and both he and Olave are hyper athletic, lightning fast receivers with the ability to stretch the field vertically and blow by 99% of NCAA CB's. That tandem is probably the best WR tandem in the country, but they also bring back TE Jeremy Ruckert, who isn't used all that heavily but has the combo of talent and size to be a mismatch for most defenses. Oh, and OSU's next three WR's on the depth chart are all five stars, sophomores Julian Fleming and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, as well as true freshman Emeka Egbuka. And just for kicks, the Buckeyes have Marvin Harrison Jr., son of that Marvin Harrison, farther down on the depth chart. 

This positional group both has the wickedly good talent at the top, and the quality depth, and is a school with a track record of churning out NFL WR's (Michael Thomas,Terry McLaurin, etc.). They were #1 on our list by a wide, wide margin. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Progressively less speedy dudes]

Previously: Quarterback, Running Back

I'm bringing back this preview feature from before my time off; the exercise is to rank Michigan's opponents, as well as the Wolverines themselves, in each position group. This is particularly useful to do in a year when roster turnover and late-offseason changes (laaaaaaaaaaaaaate-offseason changes) are so prevalent; I'll do my best in these posts to highlight significant opt-outs, opt-ins, and the like.

The series continues with a look at the pass-catchers on this year's schedule. Sorry for several of the photos. Projected starters are in bold, backups in italics.

Tier I: They're Coaching The Five-Stars

(sigh) [Bryan Fuller]

1. Ohio State. Bah.

Fine, details. While KJ Hill, Binjimen Victor, and Austin Mack are gone—add in RB JK Dobbins and OSU is down four of their top six receivers from 2019—there's a good chance this unit is better than last year.

I probably don't need to remind you that Michigan got an unwelcome preview of what's to come when Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson both scored long touchdowns in The Game last season. Olave is a smooth outside receiver and potential early-round pick if he enters the NFL Draft in 2021. Wilson is a spectacular athlete who'll get to spend much more time at his more natural slot position with Hill out of the way.

I'm inclined to say those two will outperform their graduated but less talented teammates; Hill went in the seventh round of the draft while Victor and Mack weren't selected but they were the experienced options in an egalitarian passing attack. But, well, you've probably noticed that OSU has added some talent of late, and a whole lot of that talent is at wide receiver:

Just for a fun exercise, if you remove [2017 three-star Ellijah] Gardiner from the equation — no offense, he’s just the lowest-rated player — the average score for this group would be 0.9616. In other words, the average receiver on the OSU roster would be ranked No. 86 in the current recruiting class. And we’re talking about 10 players. The number is only that low because Olave, one of the top receiver prospects in this draft cycle, wasn’t evaluated properly coming out of high school.

If Olave and Wilson don't put up huge numbers it's probably because too many other future NFL players also earned targets. The most likely additional contributors behind them are sophomore Jameson Williams (#82 overall 2019 prospect) and four true freshmen: Julian Fleming (#3 in 2020), Jaxon Smith-Njigba (#29), Gee Scott Jr. (#66), and Mookie Cooper (#93). 

While recent OSU offenses haven't featured the tight end, they should get efficient play out of—you guessed it—some former blue-chip recruits. Jeremy Ruckert, the #2 TE in the 2018 class, scored on four of his 14 receptions in 2019. Jake Hausmann (#4 TE in 2016) and Luke Farrell (#7 in 2016) are reliable blockers in frequently deployed two-TE sets; Farrell has also shown some seam-stretching ability in his limited receiving opportunities.

Unlike a certain disgraced former receivers coach, Brian Hartline looks like he's actually coaching the high-level talent at his disposal. He may have the best receivers room in the country. Eat at Arby's.

[Hit THE JUMP because it can't be more of a bummer than that, at least.]