The Team, The Team, The Team

Everyone who put on the helmet made plays when it counted.

You forgot Keegan, who held his friend's broken leg while he screamed in agony then got up, put his hat back on and went to work. Stone Cold.

Screw Day, he realized he'd look bad mouthing excuses after being beaten by a Team playing without their Head Coach.

CJ comes up big in the biggest games.

Great post. The whole team came up huge yesterday. 

I'd add Quinten Johnson speeding to the ball and laying a huge hit on Egbuka to jar the ball free. That would've been a huge gain with Michigan only up 24-17, but instead OSU went 3 and out. 

Quinten Johnson - his pass break up on the second play of the three and out that followed the go ahead score is this games equivalent to Mikey's swat away last year.

Much of the season we've been chatting about these players getting so much rotation and assuming they wouldn't be out there during the critical stretch, but low and behold, the coaches approach to program depth pays off with a huge play. 

More honorable mentions:

Rod Moore for securing the INT

JJ for playing mistake free (simply look at McCord and we can see the value of simply avoiding mistakes.  Though that TD throw couldn't have been the right decision?)

Rolder for getting beat but recovering and tackling Stover to prevent a TD

Sainristil for the (bad form, but effective) tackle keeping that FG attempt before the half as long as possible

Corum for kinda blocking on JJ's long scramble

Quinten Johnson for the pass breakup.

I haven't watched the full game (just the highlights like 5 times), but it does kinda seem like both teams played great, all the players played great, and McCord's first interception was the only real unforced mistake.

Excellent post.  Shout out to Coach Harbaugh too.  The culture of this team starts at the top.  The guys kicked it up a notch after Zak went out and Coach Hart had the players out on the field in a show of support for Zak.  Coach Harbaugh was with Zinter family & Zak at the hospital after the surgery (no surprise)  fwiw.

Excellent post.

I’d like to note Charles Woodson’s post game comments about Will Johnson being out of the game.

Woodson said he was invited to address the team Friday night and toward the end of his comments, Sainristil stood up and said something like “if there is adversity, look to me and I will lead us through.”

On the broadcast, Woodson said Sainristil did just that by stepping in to cover MHJ and ended by saying he loves Mikey Sainristil.

Sainristil is a leader on and off the field.

Edwards made a beautiful pass on the run after selling it that he was rushing...Most versatile athlete we have on the offense.

I’d like to add Mullings to the list .  Great kid.  Only got a handful of snaps but blocked well and set up Edwards run for one of the key first downs at the end.

I think Jim's comments about Day being on born on third base and the players driving home the narrative that osu isn't as tough as we are are unheralded heroes as well here. 

MHJ was the best player on the field yesterday. He got 9 targets. OSU ran the ball 25 times or so. It seemed to me that Day was too focused on proving Ohio State's toughness running the ball and not scheming up more and more ways for Harrison to get the ball. Due to the narrative that has been building for multiple seasons now. I saw somewhere Harrison said he had never faced more doubles before, and perhaps on a rewatch I will notice something. But my thinking so far has been that Day was too focused on winning a certain way to prove a point and not focused enough on utilizing his best weapon.

Is anyone out there "rewatching" generous enough to share? 

I've gotta disagree with Ryan Day. He took some easy opportunities at the end of the game to do right, but his staff is falling apart in ways that reflect poorly on him. His assistant fighting with Roman on social media, last year's incident in the skull session with Brian Hartline, and his AD got into a fight with a staffer? At some point the culture of the program is a cesspool and that reflects on the head coach. 

I'm pretty sure OSU was running a screen to the opposite side on WJ's INT.

McCord either just had his head up his ass and forgot the play or thought Michigan's defenders to the screen side had sniffed it out and were beating their blocks so he chucked it at his safety blanket.

Or maybe it was a fake screen all along with the idea to clear out everyone and have MHjr make a play and then go back to it later as a real screen. Either way a heads-up play by Johnson with a great return through traffic.

Let's have some Orji love!  [read it in a Borat voice: "very nice"]  

Big plays at a crucial stage of the game.  Great, gutsy call by Moore.  Great execution by Orji and the offense.

CJ has 1 bad drop per game and then is lights out. He got his out of the way on the first drive this time. I choose to believe that was his plan. 

I don’t usually read the diaries, but I’m glad I did. I had been expecting a CJ Appreciation thread on the message board, but it never materialized. He has been a true unsung hero. 

My unsung hero is Sherrone Moore, the Offensive Line coach.  It's not easy losing an all-American guard, but there was little to no drop off when the line was reconfigured. Think about it--in the biggest game of the year you lose one of your most important players at crunch time in the game, and you go FORWARD. That's a credit to the preparation of the players and the unit coach.  

Sherrone Moore, 2023 Broyles Award Winner.

such a good summary and thanks for doing this.

the only thing i have to add:  Blake Corum's jump cut on the 2nd TD was so good, it faked Bredeson's towel out of his jersey!  (start at like 5:09 of the parkinggod highlights)