Ohio State 42, Michigan 13
Bryan Fuller/MGoBlog
One team came prepared.
Ohio State's coaches prepared for Michigan's soft edges with an attack heavy on the power read. The Buckeye defense prepared for every wrinkle the Wolverines could conceive to utilize Jabrill Peppers and stopped them.
Michigan looked unprepared to deal with the Buckeye running game. The scheme was too passive and the adjustments ineffective, especially a move to a 3-man line. The linebackers weren't prepared to tackle Ezekiel Elliott in the gap or track JT Barrett in space. Nobody was prepared to block Joey Bosa.
For the tenth time in eleven years, Ohio State won The Game. The Buckeyes ran at will; Michigan couldn't trust its run game enough to even use it without ample trickery. While Michigan's 9-3 record and obvious team-wide improvement stand as a testament to the remarkable work of Jim Harbaugh, today's game showed just how much ground the program must make up on their chief rival.
Unlike last year, Michigan will get a full slate of bowl practices to work on their issues, and they'll face a quality opponent in a decent bowl game. Much like two years ago, there's a good chance they'll have to play that game with their backup quarterback, as Jake Rudock exited the game with an apparent shoulder or collarbone injury after taking a huge hit from Bosa.
Ohio State looked like a playoff team today. Michigan looked a long way off. That's exactly what we expected heading into the season; it's still hard not to be disappointed after seeing how the last few months have played out.
November 28th, 2015 at 11:21 PM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 10:15 AM ^
post every time you don't watch the game s/
November 28th, 2015 at 10:28 PM ^
I'm new to the blog, and I attended the game today. I was not happy with the result obviously however, I'm hopeful and glad we have Coach Harbaugh. We are fortunate to have him & he's trying to build something special. He nearly did it in his 1st season! Being new, I'm trying to shine a light.... Let light shine out of darkness.
PS - glad to have joined the MGOBLOG community tonight.
November 28th, 2015 at 10:37 PM ^
Glad to have you aboard.
November 28th, 2015 at 11:10 PM ^
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November 28th, 2015 at 11:26 PM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 12:20 AM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 10:27 AM ^
I'm hoping we are 1 year away but sensing it is more like 2-3 years away. At that point everyone is experienced in the Harbaugh way and his first recruits are hitting the field.
November 29th, 2015 at 1:35 AM ^
DL. This can probably be accomplished by just staying healthy. Glasgow and Mone are both back next year; as are Henry, Hurst, Wormley, Godin and Charlton.
LB. This position needs to get a lot better and a lot more athletic. Gedeon seems to be the only guy coming back with any real playing time.
OL. Pass protection was pretty good, but they need to be able to run the ball a lot better. Glasgow graduates, leaving an interesting mix. Does Cole take over at center? Newsome-Dawson-Cole-Kalis/Braden-Magnuson?
RB. Michigan needs a running back with speed and vision. I don't think that RB is currently on the roster unless Higdon makes a giant leap.
QB. Rudock turned out to be really good, but he graduates and may not even be able to play in the bowl game due to injury. Does the starting job go to O'Korn, Malzone or Peters?
Create more turnovers.
November 29th, 2015 at 1:20 AM ^
Lloyd + RR was 7 years, this is now the 4th loss since 2011...
November 29th, 2015 at 1:40 AM ^
They have won twice since 2001.
November 29th, 2015 at 7:58 AM ^
my whole gripe is it was a baaaad loss with no real answers anywhere. A close loss with a lot of effort I can deal with but sitting there and watching half of the game with a feeling of hopelessness was bad. That had to have been one of the worst losses over this now 15 year stretch of frustration. Michigan State is honestly the x factor. If the East was still a two team conference we probably would have shocked the Buckeyes just like 1969 everyone was hoping for yesterday. It's not the case. 2016 I see us going 7-0 easily into East Lansing when the season really begins. I really hope the team can be prepared for that game.
November 29th, 2015 at 1:51 AM ^
No leader in the mold of Bo would be down on our squad. We need to show a proud, unified front. We may not be everything to everyone every GD year, but we were pretty good this season, and we had no business expecting to be in the hunt this season.
Let's analyze and enjoy, but let's avoid denigrating. Jim Harbaugh is a fu*king bad@ss. Let's critically assess his team, because we love Michigan and each other, but let's also give Harbaugh the space to do his job.
November 29th, 2015 at 7:22 AM ^
Meyer having Elliott and Barrett out there up 29 late in the game? That won't be forgotten.
November 29th, 2015 at 2:27 AM ^
Reading these comments is like stepping into an alternate reality or back to anytime before 2008 really. Harbaugh in year one is a victim of his own early success. Was anybody seriously expecting wins THIS year over MSU and OSU? Only the ultimate homers were predicting 9-10 wins.
Did today suck absolute shit? Yes. Was OSU basically Indiana with a good defense? Yes. Will Harbaugh and crew learn from this? Do you seriously doubt it? The man squeezed everything out of this team. *Everything*
Let's put some context to all this and just how successful this season is. And before anyone brings up Hoke's first year, please remember that they were the luckiest team on earth with turnovers. The subsequent years were the ceiling of Hoke's squad's ability (8-5, 7-6 garbage). Michigan was 5-7 last year. And since people seem to have such short memories, let's keep in mind that we were a breath away from 3-9 and honestly deserved to be with losses to Rutgers (!!!), Minnesota (at home), and Maryland (at home).
So with that as the backdrop, Harbaugh came in with a new transfer QB, what has been a dumpster fire offense for years, and in year one he finishes 9-3 and the team is competitive in every game they play except for two quarters at the end of the year. UM was also near or at the bottom of turnovers this year so every victory was earned the hard way. The OSU/MSU streaks are frustrating of course but for crying out loud folks..... calm down. Have some faith.
November 29th, 2015 at 5:48 AM ^
"Was anybody seriously expecting wins THIS year over MSU and OSU?"
Yes, a lot of us were expecting to win one of our rivalry games this year considering:
Both games were at home.
Players brought in under the Hoke regime are considered to be very talented but underdeveloped by a woeful Hoke staff. (Something like half of the team are 4 or 5 star recruits).
Harbaugh brought a competitive fire to the team that had been lacking for almost a decade.
Harbaugh and his staff are considered to be at or near the top in all of college football in developing players, installing a scheme to defeat their opponents, making adjustments for what our opponents are doing and making adjustments for the personnel that we have.
November 29th, 2015 at 12:39 PM ^
For all intents and purposes, forgiving a play that happens once in a lifetime...he did beat one of the rivals at home. Expectations met!
The improvement on both sides of the ball was somewhere between amazing and miraculous. If anything, the player improvement this year was so apparant it made me wonder just what exactly the Hoke staff was doing if anything. Sure the running game continues to suck but at least they learned how to pass pro and the pre injury defense was lights out. They need depth and a couple more years.
Expecting them to beat an OSU team that returned basically everyone from a NC squad in year one of what essentially amounted to starting over? Sounds reasonable to me! And make no mistake, without Harbaugh does Rudock transfer here? This unit goes 3-9 under Hoke and that's probably optimistic. He took that shitshow and they went 9-3.
November 29th, 2015 at 4:34 AM ^
We should recruit players purely to stop the spread lol. The 2005 Rose Bowl with Vince Young frustrated the crap out of me when I was 12. Things haven't change 10 years later :/
November 29th, 2015 at 6:38 AM ^
That stuff can happen when you play a truly elite college offense with basically everyone back from a National Championship run. Ask MSU at home playing them last year. That was an equivalent blood bath perpetrated on their defense. And that MSU team was considered Playoff material with an elite defese from the beginning of the season by the pundits. We came to the party on that discussion very late and even then it was pretty ambitious. Reality: we have maybe 2 NFL ready guys and none on either line. Bottom line is if OSU shows up, interested, and their coach calls an aggressive intelligent game, no one in our conference is stopping them currently. They'd like to have last week back and I'll bet our coaches would like to have some aspects of yesterday back too. But it probably wouldn't have mattered either way. That's where Michigan is at. Won two we probably shouldn't have and lost one we probably shouldn't have. So 8-4 or 9-3, with a bowl to play is a nice foundation. My thinking is take our medicine with grace, accept MSU fans yapping about their success (the world knows how lucky they got against us), and watch with patience because Harbaugh and his people will get us there. If you doubt at all he will, you're ignoring over a decade of history at three different coachin stops. Stanford being the most miraculous. That was the ultimate crater rebuild to end all rebuilds. What you see there now is all his early foundational work.
November 29th, 2015 at 3:47 PM ^
Exactly. OSU brought its A-game, and when OSU brings its A-game, the disparity in talent is glaringly apparent.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:51 AM ^
Today confirmed my hope for this team and secondly made clear just how bad Kalis is. All season I have watched him miss blocks, be off balance and once he pulls, has no idea on who to block. God I hope someone steps up.
November 29th, 2015 at 9:30 AM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 7:16 AM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 7:45 AM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 8:22 AM ^
I can live with it, I'm not going to go on a rampage, but losing sucks. Don't tell me how it's ok, complacency is for those who won't improve and continue to accept losing. I promise you that those players and coaches today will file this one away and prepare to win next year. It's not about coming close, it's about winning. That's why Harbaugh coaches and these players play. You play to win.
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November 29th, 2015 at 8:38 AM ^
Obviously Harbaugh isn't saying it's cool and laughing it off. Get real. That's not how he's wired and that's not what Michigan is about. But whether or not we as fans accept the reality of where our talent is versus OSU doesn't matter in Michigan's results. We're fans. But facts are facts in terms of where everything is. You could have played that thing yesterday ten times, have Harbaugh and company coach a perfect game (which they clearly fell short of ) and I don't think Michigan wins one time. That was a veteran elite team that belongs in the playoff but screwed themselves with a bad game the week before. Michigan has to get better players and put them through Jim's program for multiple seasons to consistently beat teams like we played yesterday. It might even be way diferent next year. But right now two totally different planets.
November 29th, 2015 at 8:42 AM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 8:34 AM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 8:41 AM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 8:50 AM ^
/s
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November 29th, 2015 at 9:17 AM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 9:19 AM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 11:31 AM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 11:31 AM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 12:04 PM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 11:05 AM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 11:30 AM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 6:35 PM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 11:47 AM ^
These comments about being worlds apart seem a little strange. If that is the case, why was it 14-10 at the half?
OSU adjusted and played to win. UM was flat and just got worn away. Talent has something to do with it and so does having your players up for their main rival. After the roughing the kicker and Elliott run, the D looked passive and eventually beaten up.
When you are exposed like what happened to UM in the Indiana game, you have to scheme around it. I am not sure what that entails but it has to entail defending your weaknesses and adding support, maybe having Peppers as a spy and adding a 3rd LB in addition to the Buck. I don't know the answer. It just seems like Michigan just expected to be able to keep doing what they have been all season and not adapt.
Since it is year one, I can understand it. I just hope this "just another game" mentality doesn't bite them in the ass when it comes to rivalry games.
November 29th, 2015 at 12:58 PM ^
Everyone else had a "talent gap" but stayed relatively competitive in their games with OSU.
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November 29th, 2015 at 5:49 PM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 3:11 PM ^
I'm sure Harbaugh and his staff realize that there are things they could have done differently. But the difference between this staff and the last staff is that Harbaugh has a track record of making the necessary adjustments and finding a winning formula. Great coaches aren't the ones who never make mistakes (because such people don't exist); great coaches are the ones who recognize their mistakes and learn from them. Look at Urban and how he responded to OSU's dismal performance last week. It's just unfortunate that the response had to come against us.
November 29th, 2015 at 11:50 AM ^
We all know Harbaugh is a great coach. That being said, Urban is also a very good coach. The main difference is the talent level on each team. OSU is most certainly a top 3 team in the nation on a talent basis. When one guys goes down they have another 4 or 5 star player to take their place. I don't think UM is a top 20 team based on talent. We don't have one runningback on our roster that is a difference maker...a guy that will be playing in the NFL. We don't have top notch athletes playing linebacker. Our defensive line doesn't have NFL type players and we lost three of our best during the season. Ruddock improved as the season progressed but he's not a top level talent. Our receivers are solid but not spectacular for the most part. Our offensive line is solid but how many of those guys are going to go in the top three rounds of the NFL draft? The fact that we were 9-3 was due to coaching. The good news is that Harbaugh is putting together a top notch recruiting class which will help address the talent gap. Hopefully we win our bowl game to get 10 wins and then sign a top 5 recruiting class which will put us in good position moving forward.
November 29th, 2015 at 12:17 PM ^
November 29th, 2015 at 12:35 PM ^
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November 29th, 2015 at 3:22 PM ^
Our linebacker corps was suspect to begin with. That coupled with the absence of Ojemudia, Glasgow, and Mone left a glaring weakness in the center of our defense. OSU recognized that weakness and exploited it to maximum effect.
November 29th, 2015 at 3:53 PM ^
Under Hoke, we were losing to our rivals and teams we had no business losing to (like Rutgers and Maryland). In year one, Harbaugh has eliminated the losses to teams we had no business losing to. It's only a matter of time before he eliminates the losses to our rivals.
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