I think a lot of people would say that in 2015, Durkin at least gave us a chance,

I've never heard anyone say that.  That was a debacle against an OSU team that had scored 14 points the week before.

Last year was a debacle also.  That OSU team had scored 27 against PSU, 30 against Minnesota, 36 against Nebraska, 20 against Purdue, 26 against MSU . . . it was not the offensive juggernaut that this year's team was.  They had one matchup advantage (against our 3rd corner) and just attacked it mercilessly to the tune of 62 points.

This year is a little more defensible because they've been a machine.  It'd still have been nice to get a red zone stop here and there.  Redzone D was an issue all year, for whatever reason.   

My concern is that Ryan Day - who was Boston College's OC at the same time Brown was their DC - may be particularly familiar with Brown's tendencies.  Having Mattison and Washington now on their staff doesn't help matters either.

It's obviously a bad situation. In a sense we're splitting hairs between all of the bad situations over these years. And the question about what a replacement could do differently is necessary in considering any such decision. 

I think a big factor in the way people are feeling is how those OSU touchdowns have come over the last two Games. Getting gashed and bombed repeatedly is affecting the emotional side of the argument in a big way. 

And it sure as hell doesn't help when their best player fumbles on an early run only to have the ball bounce directly into his arms again without breaking stride. I know this is a non sequitur, and it was a blowout regardless.  

I think Michigan should least poke around to gauge interest.  DB did so last year with Temple and it looks like he's doing it again for BC.  One under the radar name is Mike Elston.  I know he's followed Kelly but he's been pretty solid at ND as both a coach and recruiter and his background is DL. 

It's not just a Brown scheme problem and what he "does"...it's the players we have just can't match up.  There's bits and pieces, but since Mo Hurst, we have had nothing at the DT position and it's killed us.  Brown and the staff as a whole need to $tep up and recruit

Brown's D is a liability unless he has a full size DL, thats, you know, good.  Because the center of field is wide open and his rushes get far too up the field.   The epic fail is having no DT...none.... even with just Solomon, its a fail... theres no depth at all.....its as if they put all recruiting attention at OG and forgot DT.    Yes, I understand the moving target idea and if you swing too high, you can end up with nothing, because the top recruits are fickle.    This is why Harbaugh needed to go back into Ohio and hard, because these players want to play either for OSU or for us, and aren't gonna wane.

If you look at Alabama's last three losses and most of their losses in general it was because they gave up 40 or more points.  The reality of college football at the elite level is that offenses are going to be way ahead of defenses.  This is why Saban changed his offensive philosophy because even Alabama with first dibs on every best 5 star blue chip is unable to successfully stop an elite offense.

The only advantage a great defense will give you at this level is the hope that a great individual play is made to occasionally thwart a drive.  

Michigan played a sloppy game on offense.  OSU has two All American candidates plus a Heisman candidate in Chase Young.  If UM had played a relatively clean game they probably would have scored 40 at least if not closer to 50.  

There are pros and cons about Don Brown's future at Michigan. The game is always changing. The fact that the Michigan defense could not stop Ohio State's offense either in passing or stopping the run is alarming.

How is it our defense can get torched against a WIsc team this year and a PSU team of 2017? 

The question is if Harbagh and find a younger up and commer as DC if Brown were to leave.

Totally agree on Don Brown. He's a tremendous coach, and it hurts to see fans calling for his replacement based on a couple games without understanding what actually happened. Consider the following:

1. The offensive game has evolved rapidly over the past five years, and even the best defenses are giving up more points than ever before.

2. Brown had far less to work with this year than last, especially on the D Line. He did admirably well in covering that weakness throughout the year.

3. Brown adapts. My estimate from watching games (far different from what announcers say) is that we played about 50:50 zone vs. man coverage. We shut down crossing routes. He's keeping our defense modern and adaptable.

4. Brown is an excellent motivator, which I think is one of Harbaugh's weaknesses. 

If Harbaugh leaves, I'd honestly like him to take the head coaching position. 

I agree with you. If you are overmatched on the line of scrimmage, it's going to be a long day, and this year we were woefully short of defensive tackles. We got virtually no pressure on Fields when they passed and were gashed by huge holes when Dobbins ran.

Our DC needs to be a monster recruiter. 

Interesting that the farther away we get from DL recruited by the Hoke staff, the worse our DL gets.

Thank you for putting the effort into this. I am on the fence on Brown - not in terms of if he is good enough to coach here (he is), but if he is too aggressive against big play teams. I think aggression can sometimes work against us. Even though it seems like we have great third down success it seems that we always let up the long one on third down. Saturday's game was no different. I also was not shocked to see a certain player getting blown by a few times (just like Wisconsin and PSU the other year). I don't know what it is about the safety play outside of Jabrill Peppers but too many long busts. I'd be interesting in figuring out how the team slows them down. If you go to more of a bend don't break approach on defense against OSU you can limit possessions. It is clear our offense can hang but our defense is still overmatched. The only way to fix that is to slow the game down. Offensively, we couldn't run enough this year to slow it down. Maybe that changes in the future. It makes me wonder, how would a team like Army change the complexity? How would other teams change the complexity?

I would love it if the team was able to employ a stronger NT and get some better performance against the run game so that we could play some additional CBs to spy a player like Dobbins out of the backfield and limit big plays.

Great post!  I also think any data older than 2012 is pretty irrelevant. You can't compare defensive stats back when offenses were i-form rock-throwers.

Intelligent analysis....bottom line is that we need bigger and better d-line guys like we had in 2016.....

Don Brown absolutely had an answer for JT Barrett in 2016/17.  They were not moving the ball well on us all game. In 2016 it was 2OT with a horrible spot.  In 2017 we were leading until Barrett went down and Haskins came in and went 9/9 with 2 TD's and led a comeback.  Those games were lost because our offense was inept, can't blame the defense, you beat most teams you hold under 20 in regulation.  

2014/15 OSU was so talented they could simply out-athlete almost everyone they played. We had fairly young defenses both years. 

OSU has evolved considerably since the Braxton Miller/JT Barrett read option days.  I think Brown had great game plans for JT Barrett.  He wasn't going to throw for 300 to beat us.  

Very clear that the 2018 OSU offense was radically different and a departure from anything they have ever had before.  Haskins ate us alive, Brown had no adjustments for the crossing routes and their passing game was on fire against us. They spent the 4th quarter turtling against us, could have scored 80 if that was their objective. I would say that is the outlier in this conversation, we won't see that again.     

2019 they hit us with an entirely different approach, one that looked a lot more like pre-Urban OSU than his read option offense.  They spent the entire PSU game showing us exactly what they planned to do against us.  They lined up, ran bash and power right at us all day long, put the game on Dobbins.  I think they threw two or three crossing routes all day and Fields hardly ran at all.  They had the deep routes all day long, thankfully the wind was a factor so they did not connect.  Neither PSU nor we could stop it, both of us allegedly had great run defenses.  

Fields played that game with a sprained MCL and it was clear he was not looking to run the ball and his mobility was limited.  Its scary to think that OSU played that game with a QB who was less than 100%.  In all likelihood he will be a more complete QB next year and some of their rising WR's might be the best they've had in the past 20 years.  Its not going to get any easier to scheme against them. 

Day gets a lot of credit but Kevin Wilson is the straw that stirs the drink for OSU.  His offenses going back to Oklahoma have been great at adapting to the personnel he has and exploiting every weakness his opponents present.  When he was at IU he gave everyone trouble with a vastly outmanned offense.  Now he has insane talent.  Best we can hope, someone give his ass a job.  

Good stuff, but you're lumping JT Barrett OSU together with Kevin Wilson OSU.  Those two offenses should be considered separately, and when you do that, you'll see that the boom or bust defenses M has fielded during the Kevin Wilson portion of OSU's history were incorrect approaches.

To defeat the JT Barrett offense, Don Brown was glorious.  That switch has flipped to OFF for good though, and M has been giving up two TD's per quarter to OSU ever since.  For Kevin Wilson, Michigan should switch to a zone heavy, bend don't break, force as many turnovers as possible approach.  Essentially they're unstoppable, so steal possessions instead.  

Here's a comparison of the other top teams in the conference the last 3-4 meetings.  DB wasn't there in 2015 and Wiscy has only played them 3 times in the last 5 years.

          UM     PSU    MSU     Wiscy

2016  30       21        17        NA

2017  31       39        48        30

2018  62       27        26        27

2019  56       28        34        38

Ave    45       29        31        32

Based on talent I think we should be able to do better than those teams, but they all fare better than we do.  Now, our average was in line with where it should be in 2016 and 2017, then walked in Day.  So, it's possible that Day's familiarity with Brown is a problem.  Maybe he's uniquely qualified to beat Brown's defense.  I believe Brown was brought in the beat Meyer's offense rather than Day's.  Maybe now we need a different system.  But, this is alarming.  We shouldn't be comparing ourselves to Indiana, Rutgers, Maryland, etc.  We don't have to compare ourselves to Bama and Clemson, but we should be comparing ourselves the other top teams in the conference, not the average B1G team.  And, we don't compare well over DB's tenure against the other top B1G teams.  

Alabama is not as good as they usually are, there's a reason they're #12 out of top 10 for 1st time in forever, so that point is lousy.   Rest of the pts are pretty weak too.  When you make a lot of big chunk plays, possessions go quicker and you get more possessions, that's why they had more possessions last 2 years.  

That's not a reason to keep someone FYI.  The next guy might do better or worse.  If it's worse than get the next guy.

What I do know is it's not just Ohio State Don Brown has trouble with, it's any team that is good on offense.  His schemes don't work against teams with a pulse.

And now Mattison looks like a golden god with OSU talent.