If we taunt them enough we might get a grail. Or a cow thrown at us.

Man we've been a sorry sack of something these past few weeks. All this negativity: negative posts, negative futures, negative rushing totals. Can we be positive? Finish this sentence:

For Michigan to have a shot at beating Ohio State, between now and then the offense needs to...

Coach Brown: ...pool their money together, hire a squad to kidnap the entire coaching staff and every starting player that Ohio State has until at least Sunday.

Seriously I think this game is going to be really, really bad. What Ohio State has done last year and this year is really something. I don't care about their strength of schedule, it is damn impressive to go almost two complete seasons without losing a game in a coach's first two campaigns. Hate Urban for being Urban, but the guy wins on the field.

This isn't an argument.

I know the power of a rivalry, especially in The Game, can level the playing field a bit, but I give Michigan close to a 0% chance of winning that game. Ohio State is clicking, Urban smells blood, and Michigan is going in reverse, literally and figuratively. I'm not being negative, I'm not a downer, I'm a realist. Ohio State pounded Penn State 63-14. It took Michigan 25 overtimes to suffer a loss to that same Nittany Lion team. There are so many things fundamentally wrong with what Michigan is trying to do that fixing just one of them isn't going to be enough to appease the fan base or be overly productive on the field.

I could vent forever and it would come off as whiny, pessimistic, and unrealistic because of expectations we all have for Michigan. It's not even the 6-3 record honestly, it's just how everything looks, feels, and seems. Brian and Ace nailed it on the podcast and the recent "I AM OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL" post. I've turned off. I'm just the recruiting guy so this was my one opportunity to put some of these words down. I apologize for where this went.

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Brian: Michigan will not beat Ohio State.

But how about Caris LeVert, you guys?

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Seth: That's not being positive yards, Brian. Just think: what if good things did happen against anyone but Notre Dame?

Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

What if there was suddenly an explosion of competence? What if they decided, as they have so often before, to just run their opponent's offense and that means they end up running Ohio State's offense with Gallon playing the role of Pittsburgh Philly Punxsutawney Brown? What if the defense against spread to run teams is actually as good as it was against Nebraska? What if Devin Gardner and Taylor Lewan and Fitz Toussaint and Jeremy Gallon and Drew Dileo and Michael Schofield were to be used in something approximating the offense they were recruited for, and Funchess was used as a regular deep threat, and because they spent the entire week working on just a few simple plays the young kids actually looked only kind of bad instead of mostly clueless?

What if those plays were a zone read, a bubble screen they called at the line, a fake bubble delayed handoff, a zone read PA seam, a sprint option and a sprint option throwback screen? These are all things in the playbook already. They might work if used together. What if they were? What if they used it again against Iowa? And then had some wrinkles for Ohio State?

What if there's some good in this offense, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for?

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Mathlete: ...get Devin Gardner his swagger back. I think his problems are two-fold right now. The obvious one is that the line has been a sieve and he has been beaten like a drum the last two weeks, but you can tell he is also really hesitant to make the bad mistake. That's the last thing he needs right now. Even when he was throwing picks he was making 2-3 times the plays to offset those bad plays. Without any viable production from the running backs Gardner has to be the generator for the offense and that means he has to be willing to take risks. 

Getting improved line play is crucial.

The line situation is not going to be dramatically better this year but its also virtually impossible for it to stay as bad as the last two weeks. A little stabilization against Northwestern and Iowa and maybe Gardner can regain his confidence. At this point I would love to see him throw some more picks if it means he is pushing for big plays. Gardner, Gallon and Funchess are the only three playmakers we have and Gallon and Funchess can only get the ball from Gardner. If we want to get to Lloyd Christmas territory against Ohio State, we need to have a confident Devin Gardner.

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BiSBEL...outlook hazy. Ask again later.

There is an alternate universe in which the players on Michigan's team could beat the players on Ohio State's team. There may have even been a point this year in which Michigan might have beaten Ohio State. But it's really, really hard to envision a realistic scenario in which THIS Michigan team defeats THIS Ohio State team. Anything I can point to is of the generic "rivalry game/throw the records out the window/any given Saturday/even a blind squirrel runs a nut for 3 yards sometimes" variety.

Ohio State's defense can be beaten with a quick passing game, but Michigan doesn't have one of those. They can be beaten over the top, but the line just can't hold up long enough to make that sustainable and Devin's ribs are already some strange macabre origami project. Where they CAN'T be beaten is along the line of scrimmage, and that is exactly where Michigan is going to try to beat them. They are too fast laterally, and their front four is simply better than Michigan's offensive line by a couple of orders of magnitude.

I agree with Arithmetic Man: Devin Gardner's health, both physical and mental, is key. To have any chance of sustaining anything approaching an "offense" against Ohio State, Gardner is going to have to make some things happen with his feet, and to find a way to punish defenses for blitzing err'y damn play. Two-man routes 40 yards downfield aren't going to accomplish that. A return to Loping Gazelle status might.