OSU is More Talented - The False Narrative Continues

stop. no need to play a victim card or lack of respect card, the game already proved your point.

Cumong main! Ohio always gets higher rated players but, always a but, we develop talent better. Our Culture is excellent right now.

According to 247's Team Talent Composite, the Buckeyes have had one of the Top Five "talented" rosters for the last eight (8) seasons - yes, EIGHT in a row.  In fact, the Buckeyes "roster talent" has been Top 3 in seven of the last eight seasons.

It seems that you could make an argument that no team has done less with their talent than the team in Columbus.

But, that may be an entirely different discussion.

From my perspective - they could evaluate Michigan's talent as being "very low".   And, if they did - I'd just point to the record over the past two seasons.

It’s a recruiting rankings gap. The talent thing is not so straightforward. 

I think ESPN wants OSU in the CFP in the worst way and will use this for the idea that OSU is one of the 4 best teams narrative. If you play with 538 and its CFP predictor, OSU only has a 52% chance if one of the champion teams loses (USC specifically). If you play with ESPN, OSU's chance is always over 50%. Even if USC wins, its chances are somehow less than OSUs. I hope the CFP watches film. TCU gave some pretty gutty performances to get to 12-0. USC sure looked solid against ND. This is covered elsewhere but I am pretty cynical about ESPN while Herbie is on staff. They will push OSU into the CFP at any cost and giving them more ink and pictures (as they did on the front page of the college football page) along with this narrative is certainly one way to do it. 

I'll take our Locker Room Heroes over the stars. ESPN and OSU can eat crow. Go Blue! 💙

Stars matter - but its just one data point....during Michigan's losing streak people pointed to OSU's recruiting rankings and said that was the reason Michigan couldn't compete.

3 five star prospects had major contributions for Michigan - JJ, DE and Will Johnson on Saturday. Without them, Michigan would not have won that game. But teams win championships, not individuals

you can have more talent; doesn't mean you are a better team however.

I think the 'more talented' narrative holds water if looked at through the lens of recruiting rankings.

Individuals can over- or underperform their recruiting ranking. We see that all the time (see: Graham Mertz at Wisconsin, or Hutchinson last year putting multiple 5* offensive lineman on their ass). A team can also, in aggregate, over- (Michigan) or underperform (Texas A&M) their recruiting rankings. 

However, there is truth to the general rule that more talent translates to better football teams. (See: HTTV 2022's breakdown of the blue chip ratio for teams that have won national championships, and how a 50% blue chip ratio was the floor for a NC team). For a more relevant example, look at our game last year versus Georgia: we got multiple RPS wins that were negated by freak athleticism.

I don't think it's wrong to say Michigan has the better team, but Ohio State has better talent. I also don't think it's wrong to say that Michigan needs to narrow that talent gap if we want to keep winning consistently at the elite level. Whether that's due to pairing freak athleticism + coaching, or even just having backups when players are injured, we (just like every other elite team) need that for sustained success.

Success in college football programs can't really be reduced to talent, player development, or coaching. It's all three (plus a lot of other things).

The argument that Michigan won the last two due to player development when upper class guys have had three defensive coordinators and three offensive coordinators (including this year's co-team) doesn't click for me. I can buy the argument that Michigan's schemes both on offense and defense seem to either exploit weaknesses, or tend to neutralize their strengths, but I am not sure that withstands careful scrutiny. 

The one wildcard that seemed to break Michigan's way was Michigan quarterback play. JJ made several throws he hadn't made all year, all in the most important game, when the Buckeye game plan assumed the very opposite capability. What do you call that? Coaching? Development? Luck? How JJ plays the rest of the year and beyond will inform that narrative. But that's all it is: a narrative, arranged with hindsight and constructed after the fact and not in the crucial moments that made the difference on a Saturday afternoon in Columbus. 

They are more talented overall. They are just not even close to being a better football team. 

The pendulum swings both ways in terms of stars.  5 stars can disappoint when not coached or put in positions to excel and 2-3 stars can do the opposite, shining brightly or just plain underscouted in states that aren't typically pipelines or bigger prep schools.  The latter may not get the "starz" but they are absolutely diamonds in the rough. (Think Ronnie Bell)

Our very own heralded transfer center, a Rimington trophy finalist last year, Victor Oluwatimi, was a 2-star according to 247.  Probably the MVP of our O-line.  No bad snaps, road grades on key blocks and blocks downfield with incredible consistency.

The thing is, OSU always recruits the offensive skill positions notoriously well.  WRs and QBs so much so that Burrows was buried on the bench and transferred out to became a huge success at LSU. 

Turns out, it doesn't matter as much as solidifying the trenches of your DL and OL.  That's precisely what we've done and it's paid dividends.  You heard even Urban spew this ad-nauseum to the point last Saturday in the pregame show and it turned out to be a *very* bad omen for Ryan Day.

As long as they keep overvaluing skill positions and undervaluing the trenches, they will have an uphill battle every year against Michigan.

+1 for pantsed.   LOL.  

There is a talent gap, a big one by some measurements, if one simply looks at the recruiting services rankings and what individual players are projected to be. But, and this is a huge one, recruiting services tend to focus on objective, verifiable measurements for ranking players. Things like 49 times, height/weight, arm length, strength out of hs. They then couple that with mostly objective stats for the players positions for seasons and then try to subjectively determine the quality of the opposition the players have played against. From there they place the player on a list, that we see as a recruiting ranking, and assign the player how many ever stars that position merits. 
 

What they cannot determine in any objective way is a player’s drive and determination to be the best or to continually improve. Or how a lesser ranked player with lower measurables might hit that growth spurt or respond to quality strength and conditioning to overcome those objective deficiencies and end up better than players who were ranked higher coming out of hs. Harbaugh and co have seem to have tuned in to those subjective qualities and be able to identify many players who end up outperforming their recruiting rankings, as well as the few true blue chippers Michigan gets that have truly high character coupled with their football abilities. 
 

Having said all that, I’d say that OSU has much higher talent coming in, but that by their junior/senior seasons Michigan’s year to year classes have narrowed that talent gap considerably. Couple that with better game to game coaching and a more team oriented culture amongst the players and you get what has happened in the past two years.