Essentials

WHAT	Michigan vs Ohio State
WHERE	Michigan Stadium Ann Arbor, MI
WHEN	Noon Eastern
THE LINE	OSU –7.5
TELEVISION	FOX (Johnson/Klatt)
TICKETS	exist
WEATHER	cloudy, low 30s light snow possible ~5 mph wind

Overview

Well, let's get it over with.

[Hit THE JUMP for words]

Run Offense vs OSU

hmm. good. [Fuller]

It occasionally happens that Ohio State will lose a game early because of some weird thing, like that time they lost to Virginia Tech because VT had a weird line formation that they weren't prepared for. This year that game was Oregon and the weird thing was "we made Kerry Coombs our defensive coordinator." Coombs was then stuck in the box with a headset that's not hooked up to anything and Ohio State entirely remade their defensive approach.

This worked, because of course it did. The OSU defense is up to 14th in SP+ and would be even higher if SP+ was solely focused on what happened after Coombs was given some crayons and a coloring book. Let's see if we can spot the change:

Opponent	Att	Yards	Avg.	TD
@ Minnesota	50	203	4.06	3
11 Oregon	38	269	7.08	3
Tulsa	28	73	2.61	0
Akron	40	76	1.9	0
@ Rutgers	31	111	3.58	0
Maryland	36	56	1.56	0
@ Indiana	37	34	0.92	0
Penn St.	29	33	1.14	2
@ Nebraska	34	113	3.32	1
Purdue	19	91	4.79	0
12 Michigan St.	21	66	3.14	0

Ah yes, right there. The only teams to move the ball even a little against Ohio State, post-Coombs, were Rutgers and Nebraska—we're leaving out Purdue here since they barely bother to run the ball. Both of those teams are perfectly happy to slam their QB into the line willy-nilly; Nebraska has built their offense around it. More traditional burly rushing attacks have gotten universally stoned, and while no one is comparing the Maryland/Indiana/PSU rush offenses to Michigan, last week MSU gave it to Kenneth Walker a total of seven times. This was in part because they were busy giving up touchdowns on the first seven OSU drives, yes. Still: Heisman candidate RB, seven carries.

Alex on the front seven:

The defensive tackle spot sees even more rotation, and it's rather curious how often they lift Haskell Garrett off the field, given how good he is. He's the only star at this position, one that sees a full six players get regular snaps. The other players at DT were solid, if unremarkable in the games I saw. Antwuan Jackson is the nominal other starter, but his snap count on the season is almost identical to that of Taron Vincent. Their PFF grades are both similar to that of Ty Hamilton and Jerron Cage, all of whom are mostly just guys (more on that later). Tyleik Williams is the last name to know at the DT spot, and his snap count is rather low, pretty far down the depth chart but still seeing the field each week.

Linebacker, as it has been in the last few seasons at Ohio State, is an area of consternation. The team normally plays with just two traditional LBs on the field at one time, and there's plenty of rotation here too. Cody Simon is the listed starter at the MLB spot, but he is banged up and his status for The Game is unknown at this time. If he is absent, his presence probably will not be missed on the defense, as he's the lone cyan'd starter. It is your author's opinion that Tommy Eichenberg is the better MLB. The other spot sees Steele Chamber get the starting nod, but again you see heavy rotation with Teradja Mitchell, who was very rough in the PSU game that will be dissected for this piece. All four LBs mentioned have played more than 300 snaps and less than 400, with no one really solidifying themselves as the answer, and the position remains a weakness for the defense.

The grades here are not commensurate with the rushing defense's output, especially since OSU is content to run out a 4-2-5 on most downs that nowadays has two deep safeties.

Michigan will hope that this is because teams get down a bunch and the ones that haven't don't have anything like Michigan's ground game. I'm relatively skeptical. Michigan looked extremely mortal against Maryland last week and went an entire half against Penn State doing little until a schematic tweak broke some things open. Maybe Michigan will be able to do this but since OSU has boatraced just about everyone I imagine they've spent more time on Michigan than vice versa.

KEY MATCHUP: HASSAN HASKINS vs PAUL BUNYAN LEGENDARY STATUS. The path to victory likely includes a legendary performance from Haskins and/or Corum and/or Edwards.

Pass Offense vs OSU

[Sherman]

Michigan can probably make some hay here if Cade McNamara is locked in. With the notable exception of Michigan State last week, functional passing offenses (ie, not Rutgers or Indiana) have continued to put up yards at a reasonable rate against the OSU D. Maryland (7.2 YPA), Penn State (6.9), Nebraska (8.0), and Purdue (7.4) have all moved the ball through the air against the Buckeyes.

Yes, there are sacks, but the desperation mode that OSU puts opposing offenses in means that they come on a ton of attempts. By sack rate the Buckeyes are only middling—56th—and Michigan remains elite at protecting the QB. They're third in sack rate allowed. I'm not banking on the pass rush matchup being that lopsided because many fewer Michigan attempts will be protected by the sheer shock of a dropback, and we did see a couple of high end rushers go to work on Ryan Hayes in the Penn State game.

Meanwhile the OSU secondary is physically talented but devoid of the top-end NFL talent they usually sport. Alex:

I really liked the coverage from Denzel Burke in this game, whose good ball skills in coverage we saw earlier in a Harrison highlight … Cameron Brown had a decent game in both too, but there were still open receivers for Clifford to throw to. Those dissipated a bit for MSU, but it's worth noting that there is a gap in the quality of receiver that Penn State features and Michigan State features considering that the Spartans are without Nailor and Reed appears banged up. The zone was pretty soft at times against the Nittany Lions

Alex also noted that OSU corners have not been very good about getting off blocks when targeted in quick game stuff. Michigan hasn't run much of that this year, at least not with the WRs. With Donovan Edwards's breakout performance and Blake Corum being Blake Corum, Michigan has two different options to split wide, which will help McNamara with his presnap reads. That may be a spot Michigan can get after OSU for small, easy chunks if the ground game isn't firing like you'd hope it would. And then: wheel routes! All the wheel routes.

It should be noted that Michigan has been very explosive this year, trailing only OSU in the number of 50 yard plays they've racked up. OSU has largely tamped down on the busts that littered the first half of their season, preferring a relatively conservative two-deep shell that forces opponents to execute down the field. They're unlikely to deviate much from that unless things are going badly, so I wouldn't expect big passing plays to come from the WRs unless they're managing a catch and run.

The backs, though…

KEY MATCHUP: YEP, MICHIGAN RUNNING BACKS vs OSU LINEBACKERS. They've got some question marks at the spot and Michigan has a couple of guys who can exploit mismatches there.

Run Defense vs OSU

Ross will be on the spot [Barron]

Well, here we go. If you managed to tolerate the FFFF on this unit you probably noticed that our graphic has a star on every single player except TE Jeremy Ruckert, and naturally this fact caused our Slack to explode with assertions that Ruckert was now destined to go for 200 yards tomorrow.

There's no getting around the fact that by every predictive metric you care to survey this is the #1 offense in the country by a mile. The run half of it is vaguely less terrifying, maybe, but freshman five-star TreVeyon Henderson is still averaging—Jesus—7.3 yards per carry, and his primary backups are averaging 7.6 and 5.3. Henderson has it sort of easy, what with opposing defenses trying to handle three first-round picks at WR; he gets a lot of opportunities to run at light boxes. When he hits a crease he's gone, and he also brings a fair amount of power for a guy most would classify as a "speed back."

The OSU offensive line is virtually all highly-touted recruits playing at a high level, and this is going to be a problem for Michigan. Michigan has a couple of great defensive ends, but only Hutchinson is a consistent playmaker on the ground; meanwhile the defensive tackles have not been playmakers against single blocking this year. With OSU's ability to pull linebackers around with jet fakes and play action, this does not look like a spot where Michigan's going to hold up particularly well—especially if Michigan is rotating as willy-nilly as they have for much of this year. If Michigan's safeties are back, as I imagine they will be given Michigan's approach the last two weeks, it's hard to see Michigan's front six not getting gashed regularly.

KEY MATCHUP: HINTON AND MAZI SMITH vs JUST MAKE PLAYS. Don't really see many good outcomes here that don't include far less DL rotation than we've had thus far and Michigan DTs playing over their heads.

Pass Defense vs OSU

hmm. bad. [Barron]

The post-hope era of Michigan football began a few years ago, when Michigan brought the number one defense in America into the Game and saw their man coverage utterly obliterated by crossing routes. Up until that point Brandon Watson had been a quality try-hard third corner who used his wits and a lot of subtle holding to keep up with guys who were more athletic to him; in that game he was quickly exposed as a random three star in the wrong place at the wrong time. The guy who exposed him was freshman Chris Olave, who is one of the best receivers in the country and might be the third-best guy on his own team.

The numbers here are absurd:

Opponent	Att	Comp	Pct.	Yards	Yards/Att	TD	Int
@ Minnesota	22	13	59.1	294	13.4	4	1
11 Oregon	54	35	64.8	484	9	3	1
Tulsa	25	15	60	185	7.4	1	1
Akron	26	18	69.2	385	14.8	2	1
@ Rutgers	27	18	66.7	333	12.3	5	0
Maryland	38	26	68.4	432	11.4	5	0
@ Indiana	37	28	75.7	352	9.5	4	0
Penn St.	34	22	64.7	305	9	1	0
@ Nebraska	54	36	66.7	405	7.5	2	2
Purdue	38	31	81.6	361	9.5	5	0
12 Michigan St.	43	36	83.7	449	10.4	6	1

Exactly two teams have held OSU under nine yards an attempt: Nebraska and Tulsa, somehow.

There is some hope for Michigan, which has done an excellent job of implementing a new defense without suffering a ton of busts. Michigan has tried to get away from a heavy reliance on cover one that's great when you're better across the board than your opponent and quickly falls apart when you get one consistent mismatch. First they imported Bob Shoop, but Shoop was forced to work "remotely" for obscure reasons. Then they fired Don Brown and imported Mike Macdonald with an intent to change the defense into an NFL-like unit that has "multiple" as its watchword and confuses quarterbacks into holding the ball a fatal second too long.

This has actually happened, for the most part. Michigan's 5.8 YPA allowed is second in the conference to PSU's 5.7. Their 29 sacks are tied for fourth in the conference, and anyone who's watched Michigan games can attest that the QB is under heat on most snaps. Ohio State's line is excellent but they do not have stone-cold killers at tackle. PSU got a similar set of ends and was able to stick in the OSU game for a while by getting pressure. Alex:

Arnold Ebiketie, who you may recall from him brutalizing Ryan Hayes in the Michigan game, got several clean pass rush wins against projected first round LT Petit-Frere. Here's one:

Getting to CJ Stroud is going to be massively important, because Michigan's defensive backs aren't staying with these receivers. Maybe DJ Turner has turned a corner and is a Jahan Dotson deleter now. Okay. Great. Vincent Gray might be a lot better. Great. Dax Hill is a potential slot destroyer. Great. The chances that all of these guys are going to rise to the occasion and demonstrate they are the equals of the dudes lined up across from them is close to nil.

So: Michigan's going to disguise coverages as best they can and hope to surprise Stroud, whereupon he will hold the ball for the extra beat it takes for Ojabo and/or Hutchinson to cave the walls in. When they do that the can get off the field; when they don't it's dirt nap time.

KEY MATCHUP: MIKE MACDONALD vs THE KITCHEN SINK. What do you have? Now is the time to dump it all out.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Ah yup: Michigan is now the #1 team in the country in FEI's special teams efficiency by a full tenth of a point over (naturally) Iowa.

Ohio State is seventh largely because kicker Noah Ruggles is 16/17. He's fourth nationally in FG efficiency. Ruggles does tend to offer up returnable kickoffs—only 24% are touchbacks—but OSU covers those like a team with a bunch of five-star athletes slumming it on special teams.

The other stuff is solid. Punter Jesse Mirco is fine (and has only punted 25 times). Wilson and JSN have done little on punt returns, but that's likely just random chance.

KEY MATCHUP:  AHHHH YOU CONTINUE DOING EVERYTHING WELL

INTANGIBLES

CHEAP THRILLS

Worry if…

• Michigan's DEs are anything but rampant.
• Things are happening.
• Frankie Collins doesn't get more playing time soon.

Cackle with knowing glee if…

• OSU gets rattled like it seemed they were in the PSU game.
• Coombs escapes from naptime and wreaks a hellish revenge!
• There is no time on the clock and Michigan has more points?

Fear/Paranoia Level: 10 (Baseline: 5; +5 for The Game)

Desperate need to win level: 10 (Baseline: 5; +5 for The Game)

Loss will cause me to… sigh, walk into the woods with a flask, and stare at a battleship-gray sky as snow flurries come down around me.

Win will cause me to… 404 not found

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict: 

I mean, either Aidan Hutchinson wins the Heisman or Michigan loses. This is a good Michigan team going up against a buzzsaw that has virtually no holes on offense and has successfully relegated their dumbass defensive coordinator to the Paterno Zone midseason, because that's what they can do.

Talent is likely to win out here; Michigan has scraped together enough to get by a large number of middling-to-bad teams but this is another level entirely. The elite guys/units Michigan has gone up against this year have generally won out—Kenneth Walker, PSU DEs, the Washington secondary, Wisconsin's rush defense—and now they're playing a team that's mostly elite. The usual pattern here when Michigan is real good is to stick around for a half or so and then get distanced in the third quarter.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid Sunday:

• Ohio State looks like they've prepared all year for this; Michigan looks like that for about 20 minutes and then runs out of playbook magic.
• There are more commercial breaks than plays.
• Ohio State, 40-21