Best:  Happier

I’ve been a member of this site for about 13 years this weekend, with my first Diary posted this same weekend 13 years prior chronicling the “forgotten victims” of Michigan entering what turned out to be nearly a decade of mediocrity, of “[t]his is Michigan, fergodsakes” not being enough to beat almost everyone who lined up across from them.  I welcome you, as you’re admiring UM’s East Division championship and preparing to watch the Wolverines battle the Hawkeyes for the Big 10 title in Indy on Saturday, to read through some of those old posts and witness the evolution of someone who misjudged a ravine for a pothole and spent almost every year coming to grips with the reality that preseason optimism tends to end in postseason frustration.   Honestly, I’m a pretty cynical person in a lot of ways but I’ve always had a blind optimism when it comes to sports, especially Michigan football.  And the thing is, football was never my first love – I liked basketball way more growing up, finding football interesting mostly because Barry Sanders was making professional athletes look like fools every Sunday for most of the 90s.  But at some point the hooks got into me and there they remain, deep in my marrow even as the rest of my world (like us all) has changed over the intervening decades. 

It’s why I keep writing these Diaries, and why every time I consider stopping I just can’t shake it – it’s fun to root for something that isn’t life-or-death but still intrinsically “important” on an emotional level, that stupid ant hill that exists in everyone’s core being that they’ll battle ferociously over and can’t be dissuaded from holding dear – and processing those emotions via writing is cathartic.  I’ve never actually written one after a win against OSU – my first one was in 2012, a season that portended the fall of Brady Hoke (and the slow disintegration of Devin Gardner’s ribs) as undefeated but unranked OSU (thanks to the the fallout from Tattoo-gate the Buckeyes were barred from postseason consideration because Luke Fickell’s squad absolutely, positively needed to lose to Florida in the Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl to go 6-7).  That was Meyer’s first year in Columbus, where he proceeded to turn a very good college football team into the second- or third-most dominant program in recent college football history (depending on your opinion of the ACC and benefit it’s general mediocrity gives a team like Clemson to skate through a season with minimal disruption).  Over the next 8 contests, the Buckeyes outscored UM 331-216, with only one game in the past 6 being a 1-score affair, and writing about each game morphed into a macabre rationalization about how maybe next year will be different, or how there was a silver lining once you wiped away all the blood and entrails from the field.  But more than anything, I was starting to believe this was the new steady state for Michigan football, that even with Jim Harbaugh and top-level recruiting, facilities, academics, and history there was just a Grand Canyon between “good college football teams” and “College Football Chimera that breathes fire, eats lightning, and craps thunder while turning out an assembly line of future NFL stars running rampant against everyone else.”  Big-ass quote incoming:

I'm not going to engage in the usual "should Michigan fire Jim Harbaugh?" discussion because it's a stupid conversation unless you have realistic replacements who could demonstrably make the situation better. Otherwise, you're trading in a top-10-ish team that loses to an historically great opponent for the opportunity to maybe field a top-10-ish team who loses to an historically great opponent. The coaches who could conceivably make Michigan more competitive against the upper echelon of college football (where OSU resides and Michigan decidedly does not) are guys like Saban, Dabo, Smart, or Meyer, and (a) none of those guys are going to leave their current situations to coach Michigan, and (b) frankly, I don't think their methods would work at Michigan for a variety of reasons. And this isn't to take some moral high ground; Michigan undoubtedly has skeletons in its closet. But Michigan's athletic department (and school's somewhat-staid culture overall) has made it abundantly clear they aren't in the business of pushing that envelop you frankly have to in order to maintain that top-level success that's eluded them for decades. And past that group you're getting, at best, different flavors of the same outcome or worse. And if you doubt me, ask yourself the last time Tennessee or Nebraska pop on the national radar beyond "check out how they lost THIS game!"

So I don't know anymore. This feels like Michigan's steady state. They'll beat OSU at some point; 00 does happen sometimes when a little ball goes around a Roulette wheel. But there's an ever-expanding gap between Michigan (and by extension the rest of the conference) and OSU, and it's unlikely to shrink barring a series of self-inflicted wounds by the Buckeyes. And let's be honest, even when they do, fate/hypocrisy steps in to smooth it over. For a long time I've said Michigan is going to have to catch OSU because they aren't going to come back to the pack, but at this point waiting OSU out may be Michigan's only hope. That or the NCAA's ever-loosening monopoly on player compensation lets Michigan, with it's massive alumni base of very successful people, unleash the money cannon and level the playing field that way. And yes, "we're so smart and successful we can spend money better than these dumb people" has totally never failed.

I wrote this in 2019 and it held true all last year as well – there wasn’t some magic bullet, some once-in-a-generation hire who could “save” Michigan because salvation wasn’t what Michigan needed.  They just needed a break, a chance to break through.  That was what made the early Harbaugh years so draining – they had some chances, some opportunities to make this a rivalry in more than an historical sense once again.  Do I think this win over OSU will upset the pecking order in college football going forward?  No, because college football isn’t a land of heroes and villains, where good triumphs over evil in a splashy, cinematic battle.  Teams like Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and the rest operate at their level because of recruiting, player development, and culture that doesn’t disappear because of a loss on a snowy Saturday in November.  But maybe THIS game, in THIS season, coming as it did after the tumultuous 2020 season necessitated a reevaluation of the program and staff by Harbaugh and the University, portends Michigan’s arrival into that upper tier of college football once again.  One’s stay in that spot is always ephemeral (ask Clemson, Oklahoma, FSU, etc. about it), but Michigan has every right and ability to stick around a while, to make most season-ending matchups with the Buckeyes de-facto conference championship games. 

I’m going to spend the rest of this column digging into the nuts-and-bolts of this win a bit, trying to put into context just how complete this victory was over a team that most figured was a shoo-in for a CFP spot.  But above all else I want to leave you with the sense that this isn’t 2011, where Brady Hoke’s motley crew escaped against a shell-shocked OSU team, a mirage of competence and a brighter future.  No, this was Michigan out-coaching, out-executing, and in many ways out-talenting Ohio State when the Buckeyes were (largely) the fully-operational battle station they are supposed to be, and UM did it without playing a perfect game.  They looked as fast, as strong, as coherent as the Buckeyes on both sides of the ball, and it always felt like they had an answer for what OSU would throw at them.  Now, Michigan will have to repeat this performance going forward every time they face the Buckeyes, but this is the proof of concept that it works, that “Michigan being Michigan, fergodsakes” works against their biggest rival, and that should be enough for every Wolverines in 2021.

Best:  Good Vibes

I don’t know how this Diary is going to turn out – I have joked in the past that when UM beats OSU this diary would be an opus, a cathartic deluge of prose dripping with emotion.  But as I sit here on Sunday, I’m just…happy.  I’m happy for the players, for the fans, for the coaches, for everyone who got to witness Michigan thoroughly manhandle the #2 team in the country, stamping their ticket to Indianapolis and a shot at a Big 10 title and with it a shot at the national title.  I’ve often chastised Brian and others on this site for failing to just enjoy this season, to stop worrying about the Buckeyes or the Nittany Lions or the Spartans with their knives out and enjoy the wins.  Beating the Buckeyes feels great, but so did beating the Huskies, the other Huskies, the Badgers, the Cornhuskers, and everyone else.  And though I initially thought OSU would pull out the win against UM on Friday afternoon, by the time I listened to the MGoRadio podcast on Saturday morning during my run I let that last bit of cynicism leave me and knew Michigan was going to win this game because what’s the fun in hoping for the worst?  It’s why Bryan MacKenzie’s proclamation of UM’s impending win felt so right, and why watching this game was a culmination of a season of good vibes.

When people got in board with this year being different depends on how thick a wall you had built around your heart to ward off the pain of disappointment; personally my epiphany occurred when they came back against Nebraska when McNamara crowed about the resilience of this club compared to recent vintages:

https://twitter.com/ThiccStauskas/status/1447050649397497857

It’s hard to describe, this lack of fear of the ceiling collapsing, because this isn’t a feeling we’re used to the last couple of years as a UM fan.  There’s less a creeping dread and more a sense of “fine, back to the salt mines” to pull out a win against a game opponent.

So even when OSU came back to briefly take the lead 10-7 after Michigan had sputtered following a superb opening-game TD drive, I didn’t fret this team going into a shell and not getting up off the mat because that’s never been their M. O.  Even in their loss to MSU, they still got stops when they needed to, they still made plays to put themselves in a position to win.  They won at Nebraska, PSU, and Wisconsin because they just kept coming, trusting in each other and the offensive and defensive gameplans they had to carry the day.  OSU had fired back but Stroud was still under constant pressure from Hutchinson and Ojabo and they hadn’t really busted any big plays; for the day OSU had only one play go over 30 yards and even some of their longer passes required acrobatics from their world-class receiving corps.  Michigan was struggling but OSU’s pressure wasn’t getting home and McNamara looked comfortable, and the game looked like two equals throwing body blows at each other, waiting for the other to flinch.  And so when OSU took that lead I had a sense UM was going to answer, as they had when faced with adversity before, and that’s exactly what they did.  It was McNamara spreading the ball to All, Schoonmaker, and Johnson, the latter streaking past OSU’s secondary and catching a 37-yard lob at the 2 yard line two plays after Haskins had steamrolled past OSU defenders for a 4th-down conversion.  Haskins then scored 2 plays later and at least at home the mood seemed to change.  OSU may have clawed back a FG to go into halftime only down 1, but Michigan looked like the more balanced, complete team.  Ohio State was clearly not used to marching up and down the field, dinking-and-dunking their way to scores while hoping to keep their QB upright under the constant threat of destruction by UM’s ends. 

You’ve undoubtedly read and/or seen the crazy stats from the second half, but just in case consider these numbers:

• Michigan scored TDs on all 4 of their non-kneeling drives.
• They didn’t face a single 3rd-down on any of those drives.
• The average length of those drives was 72 yards (!) covered in 5 plays (!!).
• Michigan only three the ball 4 (!!!) times in the half, going a perfect 4/4 for 77 yards.
• They ran the ball 17 times (!!!!) for 190 yards (5x!).

OSU was able to move the ball as well but at far greater difficulty, going 8/15 on 3rd and 4th downs and practically abandoning the run (17 yards on 16 carries) while Stroud was getting pressured on numerous dropbacks despite his tackles committing sometimes-egregious holds on almost every play.  And after every Buckeye score Michigan roared back with an answer, usually on Hassan Haskins’s broad shoulders, to the point that by midway through that 4th quarter OSU’s defenders seemed…um…less-than-enthusiastic about trying to denying him near the goal line.

Hassan Haskins was the big story on offense, rushing for a record 5 TDs on 28 carries and 169 yards while (like the entire team) never recording negative yardage.  Blake Corum had the highlight-reel 55-yard run in the 3rd quarter but was clearly hobbled, and nobody else carried the ball more than once save McCarthy’s 2 scrambles.  I still remember watching Tim Biakabutuka’s sensation 313 yard performance against OSU in 1995 and assuming nobody would ever eclipse that day against the Buckeyes, but this game by Haskins is at least tied with that day not only because of his play on the field but the larger context of the game.  It may be hard to imagine but the tail end of the 80s into the 90s was a golden era for UM vs. OSU, as the Wolverines went 12-3-1 against the Buckeyes from 1985 to 2000.  John Cooper was the coach for a long portion of that run and while he fielded some great teams over that era but Michigan was either better or played the spoiler, and while he wasn’t fired because of his struggles against UM it certainly didn’t help.  Michigan may have lost to the Buckeyes the year before but those Wolverines weren’t burdened with 16 losses in the last 17 games like this team, nor was the perceived, if not actual, talent disparity so great.  No, this was a performance that was more than the sum of its amazing parts because with every first down, with every TD run, Haskins and Michigan were shaking off all that disappointment, all that, all that creeping inferiority complex that maybe we just can’t beat these guys.  And so it’s fitting that on Michgian’s final, emphatic TD drive it featured perhaps the quintessential Haskins run – him fighting off defenders with one harm while hurdling a poor, lost soul of a defensive back as the plowed his way toward pay dirt.

The other big story was the defense under first-year coordinator Mike MacDonald messing with CJ Stroud and stymying the powerful OSU offense all day.  Now, “stymie” in this case still means OSU picked up over 450 yards of total offense, throwing for nearly 400 yards while completing nearly 70% of their passes.  But man did they have to work for it to a degree they clearly didn’t expect.  I mentioned earlier that OSU only had one play over 30 yards; they came into the game with 34 such plays on the year and led the nation with plays over 50 yards.  But as we saw against Oregon, PSU, and Nebraska, the Buckeyes can gorge themselves on empty calorie yardage and if you keep Stroud moving and the backs largely a complementary piece of the offense you can limit their effectiveness in the red zone.  Alex mentioned in both FFFF and the MGoRadio podcast, OSU was only middling in the redzone because the threat of their receivers going over your head for 50 yards disappears when you’ve only got 30 yards to work with; it’s the same reason why MSU’s defense went from atrocious to okay once their corners knew balls over their head were destined for the bleachers and not the endzone. 

The driver of the defense, as he has been all year, was Aiden Hutchinson, who picked up 3 sacks on the day and probably could have had a couple more had he not been egregiously held.  Brian said in the game preview that Michigan’s chances of winning hinged heavily on whether or not Hutchinson would play like a Heisman Trophy winner; after the game Harbaugh stated as much that Hutchinson’s season-long dominance deserves just such recognition.  Hutchinson was unblockable all game, repeatedly smashing whatever poor soul(s) OSU tried to put in front of him.  And on the other side David Ojabo picked up another sack himself while repeatedly cutting off escape routes for Stroud and his backs as Hutchinson bore down on them.  Unlike in years past when OSU had a steady stream of high-end defensive ends, this year it was Michigan with the dominant ends while OSU’s highly-regarded line featured a slew of “pretty good guys” who still failed to put much pressure on Cade McNamara and J.J. McCarthy.  And perhaps just as importantly, guys like Hinton, Smith, and Morris kept containment and didn’t get gashed particularly often by Henderson or Stroud’s legs; even Donovan Jeter got in on the action when he swarmed Henderson for a 4-yard loss.  All year we’ve thought of Michigan’s interior line as “just guys”, but they’ve all played better than that and credit should go to MacDonald and Shaun Nua for unlocking their potential this year.  I mean, Michigan’s defense has shifted to put more pressure on the linebackers in terms of ID’ing plays but they wouldn’t be one of the best defenses against the run and pass if they had such glaring weak spots up front.

And credit must also go to the secondary, which gave up perhaps the quietest 394 yards in recent recent memory.  DJ Turner has emerged as one of the best corners in the league, always in the pocket of the receiver (he had 2 PBUs in this game), while Vincent Gray was always in contact with his player and limited yards after the catch while also pitching in with a PBU of his own.  Brad Hawkins, perhaps fittingly as one of the longest-tenured members of the defense, led the team in tackles with 9, including 7 solo, while Dax Hill was his usual ball hawk self while Rod Moore (tied with Hawkins with 9 tackles) and R.J. Moten made plays in space (and in Moten’s case almost came up with a pick that would have ended an OSU scoring drive).  When OSU’s receivers made big plays they typically were of the acrobatic variety; you rarely saw them streaking down the field unencumbered, and by the end of the game you could see their frustration as the OSU passing game’s rhythm was off and they couldn’t shake the Wolverine defenders.  Hopefully this game will replace whatever lingering visions fans still have of 2020 MSU, as this secondary has emerged as a strength of the team and has a lot of young talent with growth ahead of it.

That’s the thing about this game – it wasn’t a squeaker, one where Michigan played over its head while OSU stumbled a bunch.  If anything, OSU got a lot of the breaks that you’d assume would have doomed UM’s chances.  The Buckeyes fumbled the ball twice and recovered it both times, including once deep in their own end on a bobbled snap.  UM’s “fumble” was just Henning getting interfered with while trying to make the fair catch on a punt deep in UM’s end, and that non-call seemed even more inexplicable given the fact German Green was hit for the same penalty the drive earlier.  They picked off Cade McNamara in the redzone while they were perfect, and were 3/4 on 4th down, all in the second half.  They ran 18 more plays than Michigan, held the ball almost 4 minutes longer, and had two receivers go for over 10 catches and 100 yards.  Yes they had 10 penalties for 66 yards, but most were of the false start/procedural variety.  And yet, despite it all Michigan only trailed for a single possession all game and, if anything, probably should have won by more.  They put up nearly 500 yards of offense and it felt organic, a natural outflow of the offense they wanted to run and the holes OSU exposed.  The victory was earned, not gifted, and while that doesn’t mean all that much in the grand scheme of things (the maxim “a win’s a win” exists for a reason), it was the most fitting way for this team to end their regular season.

 

Best:  Woodson-esc

I have always been a bit loathe to utter his name in comparison to a dominant UM defender because it feels so hyperbolic to compare a good defensive player to one who remains the only defensive star to win the Heisman, with all the baggage that entails.  For one, there have been other players since Woodson who were as dominant, as disruptive, as essential to their teams’ success as to warrant this recognition.  If I had a vote in 2009 I’d have cast one for Ndamukong Suh, for example, and more often than not there’s a guy like Jordan Davis every year who spearheads a dominant defense and team.  Hell, the various Bosas and Youngs down in Columbus had memorable seasons at defensive end.  But in a lot of those cases, these dominant individual performances occurred in symphony with others on loaded defenses.  That 1997 defense was headlined by Woodson but had 4 other all-conference defenders and two guys who were named All-Americans in that or subsequent seasons, and was coming off a year where they were 8th in the nation in points allowed and had a lot of that production returning.

That was decidedly not the case this year.  After a 2020 year where the defense cratered to 36th per SP+ (after largely occupying the top-10/15 every year under Don Brown), UM replaced virtually its entire defensive staff and traded their 1st-round defensive end to the NFL in exchange for a first-time DC.  Now, Mike MacDonald came with some pedigree and all signs were pointing toward him ultimately making a successful transition, but I (like most fans, I assume) expected there to be some hiccups, some costs were expected.  And yet, here we stand at the end of November with UM #7 per SP+ on defense coming off a performance where they held the Buckeyes to their lowest total and per-play offensive effort of the season and their 2nd-fewest points all year.  And the driving force behind that renaissance was the evolution of Aiden Hutchinson from “pretty good defensive end” to “force of nature”.   Optimism was high coming into the year that he’d continue the progress we saw coming into 2020 before injuries derailed his year, but this seems almost this stupid prediction reads as almost insultingly underwhelming given how the year played out:

Hutchinson draws a ton of offensive attention or they run away from him. We are banging on the table for him to be an All-American, and feel only somewhat vindicated when he’s a first round pick.

Hutchinson has built a second residence at the top of the PFF defensive end rankings, and he’s already obliterated the single-season sack record at UM with 3 more games to play.  And just as importantly, he put up these numbers in the biggest games of the year – the dominating early performance against UW that opened up some eyes to this team’s potential, the turtling of Graham Mertz in Madison, the 9 sacks that led to odes being written about Clifford’s tragic heroism, to the rinse, wash, and dry cycle he put ever OSU offensive lineman in who dared to stand before him.  His constant pressure and ability to play in space (he’s also third on the team in tackles overall, leads them with 14.5 TFLs, and has 3 PBUs) has allowed the rest of the defense to flourish, from David Ojabo going from “hopefully we’ll start to see him be impactful” to “likely a first-rounder this year” to the entire secondary playing that much better because they know they only have to hold up for a couple of seconds instead of eons.  He’s not been just the straw that turns the drink; he’s been the glass, the coaster, and the sweet bliss that comes from sitting back and watching a team’s best-laid plans go out the window as this unstoppable wrecking ball smashes through it.  Michigan’s prospects for this season turned when Hutchinson announced he was returning for his final year, and he’s poised to end a magical final season with mountains of hardware, both personal and team-wide, on his mantle.  That’s unlikely to include a bronzed Desmond  Howard but he absolutely deserves that level of recognition.

 

Best:  Double-H and Friends

Hassan Haskins had a game that will be remembered in the annals of UM history and this rivalry for generations to come.  It wasn’t just the 5 TDs but how he got them, how dominant he looked with the ball in his hand.  This entire drive to go up 21-13 is quintessential Michigan, as it traversed close to 80 yards on the ground in 3 plays, but that final jaunt where Haskins latched onto All and used him to smash through Buckeye defenders into the endzone seemed to break the OSU defense to a degree we haven’t seen in recent memory.  And the offensive line, as they have virtually all year, just ground down OSU for all 4 quarters while keeping the QBs clean.  Corum had a couple of big runs on a bum wheel and while Donovan Edwards was relatively quiet after setting a record number of receptions last week, he still made an amazing one-handed grab on a short pass and showcased the mix of athleticism and skill that made him so coveted.  I’m running out of superlatives to say this is one of the best offenses in the country but it is, and it’s spearheaded by one of the best diamonds in the rough UM has unearthed in quite a while.

 

Best:  Humility

https://twitter.com/nickbaumgardner/status/1464706588867010575

After last year the calls for Harbaugh’s head were cacophonous.  People saw him as old, tired, and past his prime, and names like Campbell, Fickell, and Fleck were thrown around as possible options to replace him, young guys who could bring back the fire and passion everyone saw early on in Harbaugh’s tenure.  But Harbaugh was retained with the type of “put up or shut up” contract “extensions” that cut his salary in half and lowered his buyout.  But unlike other coaches who perhaps would have sulked or brought the gang back, he recognized the need to shake things up on his staff in order to inject some juice and new ideas into the program.  So he canned Don Brown, who got more blame than he deserved for last year’s struggles, and replaced him with an unknown at DC.  He turned over basically his entire defensive staff and most of his offensive staff, including getting rid of his well-regarding OL coach Ed Warriner and promoting Sherrone Moore to the role.  He brought in Mike Hart to coach the running backs even though Jay Harbaugh, the previous coach, had done a good job at the spot.  He brought in Mo Linguist to coach the secondary and then was able to pry Steve Clinkscale from UK when Linguist unexpectedly jumped to be the HC at Buffalo.  He took over more responsibility mentoring the QBs while (seemingly) relieving less control over the offensive gameplan.   He lost some weight.  And while I’m not a fan of reading too much into histrionics on the sideline as a proxy for passion or engagement, his demeanor was noticeably more animated this year and this energy was infectious. 

https://twitter.com/MaizeBlueNation/status/1447041033972371462?ref_src=…

I don’t know if this is the turning of a new page in Harbaugh’s history at UM, that he’s shaken off whatever was holding him back the past couple of years and is back to being Jim MF’ing Harbaugh.  But regardless, he swallowed his pride this year and showed a maturation and willingness to evolve with the times in ways people have questioned was possible in the past, and that’s a big reason this season has turned out as it has.

Best:  Everything

I want to write more, so much more, but I’ve just run out of time and we’re already at … jeebus … 5,500 words. 

I want to call out the linebackers, especially Josh Ross, who helped tamp down OSU’s runs inside and provided yet another vector of pressure on Stroud all day.  Ross in particular stopped a promising OSU drive dead in the 2nd quarter when he squirted through a gap in the tackles to hit Henderson on 3rd down and force a punt.

I want to again give credit to Cade McNamara, who played exactly the game that Michigan needed in this contest.  He threw an early pick on arguably his worst throw of the past month but, as he has all year, shook it off and just continued to execute the offense at its highest level while sprinkling in some huge throws, including the aforementioned bomb to Johnson that put got UM back the lead.  We’ve often lamented that UM struggles to get to The Game with a healthy QB and you see how valuable that can be; McCarthy had his moments (and he likely could have scored on his run in the red zone had he cut inside the blockers instead of trying to bounce outside) but McNamara kept Michigan moving, kept OSU from gaining much momentum early on, and played much better than the game manager moniker that was foisted on him to start the year. 

The tight ends were relatively quiet in the air but were rampant on the ground, particularly Erick All, who has emerged as perhaps the best TE under Harbaugh and one of the best in UM history.  The wide receivers, who I have taken to task multiple times this year for poor blocking, lackadaisical route running, and inability to win contested balls made plays in this game whenever called upon. 

Josh Gattis called a great game offensively, sprinkling in wrinkles and new looks but keeping true to Michigan’s offensive identity as a run-first outfit.  Watching the game in real-time and on replay it felt like some of those recent OSU-UM games where the Buckeyes just executed their gameplan so well that even though UM knew what was coming they couldn’t stop it.  Even midway through the game you could tell the OSU defense wanted nothing to do with UM’s running game, and whatever improvements OSU’s defense had made since Coombs’s headhpones were unplugged clearly wasn’t enough. 

And most of all, I want everyone here to go back and watch this game, this season, and cherish it.  You never know how a season will play out when it kicks off, and even the most entitled fanbases know in the back of their minds that dark days can happen at any moment.  So when you’ve got a chance to witness a magical run like the one Michigan seems to be one right now, take it in and enjoy it. 

Next Week:  Hawkeyes

I know the advanced numbers think Iowa is the markedly easier team to beat compared to Wisconsin, but I’ve seen Wisconsin this year and they are beatable in very Michigan-friendly ways.  They still can’t throw the ball and their offensive line and running game are…fine.  They mostly got healthy by beating up on the bad teams in the West.  Iowa is trickier.  They have an opportunistic defense and can slow down the run; they have the nation’s #4 defense per SP+…and the nation’s #92 offense.  Again, that #4 feels a bit inflated because of their crazy TO margin (+13) and they’ve had a harder time recently as better teams held onto the ball, but Kirk Ferentz coaches differently against UM and in a high-variance championship game anything can happen.  Michigan is the decidedly better team and I do believe they’ll be able to run over Iowa like some of the better teams have, but they’ll absolutely put up a fight on that side of the ball and UM is going to have to be ready.  But I don’t see their offense being able to do much and this just feels like a special year for UM.  Win in Indy and the improbable run to the playoffs is complete.  What a ride!