Michigan Is The Better Team: A Group-by-Group Analysis

Coming into this game, every informed Michigan fan or analyst considered Ohio State the better team. There were such stats as S+P-plus and FEI, sure, but there was also, shall we say, the recent history of the rivalry and the fact that the past several years of college football have been dominated and defined by the troika of Bama/Clemson/OSU. The consensus was that beating Ohio State would be a clear upset and might even require luck to the point of flukiness.

You don't need me to tell you that the game itself was neither lucky nor fluky. The snow may have been a bit of luck favoring Michigan, but that was it. The officiating was strikingly fair, with most flags being obvious upon review, and most of OSU's penalties being false starts. And more importantly, Michigan simply flattened Ohio State.

I'm not a stats guy, but I am an experienced college football watcher, and it was clear that the best team won. I challenge anyone to disagree with this head-to-head breakdown of the different units of these two teams at this point in the season. Think of it as "which unit/phase would you want on your team":

Passing offense: Ohio State

Rushing offense: Michigan

Passing defense: Michigan

Rushing defense: Michigan

Special teams: Michigan

In a lot of these cases, the stats backed me up before the game began--i.e., Michigan's FEI special teams score or our superior fancystats and counting stats on defense. That Michigan's rushing attack was so much better than OSU's was perhaps a bit of a surprise, but even OSU partisans in the media (many of whose takes I've gleefully checked in on over the last 24 hours) wouldn't sit here and say that Michigan's rushing attack is anything other than clearly superior to Ohio State's.

The one thing about Ohio State that was believed to be true before kickoff and wasn't called into question during the game is that their passing offense is for real. In particular, their receivers are cyborgs whose absurd catches at key moments kept Ohio State from losing by as many as 40. On that note, let's compare position groups. I'm taking the whole year into account to an extent, but with a massive dose of recency bias. I think that's deserved in this case since this was by far the most significant and revealing game either team has played.

Quarterback: Ohio State

I will always, always, always love Cade McNamara after yesterday. I loved him all season, in fact. He brings a special element as a leader and a cold-blooded assassin who may be the single best quarterback in college football in purely mental terms. Won't get as much credit as he deserves for helping to change the entire culture of a snake-bitten program.

However, Stroud is much more talented, is still a deserving Heisman finalist, and did his best to win this game. He faced a level of pressure and physicality he hadn't seen in his young career, and came away with a nice stat line. It wasn't his fault that his team lost, and a randomly picked neutral coach would almost certainly take him over Cade (unless, perhaps, that coach had the wiring of Jim Harbaugh and valued Cade's intangibles, which are indeed invaluable).

Running back: Michigan

TreVeyon Henderson is very good but is neither the one-man offense that Kenneth Walker III is nor the breaker of spirits that Hassan Haskins is. Haskins alone will go down in myth for this game, and this season, but Corum and Edwards are also special rising stars. Every other OSU back is Just A Guy, if that. Haskins forever.

Receiver: Ohio State

I love our guys but OSU has maybe the best group in CFB history. No exaggeration to say they saved their team from utter humiliation, which is hard to do at a position group so reliant on other players. Michigan *might* be able to compete with their group next year, maybe, if things break our way, but this is the position where OSU excels more than any other program, and this might be their best ever group.

Tight End: Michigan

Does Ohio State even have tight ends? We sure do. One of them is from Ohio. He and his buddy shoved Ohio State into the dirt all game long. Or perhaps All game long. Bet you wish you'd offered him a scholarship, you arrogant losing scarlet and gray losers who lost.

Safety: Michigan

Ohio State's defensive backs are Just Guys. Ours made a bunch of key plays, from freshmen Rod Moore (another Ohio guy the losing team of losers that lost should've offered) to super-senior Brad Hawkins. Though Dax didn't always win his matchup with Smith-Njigba, he was a key part of a gameplan designed to prevent big plays. Even without Dax and Hawkins, I'm excited for this position next year.

Cornerback: Michigan

It feels impossible that Michigan has better corners than OSU, after what we saw last season and what we know of our rival's recruiting chops. But we do. Ohio State's guys are Just Guys, and the best of them lost his cool and earned two completely valid flags at big moments in the game.

Meanwhile, Gray and Turner II were phenomenal in this game. They forced the best WRs in the country to make circus catch after circus catch, made crucial tackles in space, and had some hard-fought PBUs. Pay Steve Clinkscale his damn money and get these guys some NIL deals with Subway or whatever.

Linebacker: Michigan

Our guys still have a lot to learn--aside from Josh Ross, who turned in a great game that you know felt especially good for a Michigan guy with family ties to the program. The disastrous mistakes we feared didn't come to pass. This group was solid.

Meanwhile Ohio State's linebackers, um. They sure do have some guys who nominally play linebacker, and curiously, their 247 profiles suggest that lots of other teams wanted them to play linebacker. I'm as shocked as you are. Look, you guys. You're allowed to recruit linebackers. You don't have to play 7 defensive backs. Also you're allowed to tell them where to go and what to do. Though it must be said: Hats off to Maize and Blue mole Al Washington for playing the long game and helping us get a dub in a season where we were in conference title contention.

Defensive line: Michigan

If you include edge/OLBs as defensive line... I mean, in that case, Michigan has easily one of the best units in the country. So I'll do that. But our tackles also out-played their tackles and embarrassed the vaunted OSU offensive line. The whole unit got better all year, crescendoing to a convincing domination of the best offense in the country. 2.1 yards rushing, 4 sacks, a seemingly infinite succession of quarterback pressures speak for themselves. Aidan for Heisman, Ojabo for Prime Minister of Scotland.

Again, it feels absurd that I'd rather have Michigan's defensive line than Ohio State's, coming off a total defensive collapse last year, but that's the state of play. Ohio State's front is as soft as tissue paper. Move to the Big 12 if you wanna play like that, you wine and cheese goofballs. 

Special teams: Michigan

Henning is one of the unsung heroes of this game, routinely giving us good field position. Robbins and Moody were money all year but hilariously weren't really needed in this game. Meanwhile Ohio State seems to struggle with fielding kickoffs despite having a five-star WR back there.

Conclusion:

This game, and this chaotic season across college football, should lead to a winding down of the idea that the top recruiting powers are simply too good to be touched by teams even one step below them in terms of recruiting rankings. We've had a few years now of top spread passing attacks being dominant and looking unstoppable, but we saw Mike MacDonald--a first-time coordinator--slow this year's best iteration down to the point of looking mortal and uncertain. Meanwhile, perhaps due to recruiting and developing guys to stop Bama and Clemson passing attacks, Ohio State's defense is full of soft, dainty, confused guys who got shoved into the dirt by an elite, old-school running attack. 

Yes, it's just one game. Yes, my analysis is littered with recency bias and eye test and blah blah blah. But we all saw what we saw. It wasn't a fluke. It wasn't luck. It wasn't even lesser players playing out of their minds while better ones had an off game. A lot of Michigan's 3-stars or low 4-stars--such as Ojabo, All, Moore, Zinter, etc.--are simply better football players than many of Ohio State's high 4-stars and 5-stars. That's a testament to evals and development and in-game coaching and locker room culture and everything else, and it led to the game we just watched. Michigan went out there and shoved Ohio State's defense around while throwing a series of monkey wrenches into their defense. We had the better team on Saturday, and that should give hope to every team that can't simply plug in highly rated recruits and roll the ball out there.