[META Note: Ace took sick, so this is getting the Seth treatment. Also we're having Thanksgiving at my house in 24 hours so this is gonna be short.]

Let's live in this moment for a second:

The Indiana Hoosiers have the ball. There's 4-1/2 minutes left. And there's just one score of separation between them and Urban Meyer's first Big Ten loss. In this moment, there is hope that a basketball school with a mediocre football team could… just… maybe…

It didn't. On this very play, the universe made a correction: Diamont chucked it to a double-covered guy, it was intercepted, and a little bit of hellish divine comedy later, OSU had the B1G East locked up.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

Offense

Personnel. I diagram:

The three guys we thought would be their biggest stars in the preseason aren't starting but it doesn't matter. J.T. Barrett has done just fine for the injured Braxton Miller, Marshall has been more than an adequate replacement for the H-/Percy-/Slot-/Whatever job since Norfleet-like Dontre Wilson went down. And Deep Threat™ Devin Smith doesn't "start" or get as many targets as Michael Thomas, but he leads the team in receiving yards and has 8 TDs to go with his 24.4 ypc. He's definitely the dangerman in the key backups section in the short history of these diagrams.

[Hit the jump for information-type substance]

Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Vintage Rodriguez spread but with smarter passing. The big addition Urban Meyer made to Rich Rodriguez's offense is to use the receivers more intelligently. His slot back moves around the backfield a lot (he even blocks), and has a choice to drag across the formation if he's in man coverage or stop in the holes between the linebackers' coverage. As in RR's offense, the wideouts run screens or go deep to keep the backs from gumming up the run game. Since they lack a real "Percy Harvin" guy this year they've been using Elliott as a swing pass recipient a lot.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? Manball, though they seem to be getting more inside zone-y as the Meyer era progresses.

Hurry it up or grind it out? Hurry up. They'll go up-tempo, then discuss things at the line, then motion some. Typically Meyer's offenses will go even faster than this, but they're young. Their first TD came on a 4th and 3 when OSU actually tempo'd INDIANA!

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Eight.

Dangermen: Zeke Elliott has rediscovered the 1990s bare abs look, so let's start there. He's fast enough, and powerful enough. Indiana was crashing on him in the zone read game to limit his carries, and OSU still got him the ball in side ways and power ways and all ways. They had him dead to rights on a safety blitz and Elliott shook that to get 17 yards. Abs!

Devin Smith I mentioned above.

Zook Factor: Urban is the anti-Zook.

HenneChart: So many screens, which he stares down. They keep things so simple for him that there's not a lot of downfield passing to judge. His first two passing attempts were a sack and a short scramble, then two short passes to his wide open TE on a first read.

There's still some freshman in him. On a play near the end of the 1st quarter he thought he was throwing a bubble, his receivers went on routes, and Barrett sailed an interception over the head of Smith. Late in the game he had Thomas open by three steps downfield and Braxton'd that one over his receiver's head too. His other interception was a ball he fit into the hands of Thomas—the ball was a bit outside but would have been categorized CA—only to see it glance off his fingers. It was pretty cold.

Overview: 75% shotgun, 25% pistol, usually 3- or 4-wide. They will run 80% of the time if you count the screens as running plays.

Each drive seemed to be a different package, and it was beautiful in a "I wish they weren't in Ohio State uniforms" way. In the 2nd quarter they debuted a triple-option after running Rodriguez stuff.

They are a machine, but the machine has a few flaws. The non-Elflein interior are not good pass blockers. They have a Boren center, and he is good at plowing Indiana DTs downfield, but they don't pick up on blitzes well. Not that it matters since passing is just a sideshow.

PLAY DESIGBLLLARRGH. Ace had some photos for a play design he wanted to show you, I think because it took advantage of Indiana's scrape response to the zone read game. I drew on them:

This was the 3rd play from scrimmage after a bubble screen and basically a bubble screen to the running back. It's a play right out of Nussmeier's offense at Alabama, where the OL are blocking for IZ and the tight end folds inside to pick off a linebacker. It works because of that, and because the MLB is watching a backside gap instead of attacking it.

The poor MLB can't attack that wide open gap because if it's a fake he's dead. He'll wind up sitting there until the block on his NT reaches him and Boren pops off the double to seal.

The arrow above is the WLB who thought he had a clean path before the TE showed up. Elliott blows through the massive hole, and Indiana safeties ain't catchin' that.

it poop again.

Lessons: Ohio State's offense could have had 48 points in the first half but for a few slip-ups that became turnovers. A fumble, a tipped ball, and the QB sailing one on a miscommunicated play. The last has been a problem, but a diminishing one. The others were luck—you notice anything particular about our luck these past few years? Any kind of pattern?

Defense

This is going to be way less helpful because they were playing a Diamont Hoosiers squad, and I haven't been secretly pining for former Urban Meyer defensive coordinators to take over at Michigan to motivate great and detailed attention.

Personnel: My diagram shows the kind of talent Michigan fans are all too familiar with:

Hurrah for another team with lots of upside down stars but scant rightside ones. The linebackers in this one were obviously coached to play run-first (Diamont Indiana remember) so I won't judge them harshly for a lot of false steps toward the backfield.

Base Set? It seems they've gone to 4-3 over as well. Lee was half-SAM, half-"Star", which is OSU's term for a hybrid space player. Historically Fickell's defenses have used a kind of cornerback with less wiggle here instead of the safety-linebacker hybrid Lee represents. The nickel cornerback is Armani Reeves—if you remember Brandon Harrison from your late-Carr defenses that's a close comparison. In this one Ohio State mostly stuck with Lee, who moved out to the slot against more spread-y looks.

Man or zone coverage? A mix between cover two and quarters, where the cornerbacks were playing man-all-day and the safeties could react to the running game before checking the passers.

Pressure: GERG or Greg? GERG, but the LBs were so close they had the option of going late if nobody came out of the backfield (that's an Indiana adjustment). With that defensive line you can't really blame them for trying to get organic pressure.

Dangerman: Bennett, Bosa, and Washington. In that order.

OVERVIEW: I saw lots of athletic talent and lots of mental mistakes. The linebackers took bad angles, arm tackles turned corralled short gains into big ones for Diamont and Wynn, and when the Buckeye linemen didn't break through (they usually did) there were guys wide, wide open.

The defensive backs are the same story: lots of talent, and give up huge plays they shouldn't because they're noticeably undisciplined. Safety Vonn Bell set up Indiana's first TD by running up on Diamont instead of setting the edge, allowing the freshman QB to cut into the middle of the field and run free down to near the goal line. The Dymonte comparison is strong there.

On the whole, Ohio State is perfectly constructed to demolish this Michigan team. Michigan's offense is concerned with doing the things it wants to do, to hell with how the other team's defending it, and that means the Wolverines are unlikely to have something called to take advantage of the mishaps.

Countess and Taylor can hang with most of the Big Ten but won't be able to handle these vertical threats alone. They can go tempo, which is kryptonite to a plodding dinosaur Hoke-coached team. And as much progress as our OL has made is wiped out and then some by a hellish defensive line that's particularly good at making guards and centers look bad. They are everything Michigan is not, including, unfortunately, any good at football. Abandon hope.