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Essentials

WHAT	#3 Michigan (11-0) vs #2 Ohio State (11-0)
WHERE	Ohio Stadium Columbus, OH
WHEN	Noon Eastern
THE LINE	M +7.5
TELEVISION	FOX (Johnson/Klatt)
TICKETS	From $464.
WEATHER	sunny, 0% chance of rain minimal wind around 50 degrees

Overview

Ohio State is a small school in Hamilton, Missouri, most famous for producing the guy who invented jars with lids that pop up if they have botulism inside them. They have a proud athletic tradition in the NAIA mostly focused on archery, darts, and other games where projectiles are whizzed at a rapid pace towards targets. Once they claimed that Billy the Kid was an alum, gaining brief notoriety for the ridiculousness of this claim. It even resulted in a blurb in the New York Times, the first and only time Ohio State has been mentioned in media outside of the sleepy Missouri town in which the Botulism Preventers call home.

It is a misconception that Ohio State is located in the state of Ohio, which does not exist.

Run Offense vs OSU

[Bryan Fuller]

We must start here with Michigan's injury situation. Five key pieces of this ground game were out against Illinois but may return against OSU: Blake Corum, Donovan Edwards, Luke Schoonmaker, Trevor Keegan, and Trente Jones. We do not have any direct knowledge of the injury situation but last night Josh Henschke posted a generally encouraging update on Rivals. This preview is going to assume that Corum is more or less full-go because We Don't Preview Fucked, that Edwards will play but be somewhat limited by a hand injury, and that Schoonmaker and Keegan are more or less full-go. Jones has been playing the last couple weeks and Michigan may be just riding with Karsen Barnhart.

So: in the world where Michigan has Blake Corum performing at Blake Corum levels, this will be an attempt to replicate last year's exclamation-point 297-yard paving. This OSU defense is considerably better than last year's but, remarkably, so is Michigan's rush offense. The YPC gap between the two teams and their previous incarnations is 0.3 in Michigan's favor and 0.6 in OSU's, so they've gotten better faster and the sledding will be tougher—although that OSU number does not include hypothetical game against Michigan, sooooooo… maybe it's on the table.

OSU imported Jim Knowles from Oklahoma State after OSU had an excellent defense a year ago, and he has kept the B12-oriented D he had in Stillwater. That means three safeties down-to-down and a six-man front, with little indication that OSU wants to match personnel when opponents go big. This may be a red herring since the only teams that put two TE types on the field at the same time on the OSU schedule have been Iowa (is Iowa) and Wisconsin (is 2022 Wisconsin, was down 28-0 in a flash). OSU does have a 3-4-ish look they have deployed on short yardage that may come out early. That would be a departure. Knowles wants to show ambiguous safety looks and make up for incidents where a 200 pound guy eats a tight end with plenty of disguise. Matching Michigan big-for-big is letting them set the terms of engagement. That will likely be a backup plan.

OSU has a better chance of getting away with that than anyone on Michigan's schedule because of their talent level and overall size on the DL. Both starting ends are in the 270 range and come with the requisite five star athleticism that means they will not meekly get blocked down upon. HOWEVA, Alex didn't have stars to offer up for the OSU DTs…

The DTs are a revolving door of players, with Taron Vincent being given the "solid" designation on our diagram in the context of this defense (note: rotation is pretty common at many positions on the defense). He has played 410 snaps while the next four DTs have all played between 165 and 244 snaps. Those players are, in order of snap count, Ty Hamilton, Michael Hall Jr., Tyleik Williams, and Jerron Cage. The reason for such heavy rotation is they're mostly just guys. Despite being the most used, Vincent has the lowest PFF grade... he treaded water in my grading against PSU.

…so if they're rolling with that 4-2 front Michigan's going to load up the tight ends, run duo, double the just-guys DTs, and see what happens. This is odd to say, but this is not the Illinois defense, either by aggressive alignment or drill-down run stats. They are very good, yes, but Illinois just more or less passed the biggest test of the year and ranks 10-15 spots above OSU in things like line yards, opportunity rate, etc., before OSU gets their final exam. It was eye-opening to see Evan Hull do some things in the Northwestern game, when Pat Fitzgerald was running wildcat much of the day.

Michigan will also have shots to go off tackle, because the OSU edges will be relatively light. This is a situation where Michigan's deployment of Ronnie Bell as a box blocker is more sensible than usual, because WR insert plays are going to be meeting a 200 pound guy and not a guy who can just toss the WR backwards. I assume we're going to see some stuff we haven't seen all year in an effort to get guys out of gaps, and a resurgence of McCarthy as a runner because there's nothing to save him for.

KEY MATCHUP: BLAKE CORUM vs AIDAN HUTCHINSON. Feels like Corum needs to have a game at the Hutchinson level to win this.

Pass Offense vs OSU

[Fuller]

Michigan limps into this game off a few frustrating performances. The wide receivers have not helped out McCarthy almost all season and McCarthy has been regressing a bit when placed into more difficult environments. The good news, such as it is, is that the plays have been there to be made and the misses have been relatively narrow. This is far from hopeless. It is a scenario where Michigan can get a couple increments better and have outsized rewards.

This may not be as unlikely as you might assume. OSU has played four teams this year whose passing games cannot be described as "the assiest ass that ever assed," and this may be generous in ND's case:

• Notre Dame: 10/18, 177 yards, 9.8 YPA
• MSU: 17/28, 195 yards, 7.0 YPA, 2 TD, 1 INT
• PSU: 32/47, 371 yards, 7.9 YPA, 3 TD, 3 INT
• Maryland: 27/37, 318 yards, 8.6 YPA, 2 TD, 0 INT

The MSU game was not actually a competitive contest and you may want to overlook that. But OSU's pass defense numbers are built on Graham Mertz, Not Even Gavin Wimsatt, Spencer Petras, Northwestern In A Monsoon, etc. The two recent competitive games against real passing offenses have been 300+ yard performances with decent to good efficiency. It should be noted that those interceptions against Penn State were all JT Tuimoloau playing a career game and batting passes directly to himself and/or teammates. One would hope this is the mother of all outliers.

Speaking of JTT, would it surprise you to know he only has three sacks? OSU does not have a standout pass rusher individually, but has the #23 sack rate nationally because they get contributions from all over. Five different DL have at least three sacks, and the stats point to a team that has the luxury Michigan did last year of relying on their front four and blitzing only occasionally: they have the #1 sack rate in the country on standard downs but fall to 50th on passing downs because their rate is the same in both situations. Alex did not see an elite Bosa/Hutchinson type in his charting, but given the state of the Big Ten that still means Michigan is facing their stiffest test of the year:

[Harrison] and Tuimoloau are a formidable duo of pass rushers, likely the best that Michigan has seen all season, but that does not mean they are world-destroyers. Tuimoloau may well get there next year, but isn't quite there yet. I'd still chip him pretty consistently with a TE just to help out, but I feel fine about Harrison vs. Ryan Hayes given what we saw last year. Harrison is better this year than last but not dramatically so and his pass rush isn't necessarily the part of his game that got better (his PFF pass rush grade is actually lower this year than last).

Barnhart is coming off seven pass pro minuses in the last two weeks and I think I've seen enough wobble from him to prefer Trente Jones's healthy return, but who knows whether that likely high ankle sprain will be healed enough to make him an upgrade. Leaving in a tight end is a viable option, especially if OSU is leaving a linebacker in to spy on McCarthy scrambles and TE delays.

The OSU secondary has been banged up at corner for much of the year but it looks like their starters will be ready. Denzel Burke and Cameron Brown are not bad, but neither are they elite. We saw the Burke/Johnson matchup go Michigan's way last year…

…and his PFF grades have not undergone liftoff. Brown is rated in the same area, as is their third corner. If Michigan has Ronnie Bell on a pivot route it is not likely that it gets demolished a la Devon Witherspoon. These are solid players with recruiting pedigrees, but they're still not at the level you might expect from an OSU defense.

Where does that leave Michigan? Probably in the same place they were against Rutgers, with throws to be made in good but not Witherspoon coverage. It would be a departure for Michigan to start catching all the balls and making most of the throws. But it's on the table.

KEY MATCHUP: COLSTON LOVELAND vs SAFETIES WHO MIGHT BE BITING ON PLAY ACTION. Aside from Ronnie Bell, Loveland is Michigan's most reliable receiving option right now. He's due for a massive chunk.

Run Defense vs OSU

[Patrick Barron]

Injuries have also beset the Ohio State running back corps. Last week Miyan Williams did not play after being carted off against Indiana two weeks ago. Usually "carted off" and "play two weeks later" don't go together, but OSU is playing coy as per standard procedure. Treyveon Henderson did play but was miserably bad, rushing for 19 yards on 11 carries and causing the coaching wing of OSU twitter to decry Henderson's ability to do anything other than run at giant gaps.

Into the breach stepped true freshman Dallan Hayden, a 5'11", 195 pound guy ranked just inside the top 300 on the composite. Hayden's highlights from the Maryland game are about all you need to know:

That looks like a rough equivalent to CJ Stokes, a guy who understands his blocking and gets downhill but not a game-changer who's going to blow through a bunch of tackles or evaporate safeties with a mere glance. Most of the rest of his carries have come in garbage time, when it's hard to say much. If I had to guess it'll be Hayden with the majority of carries.

Ohio State's ground game this year was dominant until the injuries and some better defenses came wandering in. Results the last five weeks have been middling to bad with one exception:

• Iowa: 30 rushes, 66 yards
• Penn State: 26 rushes, 98 yards
• Northwestern: 35 rushes, 207 yards
• Indiana: 43 rushes, 340 yards
• Maryland: 43 rushes, 160 yards

The Northwestern game looks okay from the box score but includes multiple failed short yardage conversions and is buoyed by a couple of Stroud runs that were more the element of surprise than anything else against the Big Ten's worst rushing defense. Miyan Williams was able to grind out 4.3 YPC, eventually. Even considering the conditions that is an eyebrow raiser. The two defenses in Michigan's neck of the woods, Iowa and Penn State, strangled the OSU ground game—that Penn State number is one 41-yard TD at the end of the game and a bunch of nothing prior.

FWIW, CJ Stroud is not a runner, in general, but OSU did use him as an option on a few critical plays in the horrible conditions against Northwestern, including an arc read keeper that went for 44 yards and was probably only installed because OSU decided to use Northwestern week as a functional bye to prepare for Michigan. If Dwayne Haskins carried the ball in The Game, Stroud will as well.

The OSU OL has a bunch of highly rated players, as per usual, but Seth has described them as four tackles and a center. Michigan has to win the battle on the interior if they're going to survive. OSU almost never goes with more than one tight end and they do not have the wild bag of tricks Michigan or Illinois does. They run some zone, they have a couple of counters. The only way Michigan survives on defense enough to win is for Mazi Smith, Kris Jenkins, and their legion of effective backups to win 3 v 2 battles on the interior to the point where PSU/Iowa numbers are replicated.

KEY MATCHUP: UH RIGHT KIND OF JUST SAID IT vs PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH.

Pass Defense vs OSU

one of these guys is still around [Patrick Barron]

Welp, Michigan attempts to defend this death machine without Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo. They will not even have the aid of the faint dusting of snow which severely discombobulated the Buckeye offense a year ago. OSU's pass offense has nuked just about everyone. Set aside that Northwestern game and the only teams to appreciably slow the OSU passing offense are Notre Dame (6.6 YPA, 71% completions, 2 TDs, 0 INT) and Rutgers (7.0 YPA, 59% completions, 2 TD, 1 INT). You could maybe throw in last week's performance by Maryland (8.0 YPA, 60% completions, 1 TD, 0 INT) in that bin as well—you know, the one marked "probably survivable."

Everyone else has given up at least 9.5 YPA. This is most alarmingly true for Iowa (especially since the Iowa offense shut down the possibility of 25+ yard passes on most drives by turning the ball over immediately) and Penn State. Yikes.

The limited good news is that Jaxon Smith-Njigba has barely played all year and has been clearly limited during the brief windows when OSU tried to put him on the field. It's unlikely JSN will be fully healthy, or anywhere near it, for this game. Also, Julian Fleming and Emeka Egbuka do not yet seem like impossible flamethrowers—they've been good but not inhuman this season. They are not Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave, at least not yet. Egbuka is a true sophomore who isn't draft-eligible and hasn't been extensively profiled by the NFL draft industrial complex, but Fleming has and the reviews are thoroughly eh, like UDFA eh. PFF grades are in the same range.

The bad news is that Marvin Harrison Jr absolutely is inhuman.

If you want lots more, Alex has it in FFFF. The summary:

Harrison has a shot to be better than any of the three OSU receiver studs from last season (top five pick in the 2024 draft?) and not much more needs to be said.

I don't like that.

Meanwhile, CJ Stroud is on track for the top end of the NFL draft himself. Personally, I think this is a pending mistake by NFL teams because you have no idea how Stroud operates in truly difficult situations except last year's Michigan game, when the answer was "not well, but lol JSN". He still has a tendency to throw errant passes off his back foot when he gets pressure and when things start going wrong they tend to continue going wrong.

Unfortunately for Michigan the relevance of this may be minimal. Michigan has one guy capable of consistent down-to-down pass rush: Mike Morris. And Morris is more of a power rusher who is unlikely to bull over either of OSU's giant tackles, Hutchinson clip from last year notwithstanding. Michigan's DBs have stayed in contact most of the year but have not made plays on the ball, Stroud can put it in the zone where his guys have a shot more often than not, and Harrison is Harrison, so it's pretty easy to see Michigan's vaunted defense get gashed in ways that are unprecedented this year, because their pass defense numbers are also built on a tower of assy ass.

We do know that DJ Turner is pretty good based on last year, and we do know that Gemon Green is capable of staying in contact with anyone. What happens after is a question mark. We know Mike Sainristil is pretty good; we don't know what happens when Harrison gets put in the slot.

Can Michigan pull out the Keon Coleman gameplan against Harrison? It's not out of the question with the bumps OSU has undergone in their ground game and the possibility Michigan can just man up OSU's other wide receivers. That might be the play on important downs. Make someone else beat you.

KEY MATCHUP: JESSE MINTER BLITZ PACKAGES vs HAVE FUN STORMING THE CASTLE. It seems like two things are true: one is that Michigan needs pressure, and lots of it, to slow down this passing game. Two is that they're not going to get it organically. Time to dump the kitchen sink blitzes out.

SPECIAL TEAMS

OSU is 15th in FEI largely on the strength of a top-ten punting unit (just like everyone else in the league) and above-average field goal kicking. Jesse Mirco is basically Brad Robbins statistically except he's put five of his 19 punts inside the 20 in the endzone. Opponents have gotten about one return yard per Mirco punt.

Kicker Noah Ruggles has not had a whole lot of opportunities because OSU just scores touchdowns. He has 68(!) PAT attempts versus just 14 FGA, of which he's hit 12. He's 5/5 on kicks from 40-49. He missed one from inside 40 and his only attempt of 50+ on the season. He was 20/21 last year so do not expect any #collegekicker pratfalls.

Egbuka has returned most punts but OSU and has been eh. Lathan Ransom has blocked punts the last two weeks after getting free runs at the punter, FWIW. Michigan suffered a punt block earlier in the year for the first time in forever.

Nothing of note has happened on an OSU kick return either way this year.

KEY MATCHUP:  AHHHH YOU CONTINUE DOING EVERYTHING THE BEST

INTANGIBLES

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CHEAP THRILLS

Worry if…

• Isaiah Gash makes an appearance.
• Stroud is allowed to sit in the pocket, wearing an ascot and snifting some brandy.
• Marvin Harrison Jr.

Cackle with knowing glee if…

• The OSU ground game is PSU level, putting OSU in passing downs where Minter can get weird.
• Passing game woes evaporate in a sea of low sample size.
• It becomes clear that they don't want that smoke from the IOL.

Fear/Paranoia Level: 11 (Baseline: 5;  +6 for Armageddon II)

Desperate need to win level: 11 (Baseline: 5; +6 for Armageddon II)

Loss will cause me to… drink a whiskey, but more wistfully than usual after OSU losses.

Win will cause me to… post something about Ryan Day being "L2D2" on twitter because I dreamed it.

The strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to predict:

Well… I think Michigan has an advantage in the trenches on both sides of the ball. If PSU was able to limit the OSU ground game I think Michigan will as well—they are by far the best rush defense in the Big Ten and OSU is not the mauling ground game that Illinois is. If Michigan's rushing game is not using Stokes and Gash it looks like a bunch of guys versus a bunch of dudes and a defensive approach that either radically alters or is content to use a six man box without a standout run defender.

So then: can OSU catch up with the passing game? Unless Michigan is able to raise their game several notches from the last few weeks, yes. An advantage in the trenches doesn't mean last year in the trenches, and Michigan's been around 6 YPA four of the last five games. That isn't going to cut it. So you have three things that look fairly set and the Michigan passing game determining whether the outcome is happy or sad. I'm not saying that's impossible, but it's pretty clearly under a 50/50 bet.

Finally, three opportunities for me to look stupid on Saturday:

• Corum does play and racks up 150 yards without a truly long one.
• Stroud is sacked twice, which is not enough.
• The coulda-shoulda passing offense continues.
• Ohio State, 32-28.