11/26/2022 – Michigan 45, Ohio State 23 – 12-0, 9-0 Big Ten, Big Ten East Champions

I had to have a strange conversation with my son on Saturday about why I was watching the television with the sound off. In his experience the TV is generally better when the images on screen are paired with explanatory messages into his ears. I tried to tell him that I really wanted Michigan to win this game, I thought they were about to get hammered, and that I did not want to hear the exultant cries of central Ohio's finest as they dunked Michigan into the center of the Earth. He seemed to understand in the distant way you understand that someone has a particular moral compass you cannot comprehend but nonetheless accept.

My son thinks Michigan is good at stuff, so he asked why I thought Michigan was going to get dunked into the center of the Earth. I told him that Michigan's best player—the best player in America—could not play because he was injured, and that Ohio State was very good at football and this was likely to be the determining factor.

He shrugged and resumed playing Ultimate Super Ultimate Smash Brothers Super Ultimate. Some time later, he saw Michigan was ahead by a lot and wondered if I would turn the volume back on.

I turned it back on. There were four minutes left in the game.

----------------------------------

I took him to the hockey game that night. Our current pattern is that he watches the first period, I get him some ice cream during the first intermission, he eats the ice cream during the second period, and then he can have my phone during the third. The ice cream is spectacularly frozen. It is held in a freezer that is colder than the infinite depths of space. His only entry into this chocolate heaven is a flimsy spoon that would fall apart if Zak Zinter looked at it wrong, or even kinda right, and he spends an entire period of hockey trying to chisel out atom-thin slices of ice cream. The person who decided this was a good marketing tactic is a hero and a god.

So he's chiseling away halfway through the period, getting most of it in his mouth but leaving a celebratory residue around his face (inexplicably, this includes his forehead) and liberally painting his shirt.

The football team appears from stage right.

The first person I see is Mike Morris, and my brain thinks "hey, that's Mike Morris." Then I am given to understand that there are many of them there, the football players. They climb the stairs. Their Big Ten East Division championship hats universally have the tags still attached. JJ McCarthy high-fives various people.

There is a break halfway through the period to clean up the ice, whether or not the game is on TV, and it soon becomes apparent that this is a mistake. A mandatory one, perhaps. A mistake nonetheless. The Zamboni doors open up, as they always do, and then Jim Harbaugh is on the ice. It is clear that this is unplanned. I watch this happen. Harbaugh is behind the rope they pull to indicate that you should not walk out onto the ice in the middle of a hockey game, and then he is not behind it. He motions the entire fucking team to come onto the ice. Some of them do, because some of them are spiritually golden retrievers. McCarthy is one. He bro-hugs Erik Portillo, Michigan's starting goalie. The brief break to clean up the ice is now over, and the football team is still on it. The officials look very cross indeed as they attempt to shoo a half-dozen extremely large men in sneakers away. I am bracing for a delay of game penalty that does not actually come, because the football players and their coach do eventually slink back off the ice.

During all this I've gotten the child to put down his ice cream, and I pick him up so he can see all the mayhem that's going on. He is not entirely sure of the implications but does understand that everyone around him is very, very happy.

-----------------------------------

There was another story developing in my head for most of the first half. One in which Michigan does not recruit like Ohio State and cannot take hits to their roster like they can. They unearthed a running back who'd had one carry all year—who'd been playing linebacker—and he was crunching through the Michigan defense. He transferred in from Arizona State, picking Ohio State over Michigan despite the fact that Michigan actually wanted him to play running back. Michigan put CJ Stokes out there and the moment was too big for a freshman three-star out of South Carolina.

When JT Barrett gets knocked out of a Michigan game, Dwayne Haskins comes in. When Denard Robinson doesn't get to OSU healthy, Michigan's done, in part because they moved their backup QB to wide receiver because they didn't have enough wide receivers. Michigan is one of the most talented teams in the country annually, but they do not lose Aidan Hutchinson and replace him with Aidan Hutchinson 2. Ohio State just opens up the box of five stars and extracts Marvin Harrison Jr.

The story I was working on is the one I told my son: Michigan has some dudes and they need all of them if they're going to beat Ohio State.

Then Mike Sainristil, a nobody recruit from nowhere, Massachusetts—a converted wide receiver—made up more ground than I've ever seen made up in my life. Sometimes when you're watching a football game some bit of pattern recognition clicks into place and you suddenly have a vision of the near future. This happened on OSU's throwback play. My eyes went to the tight end, and I saw the arc of the ball, and I audibly groaned "oh no." The only hope was that the back-foot heave was going long. It was not going long, and then it didn't matter.

My son was roused by my agony morphing into to ecstasy. He looked up from his screen, saw the score, and asked why Michigan wasn't getting hammered into the center of the Earth. I didn't really have an answer. He is six so he always has an answer for everything. Most days I walk him home from school and he tells me that the school flooded with anti-gravity water. I badger him about why I did not see this very newsworthy event on Twitter. He gives me some crazy explanation, I shoot it down, and he comes up with another one.

He said that maybe Michigan's best player was out there, but in secret. That he had snuck back out on to the field and spearheaded Michigan's performance. I said maybe he was. Maybe Michigan is more than a couple of dudes holding the whole edifice together. Maybe even when Blake Corum's watching from the sideline, Michigan's best player is somehow still on the field because it's not just a player. It's a program. That Michigan is now greater than the sum of its parts in a way Ohio State is not.

He was no longer listening, but that's okay.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

even when they got beat it was like this [Barron]

you're the man now, dog

#1(T) Mike Sainristil and Rod Moore. The way this works is that the only collective that gets in the chart, uh, collectively is the offensive line, but what I want to do here is to give all of this to Michigan's back seven. Michigan's back seven dropped into coverage over and over again and beheld the OSU receivers fanning out from the line of scrimmage like so many extradimensional tentacles. The front four's pressure was… occasional. And they did not get nuked.

Sainristil and Moore in particular came up huge on many plays. Sainristil punched out a sure touchdown and PBU'd another potential TD; he helped Colson stuff the third and three pitch; he fell off so many attempts to get him out of position on crack blocks. He got beat sometimes, sure. He fought OSU to a standstill. The converted WR.

Rod Moore, meanwhile, picked up two stunning PBUs on plays Michigan safeties just do not make and also racked up a TFL. Moore also stands in for the safeties writ large since there were zero (ZERO) times in this game where Michigan got hit over the top other than a very ill-advised safety-level blitz on the Harrison touchdown.

Full points for both. Plus one. Screw it.

#2 JJ McCarthy. Completed half of his passes. That's not good! Averaged 21 yards a completion. We'll take it! Ohio State entered this game daring McCarthy to beat them and only amped up the dare after Corum went out. McCarthy beat them, first by firing a pure arm-strength back-foot laser to Cornelius Johnson on the hitch TD, and then finally, at long last, changing the angle on his deep shots to slow his guys up when they were open by a billion yards on long TDs to Johnson and Colston Loveland. In the second half Michigan turned to his legs on a few critical plays, and it's no coincidence that Donovan Edwards blasted for runs of a million yards once OSU started accounting for him.

Also, ayyyyyyyyyy:

1) Ball batted down by Zach Harrison, who gives him a stare down. McCarthy gives him a little point and takes out his mouth guard to say something.

Could've been pretty easy to be intimidated by that, but my bet is McCarthy was smiling about that / Harrison's stare down. pic.twitter.com/sFP18F90gZ

— Stephen Osentoski (@StephenToski) November 28, 2022

Did he just Fonzie an Ohio State defensive end? He did. Then he hugged Michigan's goalie in the middle of a hockey game. This man's vibe is Denard 2.0. Full 8 points. Screw it.

#3 Cornelius Johnson. Rope-a-dope, my friend. Certain members of the Michigan media who will go unnamed hyped up Johnson to the ends of the Earth entering this season and were raked over the coals for the incorrectness of said take, only for Johnson to rip through a tackle attempt on a 69-yard touchdown and turn an Ohio State safety into a smoking pile of ash on a 75-yard touchdown. All is forgiven. Full eight points. Screw it.

#4 Donovan Edwards. Give him a crack and he's gone. Toughed out a bunch of good second half runs with Stokes not up for it and OSU laying back more. Full eight points. Screw it.

Honorable mention: Spiritually everybody. Who was Michigan's worst player in this game? I don't know. Everyone gets a million billion points forever.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

51: Blake Corum (#2 CSU, #2 Hawaii, HM UConn, #1 Maryland, #2 Iowa. HM Indiana, T2 PSU, #1 MSU, T1 Rutgers, #3 Nebraska, #1 Illinois)
29: JJ McCarthy (#1 Hawaii, #2 UConn, HM Maryland, HM Iowa, #3 Indiana, HM PSU, HM MSU. HM Rutgers, #2 OSU)
23: The Offensive Line (#3 Iowa, #1 PSU, HM MSU, #3 Rutgers, #1 Nebraska)
18: Ronnie Bell (HM CSU, HM Hawaii, #1 UConn, #2 Indiana, HM PSU, HM Nebraska, HM Illinois)
17: Mike Morris (T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, #1 Iowa, T1 Indiana, #3 PSU, HM Rutgers), Donovan Edwards (HM Hawaii, T2 PSU, T1 Rutgers, #4 OSU)
15:  Kris Jenkins (#3 UConn, T3 Hawaii, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana, #2 MSU, HM Rutgers, HM Nebraska)
14: Mazi Smith (#1 CSU, T3 Hawaii, HM Maryland, HM Iowa, HM MSU, HM Nebraska)
13: Mason Graham (HM Hawaii, HM Iowa, HM Indiana, #2 Nebraska, #2 Illinois)
12: Rod Moore(HM CSU, HM Indiana, HM MSU, T1 Ohio State)
11: Mike Sainristil (HM Maryland, HM Indiana, T1 Ohio State)
9: Cornelius Johnson (HM Hawaii, #3 Ohio State)
7: Gemon Green (HM UConn, T2 Maryland, HM PSU), Jake Moody (HM PSU, #3 MSU, #3 Illinois).
5: DJ Turner (T2 Maryland), Junior Colson (#3 CSU, HM UConn, HM PSU), Luke Schoonmaker (T3 Maryland, HM Iowa, HM Indiana, HM MSU), Michael Barrett (#2 Rutgers).
4: Eyabi Okie (HM CSU, HM Iowa, T1 Indiana).
3: Derrick Moore (HM CSU, T1 Indiana), Jaylen Harrell (HM CSU, T1 Indiana),
2: Roman Wilson (HM CSU, HM Hawaii), Max Bredeson (T3 Maryland), Joel Honigford (T3 Maryland),
1: Braiden McGregor (HM CSU), Makari Paige (HM Hawaii), Rayshaun Benny (HM Hawaii), AJ Henning (HM UConn), Caden Kolesar (HM UConn), RJ Moten (HM Maryland), Will Johnson (HM Rutgers), CJ Stokes (HM Nebraska), Andrel Anthony (HM Nebraska), Colston Loveland (HM Illinois)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Donovan Edwards bursts between Oluwatimi and Zinter for a 75-yard capper, that was then capped.

Honorable mention: Said 85-yard cap of the capper. Cornelius Johnson wakes up the offense with a 69-yard TD. Cornelius Johnson is blitheringly wide open on a 75-yard TD. Colston Loveland catches a 45-yard TD. Pretty much all the long TDs.

?MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Blake Corum is clearly not right and exits after two carries. This likely costs him the Heisman.

Honorable mention: Stokes misses a huge cutback lane on his second carry, reinforcing feelings of doom. Stroud drops a dime to Harrison for a long TD. Michigan gets stuffed on a third and one Mullings carry. Most of the first quarter on offense.

OFFENSE

oops [Barron]

Does this make sense? Michigan got stuffed on third and one late in the first half when they brought Mullings in and stared this down:

Good job hooray for you, hope you don't get five touchdowns of 45+ yards put on you in this game. OSU played this game like they couldn't play Michigan straight up and survive, and it worked until it really did not work.

underthrown [Barron]

Welcome back deep balls. JJ McCarthy hit three bombs in this game, all of them loopers that held up receivers and gave his guys a chance to make a play. A fourth bomb was similar and drew a pass interference call. This was a major departure from previous attempts, which were more on a line and were universally overthrown.

In one case this cost Michigan yards over an ideal throw, because Ronnie Bell was gone for a touchdown on this improv play:

The other two incidents were the long touchdown throws to Johnson and Loveland. If you're going to miss on a deep ball, miss short. Throw up that beautiful moonball and let your receiver go get it.

Many have theorized this was rope-a-dope, mostly jokingly. I do think that Knowles's insanely aggressive cover zero approach probably does not happen if McCarthy hits two or three deep shots earlier in the season. But then…

When you back off. Knowles finally stopped with the insane aggression after the Loveland touchdown and immediately ate a 15-play, eight minute touchdown drive. It was not a coincidence that the Michigan ground game started to take off once McCarthy's legs got established and Knowles begrudgingly looked up the concept of a free safety. Knowles's choice is somewhat understandable but opposite Michigan grinding OSU in to three FGAs and a bunch of punts it looks impossibly arrogant.

Maybe you can get away with it if you have a bunch of elite guys in your secondary, but did any OSU DB look anywhere near Devon Witherspoon? No. Did Michigan have the five best DBs in this game? Kind of seems like it.

Separation city. After weeks and weeks and weeks of complaining about Michigan receivers being unable to distance themselves from coverage this game featured play after play where Bell or Johnson or Wilson was getting chased by a guy in a full-on panic. If Michigan blocks the seven-man blitz better on the Johnson TD McCarthy probably has time to get to Roman Wilson, who put his defender on the ground:

WR #14 in slot to bottom

And Johnson put Cam Martinez in the spin cycle so badly that a hoarse Gus Johnson's WIDE OPEN on this call will keep you warm on cold nights after the fall of civilization:

Can we get some Gus Johnson in the pregame hype reel? Either this or O-JA-BO will do nicely thanks.

[Barron]

The Loveland phenomenon. It's possible Lathan Ransom is just terrible. Loveland's touchdown sees him jump a presumed out without any thought to the idea that Colston Loveland is not Luke Schoonmaker:

This looks like Michigan breaking a tendency, right? This must be a route pattern Michigan has used all year that OSU thinks they have downloaded only for Loveland to jet up the field because your insane aggression doesn't even wait for the thing you expect to happen to actually happen.

Sometimes you have to pull when the pull is non-obvious. McCarthy's paradigm-shifting 19-yard run on the first drive of the second half was against a DE who was pretty square to the LOS, but McCarthy felt him cheating and was correct:

You can't let that end play it sort of correctly and always induce a handoff. Sometimes you have to test it. Because if you test it…

[Barron]

Explosives. OSU was +2 in the box on the second Edwards touchdown. Their two free guys tore off the edge. One went for McCarthy. A second should have gone hell for leather to get to Edwards, but hesitated because he thought for a moment McCarthy had the ball. Now your +2 is +0 and you have no deep safety. One Olu/Zinter combo block later:

OSU also spent their free guy in the box on the first one on McCarthy. QB run == RB explosives.

The pop pass. Unbelievably, Kalel Mullings seemingly got moved back to offense largely because he could throw the jump pass:

Uncertain how much Blake could play in the game, if he would play. Was going to be a game-time decision. So we auditioned the other running backs and Kalel could execute that play and throw the best of the other running backs.

Also, uhhhhhh:

Thing I found out when I got on the plane to come home last night was that Kalel never saw Luke. He never saw him.

And I asked him what he did. ‘How'd you know where to throw it?’ Then he goes: ‘I just threw it in the area.’

Great, wonderful. Ten stars.

[Barron]

Play of the game? JJ McCarthy had some moments in this one but his back-foot heave to Ronnie Bell on third and eleven during the back-breaker drive may be his best play:

To be able to get that off and have it be catchable enough to draw a flag is pretty good. The awareness to take a shot instead of just booting it out of bounds? Incredible. McCarthy seemed to know exactly what he was doing, too, given his reaction to the flag coming out.

That flag turned a seven point lead into 11 and also sucked another couple minutes off the clock.

What is this alignment? OSU gave up a chunk play to Edwards halfway through the 15-play drive when they put no one in the A or B gaps; Hayes released downfield with no one to block. Bust, right? Weird bust. Then they did the same thing on third and goal! McCarthy recognizes it, taps his OL to say "we gotta go now" and scores:

He just runs by Keegan because Keegan has nothing to do.

What is THIS alignment? You're putting out a three man line against the Michigan Gol-Danged Wolverines? You're expecting Olu Oluwatimi to fall for your nose tackle exiting stage right? You're plugging the A-gap between Oluwatimi and Zak Zinter with linebackers?

Big-12 ass playcall.

DEFENSE

[Barron]

The way in which Ohio State is soft. I cannot believe that I forgot to check OSU's line stats for the preview, because good lord the narrative of The Game is right there. Line yards? 7th. Opportunity rate? 4th. Really good! Power success rate? ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE. 112! You are the World Famous Ohio State Buckeyes and you're checking in with a worse power success rate than COLORADO STATE. Michigan played CSU! I remember that team! I do not remember thinking "oh they're definitely converting this third and short"! This fact is making me write sentences LIKE THAT BUCKET OF BULLETS GUY!

Alex spent the last month preaching that OSU could not drive the field, and Jesse Minter designed his defense to make OSU drive the field. Aside from one inadvisable safety-level blitz that was immediately punished Michigan spent most of the day with six guys in the box trying to make plays against doubles while they played two deep and kept everything in front of them. Because third and two may as well be third and ten.

That is why Michigan had a three man line on the field on third and three, and why Jalen Harrell dropped out into a flare screen, and why Braiden McGregor was flying upfield to bat down said screen. That's why Ohio State's throwing 20 yards downfield to their tight end on fourth and two.

That's why they're pitching it to their 230-pound mooseback on third and three. In some sense they do not even have a running game, they just have a different way to pass the ball that's as likely to pick up zero yards as any pass.

That's their fatal flaw. In this case, the bleating of the dumbest, most aggrieved goober on Dayton sports talk radio is actually correct: OSU is soft because Ryan Day wants them to be an NFL team.

Oh: one more way. CJ Stroud called rushes in this game: zero. Even Dwayne Haskins, who was infamously unable to run the ball, carried a few times in The Game. What happens on that three man rush with Harrell dropping out if CJ Stroud is running a draw? Well, they convert a first down, for one.

All about numbers. I was pretty frustrated by Michigan's run defense for portions of this but in the clear light of day it's just Michigan playing bend but don't break. They broke once, on the opening drive, and even then when OSU got into goal to go territory and Michigan went away from two deep safeties suddenly the OSU ground game got real ineffective real quick:

Stick around for the second play in the above clip—the flip out to the tight end on second and goal. That's what they're doing in the redzone. As I said on the podcast a few weeks ago: Michigan's redzone struggles were fixable while OSU's were baked in.

[Barron]

Will Johnson arrives. Johnson got starters snaps against Ohio State and was completely unnoticeable. Michigan did not deviate from their left/right corner setup, so he was not protected from Marvin Harrison Jr. He just went out there and was instantly a part of the machine that held OSU to 23.

Best position switch ever. Mike Sainristil came in for some discussion above but let us revisit it. Not only did he check in with the two PBUs but he forced a field goal on OSU's second drive when he read a pivot route beautifully and undercut it. Stroud threw high, probably because he saw the problem. If that ball is directly to the WR that was probably a pick six.

[Barron]

Pass rush was close to nonexistent, but when it existed… Mazi Smith and Kris Jenkins both had one clear pass-rush win in this game. Both were critical plays. Smith was able to get free up the gut on a third and five, and when you move Stroud off his spot his accuracy suffers so the ensuing attempt to hit an out was incomplete. Jenkins drew a holding call that wiped out a big OSU gain and combined with one of the most brain-dead unsportsmanlike conduct events I've ever seen to set OSU up with first and 35 on a key second-half possession.

Speaking of that penalty. Should that guy have been ejected for targeting? If you did that while the ball was live it would absolutely be targeting.

Not a whole lot of magician stuff. Felt like last year's game was a never-ending parade of Ohio State wide receivers making impossible catches with prehensile tails that had not previously existed. This game had that Harrison catch on the first drive…

…and Harrison's subtle but effective effort to gain separation on his touchdown and then… nothing else? Stroud had a couple of dimes and otherwise looked like a good but not great college QB, and things just felt fine.

There were tradeoffs, of course. To conjure this meh Michigan spent much of the game in a six man front with two deep safeties, allowing the sometimes moribund Ohio State ground game to get decent chunks for much of the first half. But… worth it, right?

FWIW. That back shoulder in the previous bullet was an attempted draw-em-offsides play that didn't work because Michigan flinched but did not jump. I'm not sure of the efficacy of that tactic in 2022. If they don't come across you're stuck with that as a best case scenario.

On the bomb. Gemon Green is right there and then Marvin Harrison Jr engages in some dark arts to get that little bit of separation that prevents Green from getting a play on the ball:

Don't know what you can do about that. They're never calling it. Your best bet is to grab the guy's hand when he reaches out to you and hope that works.

One chuck. OSU's first touchdown was nominally Sainristil getting beat but he's lining up in outside leverage and gets a route across his face; he needs help. Colson doesn't get a chuck and the chuck is the whole deal:

That's one step. One step Sainristil has if anyone bumps his guy, but no one does.

Aaargh. CJ Stroud stop overthrowing pick sixes challenge.

One wonders if that factored into decisions to punt on fourth-and-slant territory. Braiden McGregor almost had two pick sixes in this game. Alas, poor fate.

SPECIAL TEAMS

[Barron]

Only one incident of note. Fake punt inception:

• Michigan knows OSU has a fake punt and has a defense to stop it.
• OSU decides to run the fake punt.
• Michigan forgets to use their defense to stop it.
• OSU forgets to run the fake punt.
• Michigan does not block the suddenly not-fake punt.

It's a fake-fake.

All other things. Two 40+ yard field goals, one from each team, a barely missed 57-yarder from Moody, and a parade of fair catches on all punts. Jesse Mirco's inability to pin Michigan inside the 20 was a source of hidden yards and made Ryan Day's tendency to turtle look even worse.

About that…

MISCELLANEOUS

chairs, always chairs [Barron]

Was this the best-officiated game in Big Ten history? They screwed one thing up: Stroud clearly fumbled on the Okie sack and their "progress was stopped" explanation was transparently garbage. Other than that… was there one thing that was wrong either way? The PIs were all correct, there were no moments where it felt like holding was applied incorrectly, neither coach seemed even mildly perturbed at them.

A bunch of decisions in this one. Fourth down decisions du jour. Michigan had three, all of which were close to coinflips:

• Michigan elects to punt after a failed Mullings dive in the first half.
• In virtually the same spot on the first drive of the second half Michigan converts with a tempo dive to Donovan Edwards.
• Michigan attempts a 57-yard field goal on fourth and seven from the OSU 39.

The first two are close to even decisions, IIRC, but the second one leans more towards going because it's later in the game and you're trailing by four. I punched the field goal into the NFL calculator—likely more accurate than a hypothetical college kicker in this situation because Michigan has Jake Moody—and it spat out the statistical equivalent of a shruggie. All three options check in at 95% win. FWIW, the model does slightly favor a punt.

Ohio State had six:

• Going for it on fourth and two from the 34 in the second quarter.
• Punting on fourth and five from the OSU 43, also in the second quarter.
• Punting on fourth and three from midfield halfway through the third quarter, down 4.
• Punting on fourth and five from the plus 43 a few minutes later, still down 4. (This one does not count, see below.)
• Punting on fourth and three from the OSU 32, down 11, with 12 minutes left.
• Attempting a chip shot field goal on fourth and four from the nine while down 11.

We trashed Day pretty hard about this on the podcast but per Harbaugh the fourth and five was supposed to be a fake:

We got so lucky. One of the fourth downs, they had a fake on. And they had us. I mean they had us cold.

We were prepared for it. We knew the fake was coming just by the personnel that was there. We had four practices, four meetings. And not one of us saw it. Nobody on the field saw it, and they had us cold.

I think their snapper snapped to the wrong guy, snapped it to the punter instead of to the faker, but it would have been a huge gain. We got extremely lucky.

Alex speculated about this on said podcast and I sort of scoffed about how that spot on the field is the worst one to fake a field goal at, but apparently that was indeed the case. I'm not sure why you wouldn't be in punt safe all the time in that situation—you're never getting a return, it's either a fair catch or a touchback.

As for the other decisions: I was surprised that the fourth down model thought the field goal was basically a 50/50 situation. It liked going for it on fourth and two. It hates the other three decisions, each of which costs you about a third of your expected win percentage. You can't punt down two scores with 12 minutes left!  So we were still correct to trash Day for being tight-weak since he got one of his four fourth down decisions correct and even that was the debacle discussed above.

The weird play at the end of the half. Michigan appeared to have a McCarthy QB draw conversion that got them down to the 40 but OSU was given a belated timeout and Michigan had to try again; two false starts ensued. After looking at it more carefully it appears that the call wasn't nearly as late as it seemed at first blush. Schoonmaker and the OSU MLB stop playing basically on the snap. The other players just couldn't hear it.

Late half clock management. I was basically fine with Michigan's approach at the end of the half. Running the clock down on that third and two removes any chance they'll have a drive and still gives you time to do something. I would have preferred that Michigan snap the ball with around 30 seconds on the clock instead of 20, because an unsuccessful third down and a punt still leaves them with 15-20 seconds they can't really do anything with and that extra ten seconds might come in handy as you try to set up a field goal attempt.

BONUS SCHADENFREUDE SECTION

Folks, I heard you cry out as one for a little TWIS. I will oblige:

@bigg_laww DO YOU LOVE OHIO STATE AS MUCH AS THIS GUY! #view #ohiostatefootball #collegefootball #ohiostatefans #ohiostatevsmichigan #buckeyes #fyp #barstoolsports #friendsdad ♬ original sound - BIGLAW

Also:

pic.twitter.com/URQJ8naxYu

— 45-23. (@MikeR5577) November 27, 2022

Also:

@morganwood23 #ohiostaebuckeyes #osuvsmich ♬ original sound - Morgan

Also:

"Enjoy it, I don't care"
-a person who DEEPLY cares pic.twitter.com/6nBoSNQfSG

— Sauerz (@_Sauerz) November 27, 2022

Ace found the local newscast:

This is a person who is literally employed by OSU's 247 site:

We folded. We FOLDED. WE FOLDED. We are not tough. We just got our pants pulled down on national TV by Michigan.

Ohio State gave up FIVE touchdowns longer than 45 yards, Michigan kicked our effing faces in by a 27-3 margin in the second half. Ohio State was LEADING AT HALFTIME AND THEY LOST BY TWO SCORES!!!!

The Bucket of Bullets is ready to burn it down and yes, it’s not too early to say it. Ryan Day is not remotely looking like the guy and I’m not going to sit around for a thirteen year run of John Cooper *********. Hell, this is our WORST HOME LOSS TO MICHIGAN IN NEARLY 50 YEARS!!!!

It was the most points we’ve allowed to Michigan since WORLD WAR II!!! It was the most points per play EVER allowed by Ohio State (8.83) in this game in the entire history of the FOOTBALL PROGRAM AGAINST ANY OPPONENT.

Correction: 28-3. Also three scores and change, not two scores.

And the only fanbase taking Saturday's result harder than OSU are the swingin' helmets down in Lansing:

What really sets me off is that UM is getting rewarded for their cowardice at the end of 2020. If they don’t duck OSU at the end of the Covid season, I’m not sure that the last two seasons would unfold as they have. If they played in Columbus in 2020 and OSU beat them 49-10, do they run Harbaugh out of town? He was already on his last leg entering 2021. Just sucks that cheaters get rewarded for cheating.

The drums of war beat in the deep of the underground:

Now that we are in a state of open war with the University of Michigan, their media apparatus and law enforcement, we need a strategic operational plan for how to win this war. Tom Izzo winning basketball games isn’t enough. MSU needs to find opportunities to weaponize messaging, turning the hearts and minds of the people of the state of Michigan against the University of Michigan. It may take 20 years, or 50, or 100, but we need to do it. I would like to explore some of these opportunities in this thread.

Finally, OSU's entry into the National Spelling Bee:

Ohio State is the epidemy of their coach, they have the character of their coach.

HERE

GIFs! You were expecting something different? A BPONE treatise.

Best and Worst:

The biggest takeaway from this game, beyond the final score, beyond the 2-game winning streak in the series, beyond HOW these past two games have gone, is that whatever mythos that existed around the Ohio State Buckeyes as a team and program has evaporated into the ether. And it didn’t evaporate slowly, like a glass of water left out on the porch during the summer.  No, it was flash-boiled like you dropped that glass on the surface of the Sun, and it all happened about when Donovan Edwards ran basically untouched for the second of two 75+ yard TD runs in the span of about 4 minutes and choo-choo’ed the Buckeye faithful into their late-afternoon festivities.  Up to that point, even with Edwards having ripped off a huge TD run the last time he touched the ball and Stroud throwing a pick on the previous drive, the game was still vaguely competitive given OSU’s potential offensively.  For most of the game UM’s defense had been the definition of bend-but-don’t break, letting OSU churn out yardage between the 20s but keeping them out of the endzone (on the day the Buckeyes made 4 trips to the redzone and only scored a TD on 1 while also turning it over once), and had survived by winning way more of the high-leverage moments than we’ve come to expect in this rivalry.  And so it makes poetic sense that when Michigan was finally going to slay this beast once and for all, to destroy the notion that the invisible hands of fate worked for the Buckeyes, to drive the Akron teenager playing NCAA Football so OSU wins a bunch of titles to such despair that he throws his controller into the wall and rage-quits, it would be via a one-handed running back sprinting through a perfectly-blocked gap on 3rd-and-3 deep in UM’s territory and going straight to the fucking house.

State of our Open Threads:

"Fire" and "suck", as always, do what they do, and context certainly matters in yesterday's case:

"Suck" was arguably the most interesting "turn on a dime" story yesterday. Of the 49 mentions of "suck", only 12 of them came in the second half, and all were basically some variation of "Ohio Sucks". The remaining 37, all in the first half, were directed specifically at our offense, which took a moment to get started. "Fire" was similar - of the 62 mentions of fire, many in the second half were positive, like "keep playing with fire", where as in the first half, many of you wanted people fired or wished we played with fire. As I mentioned in a thread last night, I can't abide by the typical content of these threads in the moment, so we sift through the aftermath to make sense of it.

dragonchild breaks down some OSU effort plays… or lack thereof:

Play #2:  Johnson post route, arms are for running

I want to go into this one with two assumptions:  To play CB, you absolutely need to be able to lift your arms over your head to make plays on jump balls.  Right?  So it's not like anyone there has an injury or disability preventing that.  Second, to run fast, you should pump your arms vigorously.  It's what all the speedfast people do.  So, #13 Cam Martinez, what are you doing?

You're already burned crispy.  He's waving for the ball.  Now would be a good time to kick it up a notch.

Anytime now, buddy.

He's at the fifteen.  Pump your arms!

Never mind, we'll take the six, thank you.

War Dad content of the week:

In 1879 the British Empire was nearing the zenith of its Victorian greatness. For most of the 19th Century the British Army had walked through most of its wars, having the occasional scare to be sure, but never staring down the specter of defeat.

In January of that year the Empire decided it wanted to expand its holdings in southern Africa, and that meant an invasion of the Zulu. To say the Zulus were warriors would be to say that water is damp, or that MSU players are of questionable civic and moral virtue. It is a vast understatement. But the British knew their own strengths and experiences, and more importantly they thought they knew the Zulus.

ELSEWHERE

I cannot recommend the Fullcast After Dark enough. "Extreme tweeting from Family Court energy" is a phrase that happened.

Bill Connelly's SP+ had Michigan with an 83% win expectancy, their second-worst of the season to last week's 37% versus Illinois. Michigan moved up to second in SP+ proper. They're 3.5 points adrift of Georgia.

Wetzel:

This is still the Big Ten, still the Midwest and even on an unseasonably sunny afternoon, The Game was won with force and fight, not flair and fashion. For all the future NFL players in scarlet and gray, it was like Woody Hayes wouldn’t recognize the place.

“You could feel their will break,” said Michigan linebacker Michael Barrett. “They haven’t been used to getting hit or being as physical as we came to play and you could just feel it go out of them.”

The words have to sting here, in part because they are true and in part because this is a proud program that once prided itself in doing such things to others and in part because Jim Harbaugh — Jim Freakin’ Harbaugh — who they nearly drove a stake through his career, came back from the coaching brink to do this to them.

Wetzel also asserts that this weekend's championship games should be for seeding only and that USC or TCU should not be punished for having to play an extra game that Ohio State does not.

Forde:

The scarlet-and-gray exodus was on, fans herding out of the Horseshoe after one more long and demoralizing Michigan touchdown. But it’s a big place, Ohio Stadium, and quite a few lingered to the extremely bitter end. Many of those who stayed were there to vent, having to raise their voices over the “Let’s Go Blue” chants from the visiting fans.

“You suck, Day!” One shouted from the front row in the general direction of Ohio State coach Ryan Day. “You suck! Bring back Urban Meyer!”

A few seats over, another fan yelled, “Twenty-five to three in the second half! Twenty-five to three!”

Actually, it was worse than that. It was 28–3, on the way to a 45–23 romp of historic proportion.

Andrew Kahn on the sideline:

Three plays later, Edwards broke another run, somehow shooting up the middle for an 85-yard touchdown that would have held up in your two-hand touch game on Thanksgiving on Thursday.

Co-offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore got in on the sarcastic waving, yelling “This is our s---!” Added Jenkins: “What ya’ll thought? We’re not the team from up north. We’re Michigan!”

Maize and Blue Nation:

I don't know what happens in Columbus now. Obviously, whatever was done to fix what happened in 2021 didn't take. Michigan throttled Ohio State, in their house, with no weather-related excuses this time. The Buckeyes knew exactly what was coming, and had zero answers. CJ Stroud is a great passer who is surrounded by amazing receivers...but what I never saw from Stroud on Saturday or even a year ago, was a grittiness – a will to win by doing more than what is asked of you. He's a competitor to be certain, but he's not leader. Ohio State has had their share of great leaders at quarterback...and thus, they've had tremendous success versus, well, everyone. But Stroud is not that guy.

The views were many:

.@FOXSports' record-breaking weekend continues!

Michigan-Ohio State was the most-watched regular season CFB game EVER on FOX with 17 million viewers

- Most-watched regular season CFB game on any net since 2011
- Peaked at 19.6 million viewers
- Up +3% over 2021's matchup on FOX pic.twitter.com/DdZglhNJqP

— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) November 27, 2022