jj mccarthy is also cade mcnamara

I think we were all kind of surprised that Michigan didn't have JJ's legs involved in the run game against Ohio State. We've been excusing the sloggy way they've been blocking up their runs all season by keeping that threat saved for the big games. But this was the biggest game, like, ever. So where were the keeps?

When I went over the tape I think I found my answer: Ohio State's gameplan was to take them away, using a clever trick that Michigan didn't adjust to very well. The first time we have something that looked like the threat of a McCarthy read on the backside was this play that got swallowed for a loss.

Clearly Ohio State did something very clever here. But what, why was it effective against Michigan's run game for awhile, and how did Michigan adjust to it?

[After THE JUMP: Ohio State had a great gameplan, Title Town Up North still won.]

FORMATION NOTES: Hello, it's Iowa. Iowa loathes putting guys in the box:

This play has Edwards in the backfield and has the Iowa safeties rolled up inside of ten yards. This was an occasional change up; this was more frequent:

Split safeties at 12, six guys in the box. Michigan severely cut down the number of multiple TE snaps. They had 43 snaps with 1 TE, 17 with two, and six with three. Half of those 3 TE snaps were Michigan's last drive.

Later in the game Iowa started firing up their blitzes and got aggressive, but until it was desperation time the light box was near-universal.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: With Keegan back the OL did not deviate from Hayes/Keegan/Olu/Zinter/Jones. RB was Corum/Edwards exclusively. TE lacked All, had a ton of Schoonmaker, and was relatively limited otherwise. Until late Michigan's TE density was relatively low, for reasons discussed above. WRs as usual except Wilson went out later in the game after taking what looked like a hit to the eat.

[AFTER THE JUMP: a thousand cuts]