Did The Game influence the B1G Championship?
One aspect of the B1G Championship not getting enough discussion is Ohio coming off a hard fought, emotional victory in their biggest game of the year, while Sparty had smoother sailing with a decent, but unremarkable, Minnesota team.
Couple this with what Borges and Company revealed about Ohio's defense, and it would seem like a decided advantage for Staee.
It looks like we may have, at least indirectly, foiled Ohio yet again.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:36 PM ^
MSU ran the same plays Michigan gashed OSU with all game long and they worked.
But that's scouting and that's football.
Every previous game affects the next one.
December 8th, 2013 at 4:10 PM ^
It was absolutely no secret ohio had a bad D, to say we revealed something in the last week of the season is kinda silly.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:10 PM ^
Meh, lets not try to make this about us. Bad look for the fanbase.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:11 PM ^
I'm not sure if I agree with the OP's premise, but why would this make us look bad?
December 8th, 2013 at 3:14 PM ^
Claiming that we indirectly helped MSU beat ohio seems like a desperate attempt to feel important and redirect attention to us.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:34 PM ^
Eh, it's an internet message board - who really cares.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:38 PM ^
I'm sure the contacting recruits, Fire Hoke chanting and shitty on-field play makes us look a lot worse.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:40 PM ^
Well, he asked the question, I simply replied with my opinion. I think it looks bad, but if it makes people feel better to believe that we had a palpable effect on the game then by all means, proceed.
December 8th, 2013 at 5:14 PM ^
If 11 Warriors had a thread about how an Ohio loss to Michigan helped Sparty subsequently beat Michigan, I'd get a chuckle out of it. There might be truth to it, but it still smacks of inferiority.
December 8th, 2013 at 5:28 PM ^
But so what? Why do we care if rival fans mock us? We can surely find a million things to make fun of them for, too.
December 8th, 2013 at 6:19 PM ^
December 8th, 2013 at 3:11 PM ^
Of course it did. Did you not hear the comentators keep pointing out how Sparty used Borges's offensive strategy? Why? Because it worked.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:18 PM ^
December 8th, 2013 at 3:19 PM ^
Yup, and when MSU finally decided to air it out that's when the game flipped.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:39 PM ^
I also heard the announcers call MSU "Little Brother"
...but what were we talking about again?
December 8th, 2013 at 3:11 PM ^
December 8th, 2013 at 3:15 PM ^
This is about MSU. They were better than us this year and they were better than OSU.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:19 PM ^
Exactly, they played the strategy much better than we did because they were a much better team than we were this year. What's wrong with saying that?
December 8th, 2013 at 3:21 PM ^
Playing a game directly after The Game was a new frontier for OSU. They hate Michigan so much (maybe more than we hate them) and gear up for Michigan so much, that they may have been psychologically and emotionally spent.
It will be interesting to see if OSU and/or Michigan continue to have problems in the game immediately following The Game.
December 9th, 2013 at 9:45 AM ^
Given their bowl records over the years, it's probably already a trend.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:22 PM ^
Yup. Buckeyes' D was exposed by us. It definitely helped Sparty gameplan. Though I also believe that had Ohio continued to run Hyde they would have won that game.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:30 PM ^
December 8th, 2013 at 3:22 PM ^
Other conferences seem to rebound well after their conference rivalry games. Auburn looked great last night.
December 8th, 2013 at 4:20 PM ^
I think they said this was the first time OSU played a game in the week following U-M since 1942.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:45 PM ^
Michigan's offense was hardly the first to put up yards and points on Ohio State, but I'd say that game certainly crystallized just how easily they could be attacked through the air. If there's any effect last Saturday had on last night, it's that, especially with guys this age, sky-high emotions have only one direction to go - down. That may have had some effect on the Buckeyes' slow start.
But no, last night's result was all about Sparty - a defense that got gashed a few times but for most of the game, and especially at the most key moments late, stood tall...and an offense and particularly quarterback who have shown truly amazing progression.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:36 PM ^
December 8th, 2013 at 3:36 PM ^
Would even the coaches know with any certainty?
Marcus Hall missed the entirety of the championship game. I think that most fans might presume that Hall's absence was meaningless, because the announcers didn't tell fans what to think about that (did they?!?) and because Hall's replacement did not commit any glaring, replayed, errors.
The OSU offense mostly ran okay.
But I really wonder what the coaches might see in a film breakdown, that we civilians might never notice, even if we were looking for it.
OSU sure started slowly on offense in the First Quarter. Got themselves into a 17-0 hole, from which they dug themselves out before fading. Did it take a while for Pat Elflein to get situated in Hall's place? Again, the coaches might be the only people who would know what sort of difference it made.
December 9th, 2013 at 2:04 AM ^
We should make prop bets on which horse you're going to beat to death first.
TV misleading the fans about Marcus Hall's DNP-Coach's Decision vs. Brian Cook being tired of commenters who aren't you is almost a pick 'em, with the former a slight favorite.
Or: which one of us will get banned first? You'll give me some action there.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:44 PM ^
This is actually something that I've thought about as well in that I did wonder about the question - "Did MSU see our gameplan against Ohio State and say to themselves, 'That.'?" We will never really know - maybe coaches do the "let's try what they did" thing sometimes, but it is hard to say how much that influences in-game decisions because it isn't their game against you.
Without going back through the entire body of passing yards allowed on Ohio State, I would think that our performance and MSU's performance (451 yards and 304 yards respectively) might be right up there when it comes to sad displays by Ohio State this year. As of today, in fact, theirs is now the #115 pass defense per TeamRankings. Other teams had showed Ohio State as exploitable in the air, but we might have done the most surgical job of this.
Interestingly, Ohio State also put up 273 yards on the #1 rush defense - a shade over three times what State would typically give up in a game.
December 9th, 2013 at 2:16 AM ^
Thinking about how I watch things that I know a lot about, I don't think it can be so straight-forward. Rather, they must be watching for how the things they've got in their toolbox can be used to exploit weakenesses exposed on tape. So it's not going to be like, "they can't stop Michigan's tunnel screen so we should try that," but more like "the field corner consistently makes bad decisions, so we should use our smash concept plays to attack him." (Or whatever. I didn't watch the B1GCG.) Maybe that's what you meant by "that" but I'd think it's all viewed through the lens of what you already do that's going to work based on the tape, and not with an eye towards using previous opponents' successful ideas.
To put it simply, the focus has to be on what made the plays work, rather than on what plays worked.
December 9th, 2013 at 7:58 AM ^
That's sort of where I was headed wit that thought but didn't quite get there. I actually do think that perhaps they do watch what other teams do, but coordinators and coaches look more at players and behavior and what they have or do which can exploit a matchup. It might be inspired by something another team did, but it may not be. It could be also inserting Player X instead of Player Y up against a CB, for example, and creating opportunities based on what you saw from the film on that CB.
December 10th, 2013 at 2:17 PM ^
It's not fun to agree about things reasonably.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:55 PM ^
Really?
I feel so much better now.
Thanks.
December 8th, 2013 at 3:55 PM ^
The Buckeyes had to expend a lot more energy last week than Sparty did. Remember that even when Michigan sucks, "The Game" is Ohio's Super Bowl. Ohio payed for their obsession with Michigan last night. As much as I detest Sparty, I can't really feel too sorry for Ohio.
December 8th, 2013 at 4:07 PM ^
December 8th, 2013 at 4:26 PM ^
They didn't really bottle up Hyde or Miller - they gave up 273 rushing yards. But Ohio went away from the run frequently.
December 8th, 2013 at 4:12 PM ^
December 8th, 2013 at 4:28 PM ^
At the end of the day MSU out muscled OSU. You saw it in the 4th Q especially on that 4 and 1. They did use, a lot of screens in the first half when they jumped out tp a 17-0 lead, but when they where down 24-17, they reverted back to the ground and pound game.
December 8th, 2013 at 5:10 PM ^
December 8th, 2013 at 5:57 PM ^
Did you see how voluble Urban Meyer was just before the game? I don't think I have ever seen him in the role of such a loud cheerleader. (Just going by what I saw on tv, which is such a constrained view.)
What crossed my mind at that point was the old comment -- I'm pretty sure that it was Jim Harbaugh during his NFL playing days -- saying that he drank coffee before games inside domes, because in that setting he was not as naturally jacked up as he was outdoors.
And I wondered if Meyer had a gut feeling that his team needed whatever emotional boost he could give them.
I agree; championship games are the new negative we must live with. And playoffs will be the next new negative that we'll have to live with.
December 8th, 2013 at 5:27 PM ^
Auburn certainly came to play after what was a much more emotional win in my opinion. It's real but probably overstated.
December 8th, 2013 at 5:39 PM ^
And the 4th quarter belonged to MSU. Why? Coaching adjustments? OSU tired from last week? MSU played more competitive games this year? Again, who knows.
December 8th, 2013 at 5:57 PM ^
I was thinking the same thing last night.
December 8th, 2013 at 8:03 PM ^
Ugh. This is as little brother as it gets.
December 9th, 2013 at 12:08 AM ^
Eh, not really - while MSU's defense and coaching deserve the lion's share of the credit - we were closer than anyone else to beating Ohio and certainly gave MSU more on film than anyone else could've done - let's not forget that OSU's Wisconsin and Illinois wins weren't *that* close