I’ve said this twice already but I’ll say it again for this game – I’m going to keep this somewhat brief.  With the holidays approaching, the score and performance being what it was, and next week being…you know, slightly more important, I didn’t spend a ton of time digging into this game.  I’m also working on a mid-week post, so mentally you can think of it as a two-part Best & Worst if you want.

Best:  The Next Wall

I’ve always been a reasonably active person – I liked sports growing up, still run 5-6 days a week, and with two kids and a dog I’m usually out-and-about on weekends doing physical activities.  So when I turned 40* recently and various family members were poking around for gift ideas, I said I wanted to get back into indoor rock climbing.**  I had gotten into it a bit while in college, going to Planet Rock in Ann Arbor with friends and scaling various perforated walls adorned with gritty plastic protrusions of various sizes and colors.  I didn’t go often enough to justify a major financial investment but I owned a harness and some carabiners, and found it enjoyable.  Then life got in the way with school, jobs, family, multiple moves, etc. and I dropped it for close to 20 years, going occasionally but always finding that re- acclimation daunting, as muscles you previously didn’t know existed suddenly became extremely important in your continued ability to remain on the wall and not tumbling down 10 feet onto a pad or slamming into a knobby wall like a middle-age wrecking ball. 

I won’t go too deep into the particulars of indoor climbing but the two most common forms are top-rope climbing (where you wear a harness and have either a person or mechanical device “belaying” for you as you ascend) and bouldering (where you climb up a wall without a harness or safety attachments).  Climbs, or “problem sets” to some, are typically scored in terms of difficulty, with more difficult ones receiving higher scores on a set scale (e.g. a V1 is one a novice climber can complete reasonably easily; a V10 typically features a bunch of barely-grippable crimp holds and require the agility and flexibility of a gymnast).  As with most endeavors, climbers with limited experience are encouraged to start on easier climbs, building up endurance, strength, and form in order to tackle harder routes.  Along the way you’ll fall…a lot, and develop blisters on your fingers and hands, scrapes on your legs, and soreness up and down your body.  And as someone who has a mild issue with heights and a more major issue with falling from said heights, it took some mental preparation to accept that falling from 12-15 feet, sometimes unexpectedly, was just going to be part of the process.

And yet, I’ve found climbing to be extremely serene and relaxing, an opportunity to challenge myself physically and mentally in ways that weren’t apparent to me when I started.  So much of climbing is mental, of assessing the optimal path, visualizing how to accomplish it, and leveraging every bit of physics you know to make it happen.  Because while you absolutely need physical strength to battle gravity and and friction (or the lack thereof), the difference between good climbers and elite ones is, perhaps unsurprisingly, their ability to stay balanced and economical, efficient in movement and limiting missteps.  I’ll never be a great climber, and there are routes at my gym that I likely won’t even come close to attempting and that’s perfectly fine for me.  I still find it enjoyable because it’s not really competition except against largely inanimate foes: gravity, fatigue, and your own body.  It’s all about small, personal milestones, of pulling off that dynamo or summiting that V2 that’s been giving you problems for weeks.  Nobody really notices but you, but there are always tangible goals ahead that you can track and strive for.

Free Solo, which won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2019, followed elite free climber Alex Honnold as he prepared for and, ultimately, completed a complete free climb (meaning no harness of safety gear) of El Capitan in Yosemite, which is absolutely as sublime and insane as “climbing 3,200 feet up the sheer face of a mountain with only a bag of chalk and climbing shoes” it sounds.  And what you take away from Honnold’s quest is the intense preparation, the number of missteps and lumps he knew he needed to take, in order to feel confident enough to attempt what is one of the most amazing physical accomplishments in human history, and just as importantly how much he enjoyed it all.  It’s a great movie and I suggest people watch it if you can, as you can tell it’s someone who lives in the moment but, as he begins a relationship with his future wife, comes to realize he can also enjoy sharing the experience with others. 

He never seemed to take for granted everything that lay before him, that even being in the position to be able to scale El Capitan without a safety net was an achievement in and of itself.  Obviously the stakes were impossibly high for him and the goal almost unfathomably impressive, but unlike a lot of documentaries it felt like the subject enjoyed the ride way more than the filmmakers, who rightfully worried they would be recording a tragedy in the making.  At various times during the documentary you’d see him celebrate as he passed a particularly challenging section, and it was clear he had a mental checklist he was marking up as he crossed each hurdle.  Because that’s how success is actually achieved – by methodically accomplishing the little goals along the way, step by step.

* For those who haven’t quite reached this milestone in “not getting hit by a bus/eaten by a wild animal” stage of his/her life, it is probably the first one in your life that feels somewhat anti-climatic.  At least with 30 it feels like an unofficial move into adulthood to a degree; 40 is just a reminder that there are a handful of professional athletes older than you and most of them seem to be really sore and/or cranky all the time.

** Yes, I recognize that there is outdoor climbing is the more “natural” of the climbing options seeing as it’s actually outdoors on natural surfaces, and I plan on giving that a shot in the future.

*****

I don’t need to rehash how people expected the season to play out; most prognostications had UM finishing around 7-5/8-4, and this here site figured 8-4 with a strong chance of underperforming.  And honestly, even the most optimistic amongst us (and I consider myself in that group) figured 10 wins was unlikely, possible only if  a Brady Hoke-level amount of good luck happened on both sides of the ball.  Few expected the stakes of The Game to be more than “how Not In the Face can it be?”, and yet here Michigan stands, 60 minutes from a shot at the Big 10 title against…someone from the West who features an offense best described as “trying”.  Now obviously there’s 3200 feet of Buckeye they’ll have to summit during those 60 minutes, and this week will be all about analyzing again and again the level of insurmountability of that quest.  But the only reason UM is in this position is because they accomplished most of their goals over these past few months.  They won all but one game and showed a maturity and confidence as a team, even when struggling, that we haven’t seen out of every Harbaugh team in recent memory.  They won in Madison, in Happy Valley, in Lincoln at night, the latter in games where they lost leads and had to mount comebacks in front of rabid crowds then had to stiffen on defense to close them out.  And just as importantly, they took care of the weaker opponents on the schedule, blowing out your IUs, your Marylands, your NWs and not getting tripped up.  They discovered an offensive system that, for all of its perceived warts, is one of the best in the country, and rediscovered their defensive intensity after a major fall from grace last year.  Cade McNamara weathered some early issues and emerged as a steady, steely playmaker on offense while the rushing attack blossomed with Haskins and Corum taking turns as dynamic weapons with the ball in their hands.  Aiden Htuchinson and David Ojabo turned into the best combo of defensive ends in modern UM history, and the secondary went from the Achilles heel of the defense last year into a strength this season.  

Michigan has had a really good bounce-back season; it's the 4th 10-win season out of 6 full-length seasons for Harbaugh, and they have a real chance to pick up 11+ and an NY6 bowl appearance out of it. People should enjoy that and not dwell on future because that'll be the reality soon enough and all you'll have is a week wasted complaining about the future kick in the nuts and not the fun you had getting there. That's why I've been more combative about the narrative around this team by some this year; looking for losses just feels like such a drain and doesn't make them feel any better. If OSU crunches UM this weekend nobody is going to say "but at least I spent the past 3 months getting ready for it, so the 3 hours I just spent watching it don't hurt as much". And if they win, then the same level of enjoyment will be there but you'll have wasted all the little accomplishments along the way. So maybe UM stumbles to end the year, or maybe they surprise everyone and make a run to the playoffs, or something in the middle. But that's still a journey I'm happy to take.

Best:  A Third Wheel (Route)

With Blake Corum still nursing an ankle injury, one of the lingering questions the past couple of weeks is Michigan’s capability to be dynamic out of the backfield.  Hassan Haskins leads the team in rushing as has been one of the better running backs in the country the past 4-5 games, but he’s (at best) an average receiver out of the backfield and his best pass plays tend to be glorified handoffs that let him get momentum going before he plows over a defender.  Corum gives you that dynamic playmaker in space off the pass, but there were still questions around whether or not Donovan Edwards would factor into the passing game as well.  In HS he was a good receiver and he’s got the speed and size to speed by linebackers and crunch safeties and corners in given the opportunity, but coming into the game he had 2 receptions for 14 yards.  While it’s clear Michigan liked the idea of integrating him into the offense, they hadn’t really done so outside of garbage time.

Well, in this game Michigan went in with a plan to see how Edwards performed with an expanded role in the passing game and did he deliver with 10 receptions for 170 yards and a TD.  Those are the most receptions and yards a UM receiver has had all year, and repeatedly caught Maryland off-guard on mismatches, most notably on his 77-yard TD catch where he just sailed past the Maryland LB who was futilely trying to run across half the field and pick him up coming out of the backfield.  That’s a play that will work against anyone, and with both Edwards and Corum legitimate threats to run or catch the ball, suddenly Michigan has three guys in the backfield who can pick up huge gains against an unsound defense in coverage.  I fully expect all three to be deployed Saturday and I wouldn’t be surprised if Edwards makes a couple of plays against an OSU team that can give up chunk plays at times.

Meh:  Big Game Preview

It's natural for UM fans to go Rodney Dangerfield when they see a limited team find success moving the ball against a UM defense leading up to the OSU game. Indiana practically made it their lives' mission to pull the feat off most seasons, but there are always points at the end of the year where UM's previosly stout defense has been "exposed" by teams that run tempo, or throw cross routes, or otherwise needle the exact pain points UM really wished weren’t exposed so harshly. In this game we saw the Terrapins have some success pushing the Michigan front line back on the ground and piece together some short pitch-and-catch plays while Taugiviloa scampered eluded pressure. And yes, I fully expect OSU to run Henderson into the gut of the defense and try to match up the Buckeyes plethora of elite WRs against Michigan's LBers and corners on short hits. But that's what I would have expected even if UM had shut out Maryland and held them under 200 yards. Good offenses run what they are comfortable with and (usually) what they're good at exploits weaknesses in the opposition because they have good talent and execute it well.

For all the nuance and chess matches that absolutely go on between coaches, Ryan Day trusts his WRs to beat UM's corners and UM trusts Hutchinson and Ojabo to compress the pocket on Stroud and they're going to see which holds up best. There will be wrinkles and undobutedly some "good shit" calls on both sides, but these teams have played 11 games this season and their strengths and weaknesses are pretty well established. Michigan's tackles are on the high end of "just guys" and their secondary has trended up but definitely not to "NFL starters" level you'd need to functionally scare OSU's receiving corps. Stroud can get a little squirrely if you get him moving with the ball and the interior of their offensive line aren't necessarily maulers. This has all been well established and I doubt anyone's priors are functionally changed because of last weekend.

And at the same time, OSU just went up against perhaps the worst pass defense they'll see all year in MSU - it's hard but one shouldn't assume that level of incompetence and poor play from UM in their matchup. Like, I know the lasiting vision some people still have of this secondary is Vincent Grat being beaten repeatedly by Ricky White, but THAT version of Gray would have been the start of MSU's secondary on Saturday because he would have at least been close enough to the OSU receivers to sometimes grab them and draw a PI instead of letting them score unmolested. I do think the Buckeyes will be able to move the ball vertically against UM to an extent but they struggled (somewhat) to do so against Nebraska and PSU, defenses that are closer to UM's in terms of overall quality including in the secondary.

And for all the hand-wringing about these bouts of offensive competence/defensive struggles by UM in this game, the Wolverines still held Maryland to their second-lowest yardage-per-play of the year (4.7 ypp), effectively tied with OSU (4.5 ypp) and featured a ton of short, snuffed-out drives interspersed with bouts of effectiveness where Maryland was able to get guys in space and Michigan's LBers being slow to get to guys. And UM added in a kickoff TD, and 77-yard TD pass to Edwards, and a defensive TD in short succession, so the defense didn't get much of a blow AND the UM offense kept putting more distance between them and Maryland, so perhaps some effort was flagging in that second half. That won't be the case against OSU, and I we'll need to see how UM responds. But I wouldn't try to divine it from this contest.

Best:  Secondary Gives You a Chance

ted-lasso-afc-richmond.gif Obviously, Ohio State is a different beast than anything UM has seen thus far but after PSU last weekend and this game, I'm starting to believe in this secondary. Turner has turned into one of the better corners in the conference, consistently in good position even on plays where a completion happens and has been jumping passes with a great deal of confidence. Vincent Gray hasn't been mentioned much (which is a good sign), but had a sack in this game and a couple of nice tackles on screens. And while the news doesn't sound great with Green coming back against OSU, he was playing well before he went down and he did make the travel to Maryland so that's some (small) hope there. Hill has played like a first rounder at safety and guys like Moten and Moore have come on lately to complement Hawkins.

Is it the most talented secondary in recent UM history? Nope, but Maryland came into the game with one of the best passing offenses in the country and UM held them to 178 yards at 5.4 ypa with a long of 25, and most of those were on short throws or screens. If Michigan emerges with a win on Saturday it's likely going to be because these guys have their best game of the year, but the fact that "best game of the year" is not unreasonable given the expectations for the secondary coming into the year is pretty impressive.

Quick Hits:

• It goes without saying but Michigan’s chances of winning against OSU will be greatly increased if they can get a friendly whistle from the refs on defense, as both Hutchinson and Ojabo will pose a huge test for OSU’s top-notch tackles.  I think we’ll see them stalemated more in this game than any other time this year, but if Michigan can’t get to Stroud because they’re being held (as they have all year) it’s going to put those corners on islands they can’t hope to survive on against OSU’s receivers.  Stroud’s “struggles” this year have come when he’s forced to move around a bit and deal with pressure in his face before his receivers can get open downfield.  Now we’re all talking about this in relative terms, but the biggest difference between this year’s elite passing offense and OSU’s pretty good ones from years past is that Stroud finds his reads quickly and gets the ball out.  He’ll run if he has to but on the year he’s got 25 rushes for 0 yards, so like McNamara he’s more of a “run to keep the pass alive” QB.  If Michigan can get to him, or get penalties called when they are held back from doing so, that will give them an opportunity to slow down the OSU offense.
• I know people get mad sometimes about plays being “wasted” against inferior opponents but I don’t really see the cost of running that kickoff toss up 31-10.  If OSU decides to pop the kick up against UM for some reason and the situation presents itself again Michigan should absolutely try it, but I sort of doubt the Buckeyes will be influenced by the chance UM might try some trickery when kicking off.  MSU has run a billion flea flickers this year and opponents still generally seem caught off guard by them.  And honestly, knowing you can execute the play in a game is a nice confidence boost for a team that still has some young guys at the skill positions heading into a huge game.  I otherwise thought the offense was somewhat vanilla in this game because they didn’t need to try anything else, and as we’ve seen against teams like IU, NW, etc. UM is pretty happy to run their base offense with a couple of wrinkles unless pressed for more.
• Going into this game my biggest concern was UM leaving College Park without any major injuries, and that was (seemingly) accomplished.  It was mentioned during the broadcast that Blake Corum looked good during warmups and could have played if called upon, and otherwise everyone ended the game with all 10 fingers and toes intact and all ribs, ankles, etc. in proper alignment.  That’s not always been a given for UM heading into their matchup with OSU, and while OSU is also seemingly heading into Ann Arbor as healthy as expected, it’s still nice to know that UM won’t be dealing with any last-second injuries during this week.

Next Week: For All the Marbles

Michigan has a chance to knock off the Buckeyes and play for the Big 10 title.  Until proven otherwise I expect OSU to win, as they are the better team.  But UM has a good QB, a dynamic running game, a  pair of dominant defensive ends, and a team that seems to be enjoying themselves.  At some point UM is due to get the breaks they need to win one of these, so why the hell not this year?  Regardless, I've really enjoyed watching this team all year and I'm excited to see how it ends.