not in the face

Essentials

never forget

Overview

Uh, Ohio State is going to win the division and probably the league. They have put hurtings on everyone they've faced after the VT game except Penn State, when JT Barrett was overwhelmed by a legit-elite D, and Indiana, when they got all of the bad luck they might have deployed against M out of their system. And then they put up  four straight touchdowns to run away with that game anyway.

Run Offense vs Ohio State

it would be nice if Tevin Coleman walked through that door

After much of a season charitably described as "rough," this facet of Michigan's offense has edged towards extant recently. P5 opponents, with reasonable performances highlighted:

Opponent	Carries	Yards	YPC	TD
@ Notre Dame	35	100	2.86	0
Utah	36	118	3.28	0
22 Minnesota	28	83	2.96	2
@ Rutgers	35	158	4.51	3
Penn St.	31	64	2.06	0
@ 10 Michigan St.	26	61	2.35	1
Indiana	35	184	5.26	2
@ Northwestern	35	147	4.2	1
Maryland	44	240	5.5	1

Fake punt last week removed

Unfortunately this looks a lot like Michigan finding bad competition more frequently than serious improvement. The four highlighted games are against the #14, 11, 9, and 5 rush defenses in the league, and Northwestern—the only above-average unit there—is being propped up by games against Purdue and their ilk. Michigan's 4.2 YPC was better only than Penn State, Purdue, and oddly Minnesota amongst Wildcat B10+ND opponents.

Michigan's recent performances may or may not be real improvement.

It does feel like the offensive line has been getting more cohesive over the last few games. Michigan bashed in the Maryland front in a way M fans haven't seen since David Molk was scowling in the middle of the line; a large part of the Drake Johnson hype is because his carries have been behind the improving line (and against bad defenses).

OSU comes in with a weird statistical profile. Ignore the opener against Navy (63 carries for 370) yards and you've still got wildly varying performances. Penn State got 16 yards total; MSU and Minnesota both ground out around five yards a carry. Last week Tevin Coleman had a 200-yard game featuring two enormously long touchdowns and 3.4 YPC otherwise.

This makes sense if your model of the OSU defense is a ton of talent that's rather confused. The OSU DL has lived up to the hype, for the most part, this year; the back seven has been rotating through linebackers trying to find either 1) a veteran who can play or 2) a freshman who knows what he's doing. They have not been very successful at either.

Junior Josh Perry is the closest thing to a stalwart at LB. He's the Buckeyes' leading tackler; #2 and #3 are the starting safeties—this is generally not a good sign. Two of the next three linebackers on the list are freshmen, with Darron Lee outpacing the highly touted Raekwon McMillan so far; the other is perpetual OSU fan whipping boy Curtis Grant. OSU fans are pretty much right about this; Grant has not had anywhere near the impact he was supposed to out of high school and has continued to play by default. The LB corps is middling at best. They make a lot of TFLs; they fail to show up in the right place too often.

The same cannot be said for the defensive line, which features four guys with at least 6 TFL. Joey Bosa leads the way with 18(!), 11.5(!) of which are sacks. NT Michael Bennett is on his way to a high position in the next NFL draft; Adolphus Washington is now a DT after beating Taylor Lewan as a freshman for one of the only sacks Lewan gave up at Michigan; Steve Miller has been an able plugger with the absence of the suspended Noah Spence. Occasionally they'll get out of a lane; this is going to be a much stiffer test for M than they've had recently.

Meanwhile, OSU safeties have been trying to emulate MSU's with dubious success; they've backed off of late. OSU is right in the middle of the pack when it comes to long scrimmage plays of all varieties; their cover 4 has evolved into a less aggressive version over the season.

Key Matchup: The interior line versus Bennett and Washington. M will have to run away from or chip-double Bosa much of the day; the interior line will not have such luxuries. They might be up for it… but probably not.

[Hit THE JUMP for bad news everybody.]