SIAP: Nick Baumgarner / Athletic on The Game
I thought it was rather insightful (paywalled).
A quote: “But to suggest that Knowles, one human who doesn’t wear a helmet or shoulder pads and isn’t the head coach, in a year could change everything that hurt Ohio State’s defense last season would be discounting the bigger problem Day has.
Namely, that he has no idea what he wants from his defense.”
November 29th, 2022 at 12:00 AM ^
This game changed everything. It even fixed Baumgardner’s writing.
He’s always been hard for me to read because he has always tried to SOUND smart, using big words that didn’t quite mean what he thought, and phrases that ALMOST were sensible though that “almost” made them wrong. Like being almost inbounds.
But this article is something I can’t recall seeing from him: instead of his long-standing habit of reaching for phony literary flourishes or floundering attempts to sound wise, he writes directly and clearly in his own voice.
I’m amazed.
November 29th, 2022 at 12:09 AM ^
I was also struck by the insight and the balance.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:19 AM ^
He always seemed to know sports well. But insight and balance are easier to see when, rather than trying to be fancy, he uses is own voice to say what he means, and means what he says.
That sounds obvious but isn't easy to do. Kudos to Baumgardner.
P.S. That's another reason MGoBlog is so good. Whether analyzing, being jokey, paying a tribute, employing history as analogy, talking about family, discussing the weather, or even adding literary flourishes, the writing usually seems to be in that writer's genuine voice.
November 29th, 2022 at 6:58 AM ^
I've always liked Nick. But then I've had a lifelong attraction to phony literary flourishes and floundering attempts to sound wise. But that's just me.
November 29th, 2022 at 9:47 AM ^
I have no idea what this guy is writing. And I like to read and understand words.
November 29th, 2022 at 7:11 AM ^
It's because eventually, after covering the Michigan program, he HAS to smarten up, to able to write to it's fanbase. This isn't Hondo carpenter appeasing to the half literate MSU ga base. The Michigan Difference.
November 29th, 2022 at 7:15 AM ^
Damn. You are like a dog with a bone on this. Respect.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:16 AM ^
Not fixed. He can’t write an article about Michigan without spending the first half of the article taking shots at Harbaugh and past Michigan failures. NB is an unrelenting Harbaugh hater. Fuck him.
November 29th, 2022 at 10:12 AM ^
Sorry Yooper. Now you sound like every Sparty I know. Yes, Baumgardner has been critical of Michigan.
So what? We're Michigan. We can handle it.
November 29th, 2022 at 2:06 AM ^
I'm not sure that Day knows what he wants from his offense either.
November 29th, 2022 at 6:05 AM ^
Points. And style points.
November 29th, 2022 at 9:51 AM ^
Ohio State forgot how to play complementary football. They hang their defense out to dry by trying to hit home runs every drive. Which results in a lot of short offensive posessions and thus more time for the defense to get run ragged by the other team.
And on defense....they hired a Big XII coordinator and got Big XII results. They can't stop the run straight up, so they have to borrow guys from the backend and gamble on blitzes to stop it. Which leaves their formerly stellar secondary to flail around when the ball's in the air and they lost their man in coverage.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:26 AM ^
Just for Men?
November 29th, 2022 at 2:16 AM ^
Ohio State is in an interesting spot. They are a very good football team and will win a lot of games.
But, to match Michigan, they now have to change and that entails risk. They could very well have to go backwards in order to go forward and they don't have a fanbase that is going to be tolerant of that.
It's a true crisis in Columbus and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it.
November 29th, 2022 at 5:32 AM ^
They have a lot of mercenaries on that team that are just killing time until the NFL. Most of them are not from Ohio, and most of them are not going to be hanging around the program 20 years later like you see at Michigan. They are not going to unconditionally play their hearts and souls out for just the glory of Ohio State.
The problem is . . . a lot of those mercenaries are really, really good.
So it's a tough balance to have the right mix of less-talented gritty blue collar guys from Ohio and 5-star NFL-ready mercenaries from the sunbelt and west coast who don't give a fuck about the state of Ohio.
Give Meyer credit for that, he did it pretty well. I fully expect that Ohio State is going to give up all dignity and moral standards and eventually bring him back as head coach.
November 29th, 2022 at 6:22 AM ^
Day is certainly not Saban or Meyer-in any way, shape or form. And the deeper that Day wades into this pool the more the correctness of the "born on third base" statement becomes obvious and clear. What is not clear is whether or not Day is going to figure this thing out.
November 29th, 2022 at 9:57 AM ^
In order to fix their team, they need to run an offense that Day for whatever absolutely wants to avoid. They wanna be a real life Madden team that doesn't care about time of posession or game theory, but instead just throws 5 star receivers out there and lobs the ball around trying to score as often and as quick as possible. This works in Madden when you don't have to worry about stamina or morale or things like that.
But Michigan won't let you do that because it's stupid. Two high safeties all day, and you're gonna have to march down the field and run in the redzone. Which Day again hates to do, because he abhors running the ball.
Urban Meyer's scheme made sense and was brutally effective. Day's is dumb. The only fix is for them to stop treating their QB's like brittle little howitzers and actually get their legs involved. And to retool their OL and actually make the run game a legitimate part of the offense like it was in 2019 when Fields and Dobbins made defenses cry because there was no way to stop them both on the ground.
November 29th, 2022 at 6:52 AM ^
I don't think even Meyer wants a part of this new and improved Michigan. Hell he had trouble with Hoke and the previous Harbaugh teams.
November 29th, 2022 at 7:16 AM ^
"The problem is . . . a lot of those mercenaries are really, really good."
You have it. I know Sawyer didn't give his all when pursuing CoJo on the first long touchdown, but it was impressive to see a big guy moving that fast. You can sometimes see the difference in talent during warm-ups. But, as you noted, how motivated are they?
Imagine how things will look if Michigan's mythical money cannon becomes operational and they reach NIL parity with the longtime cheating (more than UM, anyway) schools like Clemson, most of the SEC, and OSU. Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky in basketball, too.
November 29th, 2022 at 7:33 AM ^
The fact that they kept him as head coach after he got caught covering up domestic violence means they ALREADY gave up all dignity and moral standards.
November 29th, 2022 at 9:09 AM ^
Wasn't it OSU QB Fields who said after the 2019 game (paraphrasing) ... "the Ohio State campus is great, I went down there once to see it and it's really nice." Mercenary is the right description. That works in the NFL, but college football is built differently.
November 29th, 2022 at 7:14 AM ^
Boom! BaumRoasted.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:04 AM ^
Ryan Day = OSU RichRod.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:14 AM ^
Absolutely not.
- Day comes off as a good human being, hang 100 aside. Rich Rod was not in hindsight but it's not a comparison.
- Day is a very good coach. He's also had good defenses, and he's shown a willingness to try to change and adapt. He just has a scheme that may be poorly suited for Michigan's scheme and personnel. It's still a good defense.
- Rich Rod was a 7-5 coach. Day is an 11-1 coach. If Rich Rod was 11-1 each year he'd still be at UM.
- Day is OSUs Cooper.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:36 AM ^
RichRod wasn’t even a 7-5 coach other than in his 3rd season. His first two were 3-9 and 5-7.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:47 AM ^
Three good points, but I thought Cooper was OSU's Cooper.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:54 AM ^
Yeah but RR gave unfettered access so a book can tell half a story disparaging a HOF college coach whose side shall never be known. Nice that view doesn't impede comments trashing said coach and likely has led to the angry behavior of his tunnel.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:29 AM ^
I enjoy OSU schadenfreude as much as the next person, but this isn’t even remotely true or close as a comparison.
It would be better, at this point, to say that Ryan Day is OSU’s next John Cooper. A guy with really talented teams who will win a lot of games and be in position to play for something big at the end of the year, but he will be known for his failures against Michigan so his legacy will ultimately be a mixed bag at best.
RichRod’s legacy at Michigan was an unmitigated disaster all the way around. Aside from Denard, it hardly had any redeeming qualities at all. He wasn’t done any favors by an unwelcoming fan base and a prior regime that appeared to sabotage him by encouraging transfers out of the program, granted, but the state of his teams, especially after 2008, were solely on his shoulders. Day =\= RichRod.
November 29th, 2022 at 8:44 AM ^
Even that is something of a stretch. Since he took over, OSU hasn’t lost more than 2 games in any season. His first year he won 13 and then each of the following seasons (skipping over the Covid year where he was still 7-1), he won 11 games. He made the playoffs 2 of his first 4 years and a national championship game one of those year. Over his tenure, OSU has been as elite as any program in college football.
Now, that all said, it is fair to question whether Day gets the credit for that or whether he was, in fact, born on 3rd base by walking into a program that was basically on autopilot from Urban Meyer. Time will tell. What we do know is that Day has continued to recruits at the highest level. But, people calling for his head because of 2 losses, or comparing him to failed coaches of the OSU past, are waaaay overreacting. Basically, Day has had 2 bad losses to Michigan.
November 29th, 2022 at 10:47 AM ^
Ironic, but might Day be closer to OSU’s David Shaw?
November 29th, 2022 at 8:49 AM ^
Good article.
Personally, I see an unspoken corollary here: part of why we beat OSU this year is that the pass rush didn't have to get to Stroud in order to be effective.
The book on Stroud is "make him slightly uncomfortable and his effectiveness goes way down." So basically, a 4 man rush can do the trick. And you don't need a QB spy.
The beauty of this game is that Minter basically gave up on quick pressure/sacks, in favor of slight discomfort plus better coverage. That's balls of steel right there, because DECADES of conventional wisdom says, "sell out to get in the QB's face."
John and Jim Harbaugh are going to have one HELL of a coaching tree when it's all said and done.
November 29th, 2022 at 9:24 AM ^
I thought we were in big trouble because of our pass rush. And we saw it in the game - didn't get to him nearly enough
What I didn't expect was that OSU was going to make timid 4th down decisions, abandon offensive strategy that was working, and play Don Brown lite on defense
Minter's game plan was excellent and OSU played right into it
November 29th, 2022 at 8:52 AM ^
The expanded playoff could lead to a good situation where Day stay at OSU despite losing to Michigan consistently bc it would be hard to fire a #5 or 6 seeded playoff coach.
(Of course I’m hoping OsU misses playoffs this year just to make the Game matter even more)
November 29th, 2022 at 9:37 AM ^
Day’s problem at OSU isn’t talent and it isn’t scheme. Those will continue to be great every year at OSU.
Days problem at OSU is identity and culture. There is no t-e-a-m there. As more than one poster has said in the past couple of days, OSU has a collection of mercenaries. Very good ones that can out talent most other teams on the field, but if that is all they continue to have they will never reach the success their fans demand. We all saw that Saturday. Loafing on plays and none of their other players holding them accountable. Or, making a great play and no teammates celebrating with them. There is no player led leadership there. It’s all about the individual. The me and the I. The offense doesn’t celebrate a great play by their defense and vice versa.
Contrast that with Michigan where you see excitement and jubilation even from the bench players for great plays. You see it in the accountability by players when they know they missed a tackle or missed a cut or dropped a ball. Michigan’s whole identity, even with their great players, is one of being there for each other, on the good plays and the bad ones. It’s celebrating the successes together and encouraging their teammates after mistakes.
Until OSU fixes that, no amount of awesome players or great schemes is going to win the game with any consistency.