palindromes

10/6/2019 – Michigan 10, Iowa 3 – 4-1, 2-1 Big Ten

The story of the last 20 years of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry is Jim Tressel gradually transitioning Ohio State from what was then accurately termed "pro style offense" to a spread option system that's been at or near the bleeding edge for 15 years. He inherited Steve Bellisari and Craig Krenzel, neither of whom will be confused with a gazelle any time soon, and transitioned to Troy Smith in a bumpy 2004 season that saw the Buckeyes reach The Game with a 3-4 Big Ten record.

One-loss, #7 Michigan entered a heavy favorite. Four hours later a nuclear bomb had gone off. Smith threw for 241 yards on 23 attempts. He ran for 145 on 18. Ohio State got 52 yards on 14 carries from fullback Brandon Joe; everything else was Smith gaining 9.4 yards per whatever he did.

OSU did not look back. Since November 20th, 2004, Ohio State has had zero sharp turns with their approach. They've pushed things around based on whether their QB was Braxton Miller or Cardale Jones; they've constantly iterated to keep up with the Joneses. At almost no point have they tried to do something completely different.

When they found themselves forced into something pretty different a year ago when it turned out Dwayne Haskins would rather eat a turtle than run a zone read, things were rickety to the tune of a 49-20 blowout at Purdue where the Buckeyes tried a WR screen on fourth and goal from the two.

Doing different things is hard. Especially all at once.

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By contrast, Michigan has had no set offensive identity for longer than a few years. The tail end of the Carr era was almost nothing but outside zone from under center because the Broncos made it cool. Michigan imported Rich Rodriguez, then fired him after two years of Denard Robinson. Brady Hoke put Robinson under center a lot, because he is a neanderthal, and then recruited nothing but battleship pocket passers (and air). Michigan imported an Alabama OC who was no better than the guy putting Robinson under center; Hoke got fired.

In comes Jim Harbaugh, who had a fascinating period manballing it up from every formation that had ever been invented, lost Jedd Fisch, hired Pep Hamilton, threw Tim Drevno overboard two years too late, hired Ed Warinner, turned to Warinner after the Notre Dame debacle, developed a nice arc read package, ditched Hamilton, and hired Josh Gattis.

In the opener Gattis showed an arc read with an option attached that looked like the natural evolution of what Michigan had been running last year, and then for whatever reason all of that got stuffed in a garbage disposal. Michigan cited an oblique injury to the quarterback. Since then they've done various things, with nothing that you can actually call a base offense. Giving total control to Josh Gattis appears to have resulted in Michigan tossing some adequate babies out with the bathwater, and now the babies are not very adequate.

The number of whiplash moments here is approaching double digits, all while Ohio State calmly whittles a stick into a cruise missile. Michigan has repeatedly thrown over their offensive approach midseason.

Michigan doesn't need to go to Columbus for a counter-example, either: after getting ripped by Ohio State last year Don Brown has moved to a bunch of zone coverages. This is a pretty radical makeover itself, but since it's run by the same guy the terminology hasn't changed; the playbook is still the playbook, but different things are coming out of it. You can see where the defense is heading as it adapts to its personnel. Since that personnel has a decided lack of NFL defensive tackles it's been bumpy.

There's no comparison between the two units. Even after getting imploded by Wisconsin, Michigan sits 2nd in SP+ defense. In reality they're probably a few notches down from that—SP+ is still including a healthy preseason component. The offense is 66th, down over 40 spots from last year after returning nine starters. And there, too, optimistic preseason projections are propping that number up.

It's time to start moving certain pieces around, if only to experiment. Piece number one is quarterback, where it's time to see if any of the offseason Dylan McCaffrey hype was warranted.

Maybe that'll be enough for Michigan to dig in at some spot that—while vastly disappointing relative to preseason expectations—allows Michigan to entrench and see a way forward. Maybe not. Either way Michigan has another hard choice to make: continue on with an unproven coordinator off to a confusing, awful start, or throw it all away and try to build another sand castle before Ohio State can stomp it flat.

[After THE JUMP: defense though!]