Rethinking OSU loss after CFP Final

Nope, still sucks.

Fans who over react to a loss are not likely to change as a result of reading any posts... but anything's possible I guess

Also, I took a big step back from feeling discouraged at the hostility/conspiracy theory echo chamber yesterday...after realizing that much of it has originated in Columbus.

There's been something about good teams losing control of a game this year, and it happened to us twice, but the same thing happened to Alabama v. Clemson, and on a slightly different plane (since the opponent was otherwise pretty bad), OSU vs. Purdue. In all four of these games there's a "tipping point" where the game just gets away from you and nothing goes right. You get forced into a different game plan etc. It happened in our favor this year as well, against Wisconsin with the roughing the snapper penalty. There's a big "swing" ... like the INT and long run-back against Florida. If Shea makes a better throw and that's not picked off or even caught for a touchdown, the score could be 17-13. Instead, after the long run back they go up 20-10, and just like that we go from potentially leading to down two scores. Good teams need to be able to recover, and many do, but we've seen us, Wisconsin, OSU and even Alabama get snowed under by one or two back-breaking swing plays. 

Sometimes the game just doesn't break in your favor.

I get what you are trying to say.  But, I think saying this only works when sometimes the game does break in your favor.   The OSU game was more of an addition to a pattern against good teams than a one off. 

I don't think Mattison or Washington had their hearts in it?  Ok, I have no answers.  Just pain.

There was no doubt that Clemson was the better team that game.  But to me the score was more lopsided than the game itself, as Alabama went scoreless on 3 straight red-zone possessions in the 2nd half.  They failed on 3rd/4th and short multiple times (sound familiar ?).  Had they converted those into TD's - the score would have been closer ... but Clemson's offense was not going to be stopped that night.  Lawrence and his receivers made several plays by mere inches - and that doesn't happen game after game.

I see no value in trying to compare this game and the ohio game.  Move on ...

Go Blue! 

So - for all the "we need young coaches who can recruit" people, Pawl's thinking is Saban had too many shooters and not enough coaches. It would be interesting to review all the top 25 coaching staffs to see what the balance of coaching to recruiting coaches is.

Also, I went to the Mizzou game at Bryant Denny this year. Bama was not getting to Mizzou's QB until mid second half. On offense, they couldn't punch in from the one yard line on the ground for three sets of three downs. There were chinks in the armor all season. I guess Clemson downloaded them all and exploited them.

Seeing a mediocre Washington play OSU close says more about the Michigan/OSU game than watching two teams that would kick the shit out of Michigan play each other. 

Adapt or Die.  Let's see if our offseason moves reflect this philosophy, rather than navel-gazing at what happened under past regimes.  

Oh yeah?  Well I'd like to see Clemson or Bama meet us on the practice field!!!!

What may perpetually baffle me about the OSU game (and to a similar but lesser extent the Florida game) was how anti-Don Brown it was.

Not just the final score, but the fact that 38 of those 62 points came after halftime.  Don Brown has always been know for his dynamite halftime adjustments, but the second half brought nothing but failure after failure.  Same with the Florida game.

I'd be really interested in hearing Brown give a very in depth interview about those games and what happened in his eyes.  His work the first 11 weeks of the season was majestic, and then it was like a completely different defense the final two games.

Agreed. Definitely made me realize that on any given day anyone can get torched when the offense is clicking and has great receivers and QB. I think UM is now a perennial top 10 team. Can they get over the hump like a Clemson did four years ago?  We will see. Off season coaching changes/choices will be interesting. 

Many good things about Harbaugh, but I the biggest thing I like is his burning desire to win, way more than anyone else. I was pissed after OSU but I am back on board after things have settled down and reality smacked Alabama...finally!!!

Nope.

Just makes me think Michigan would have got beat worse by Clemson.

The OSU games wasn't the only reason for BPONE; getting similarly wrecked in a game by Florida following the OSU game magnified it.

Don't think it follows that because AL got gob-smacked our own gob-smacking was less. . . smacky. Yes--we'd all agree--good teams get beat. It's the patterns in the beatings that must be addressed.

But I will give you this--OSU was a sleeping giant waking. The two bowl losses still sting more for me, and seem to contain more of those patterns: failure to use the talent on the field; deer-in-the-headlight play-calling when we go down; poor clock-management. And--yeah--although Don Brown couldn't conjure a magic backfield, he has to adjust.

None of these should be causes for mass hysteria. But I continue to feel that the admin needs to calm the waters, offer some signals that the wheels are on, the vehicle rolling, the GPS set. They could do themselves a world of good with a couple of well-thought-out interventions, and soon.

Does everyone remember the double fake delayed TE pop from 2015? Philadelphia used that same play on their game-winning drive against the Bears. That to me seemed like the coaches specifically seeing something on film and designing or practicing a play for that scenario. I have not seen much or any of that the last couple of seasons, especially against OSU. In fact, I struggle to see any new concepts, trick plays, or "kitchen sink" stuff.

It's always hard as fans to process things like this. THAT game was the worst sports experience of my life, bar none. The continued futility versus Ohio State feels more and more suffocating year after year. It's depressing as hell. When you get as emotionally invested in this stuff as we do, perspective is insanely hard. And worse, no one wants to hear about perspective, because we don't want to rationalize the pain: we want the pain to go away.

There's a lot I could say about randomness in sports, about the importance of being process-oriented instead of results-oriented, and about the human brain's ability to tell plausible stories from noisy data. No one wants to hear it. Sports aren't a great medium for getting people to think rationally.

We're angry and hurt. We've made the incredibly poor decision to emotionally invest in something we have no control over, and the insane thing is that we don't even want to take it back. That's why we feel like we're trapped in our own special Hell.

Personally, this type of perspective helps me cope. I get that it frustrates other people. I'm not saying that Michigan should sit back, do nothing, and act like everything's perfect. But I do think we're a lot closer to where we want to be than it feels like emotionally right now, but it's hard to see that because it seems like every Ohio State game has been an exercise in being maximally punished. Yes, we need to keep improving, but by god, it would be nice if we weren't completely shat on by the universe for once in one of these games.

I think 5 national championships in 10 years have earned Nick Saban a pass for his first blowout loss ever. If Michigan and Jim Harbaugh had that kind of track record, I wouldn't be as bothered by the OSU debacle. 

Whether one team is materially better than another, every game turns on execution of a game plan on both sides of the ball, whether that means creating turnovers leading directly to scores or completing big plays on offense, Ohio State did both just like Clemson did both in their wins.

Alabama was never really throttled by the Clemson defense, it just didn't keep pace in the scoring column after awhile and allowed too many explosive plays including two long TD passes and a spate of big runs. In the past, neither of these would have occurred against Saban's team.

Which explains why trailing by 15 points at half, while Michigan trailed by two and could have tied the Buckeyes or seen the deficit rise before stopping a late TD drive, nobody was counting Alabama out even when Clemson threatened to extend the lead to a three possession margin as the first half closed.

The point is, and you've seen this phenomenon occur in many big games over time, one team's focus and execution overcomes the opposition they are playing agianst in spite of limited or eveb widely perceived talent or capability differentials. Execution and big plays always have a way of altering the outcome of games that consensus expectation otherwise portended being closely contested. 

Michigan's safeties and linebackers were picked apart by a highly successful Buckeye game plan that produced more big plays than Michigan could match on offense, just like Clemson did the same to Alabama beating their deep safety coverage time and again. Neither Michigan nor Alabama successfully pressured the quarterback and paid the price of that with both encountering  sustained drives, timely first downs and key runs that enabled both OSU and Clemson to wear down Michigan and Alabama's defense by the fourth quarter.

These were both major beatdowns. But in each case, they were exacerbated as these games always are by the emotional drain and mental fatigue which always makes them feel worse than how they actually resulted.

I will say that I had that feeling watching the title game of, "Yeah, everybody gets snakebit once in a while", and dug out of the 'Don Brown sucks' pit that I was in, but especially after the mattison & Washington deal, it's not hard to see that despite all of our focus on the offensive woes, the defensive side of Schembechler hall has had its fair share of dysfunction beneath the surface. 

If there was bad juju already, then the offense couldn't get anything done, Chase was limited, Bush got hurt; I think we can pretty effectively unpack that 62 point ass-kicking to the point where we can at least understand what happened. 

Then a deflated, embarrassed team that's pissed off at each other had to play Florida in a "meh" bowl? Forget about it. 

Maybe that doesn't speak well for Harbaugh and his ability to keep cohesion in his program, but maybe there's not much anyone could do when personalities clash. And maybe the athleticism and 10 win streak was masking that discontent all along. 

I don't know. I guess I'm going to wait and see how JH fills the holes in the staff and I'm hopeful it'll be the shakeup they need and all turn out be a net positive. 

Either way, bama showed just how damn hard it is to win it all, but Clemson showed that consistency and patience can pay off. It took a while for Swinney and he wasn't exactly welcomed as a home-run hire either. 

We at least know M will be "good" year to year. Maybe even great once in a while. OSU doesn't know that yet with Day. Also, be glad we're not where Sparty is. Best coach you've ever had by a mile and you've still got to ride that rollercoaster? Piss on it. 

Bama gave up an increasing number of points the last six games, culminating with the beatdown given by new and improved Clemsoning. 

Point being- a solid defense is good and nice (see Clemson) but sugar still have to score points. 

Alabama gave up more points in the last 3 games of this season than any Saban coached team gave up in 3 consecutive games since he was at MSU.

Just look at the Alabama Oklahoma game. Oklahoma scored on every possession of the second half but it didn't matter because Alabama was already way ahead.

The lesson here is that in big games you have to try and score a lot. Really quickly/efficiently. And expect the other team to do the same. You hope your defense can get some stops so you can get ahead or get that last stop.

The days of throwing body blows for a half plus hoping to break through somewhere in the third or fourth quarter, which is what Michigan did in the 2018 season, are over. Offenses need to be able, or at least try, to rip off big chunks repeatedly. Because scoring on perfectly executed 15 play drives is too hard to do efficiently. Eventually, your third TE drops a pass and you punt.

Michigans defense got them to the 3rd quarter still in the game without the offense doing anything amazing. In today's college football game sometimes that has to be enough. Even Saban couldn't change that.

I had the thought before the game, but the game acted as proof of this line of thinking. Everyone is so used to bend-don't-break defense that they forget what it looks like when you don't play that way. Before OSU, Don Brown's defense had allowed a max of 24 points. That should be enough for a competent offense to win.

There are going to be games where a weakness is found in his scheme and we are going to have to outscore our opponent. It happened against PSU last year. It happened against OSU and, to a lesser extent, Florida this year. The thing is that a bad offense is going to exacerbate the defensive issue, giving the defense no rest, time to make adjustments, and more drives/plays on the field. Our offense working in the Florida and PSU games at least makes those games competitive by adding points to our score and probably removing 10 points off of theirs.

Clemson's pick six to start the scoring in the game was on a trap coverage straight out of Don Brown's playbook. How long did it take Brent Venables to build this defense to what it is? 7 seasons. He's allowed 30+ points in at least one game in every season and 40+ points in at least one game in 4 of those seasons. Bama has allowed 40+ points in at least one game in 5 of the last 6 seasons. The takeaway is that we have an elite defensive coordinator who has the same troubles stopping modern offenses as any other elite defensive coordinator.

Everyone knows that we have a lot of work to do on the offensive side of the ball. If no changes are made there by the time that spring practice starts, then people can get worried.

Let's compare Michigan to Georgia for a second. Michigan lost to S&P+ #5 and #7 on the road and #13 at a neutral location. Georgia lost to #12 on the road and #1 and #30 at a neutral site. Their best wins are #13 and #17 at home. Our best wins are #14 and #21 at home. The main difference is that they got to play their toughest opponent in the conference championship game instead of the de facto division championship game.

It sucks to keep losing to OSU. It sucks to keep losing bowl games. It sucks to never make it to the conference championship game. But, Michigan still had a good season. Our defense is not the problem. If we want to make the jump it's the offense that needs to start being as aggressive as our defense because both the OSU and championship games show that an elite offense can still - and may be necessary - to beat an elite defense.

The only relevant take-away from that game is that with a freshman QB Clemson kept throwing the ball even when up multiple scores because that is what the defense was giving them. In a game they were up multiple scores the entire second half they still threw the ball one more time than they ran it. They weren't interested in proving a point, they just wanted to win.