Two major factors in OSU-UM during Harbaugh era
1. Defense has worn down in second half. 3 straight years being outscored in the second half. 68-26 combined score. Maybe they made better adjustments, more likely our offense couldn’t sustain drives and the D grew tired. This team seems to thrive on second half adjustments this year so time to break that streak.
2. Turnovers. Stating the obvious of course, but we have lost the turnover battle 3 years in a row, 5 turnovers to 1. With a potentially wet field, ball security is crucial and we saw this pop up at MSU. Can’t give OSU any free points. Had we taken care of the ball 2 years ago, the officials incompetence wouldn’t have mattered.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:39 PM ^
Pretty much any coach will tell you defense and turnovers wins games...
November 21st, 2018 at 2:27 PM ^
Yes, plus we no longer have a QB that gives them the ball back (3x). Shea protects the ball a lot better.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:38 PM ^
Dont you dare jinx us.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:55 PM ^
No, Its a statistical fact....Shea protects the ball. I'm not superstitious. We have had incompetent QB play for the last three years.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:41 PM ^
1. You can not blame the defense for "wearing down" when the QBs are constantly making mistakes and turnovers.
2. Turnovers are the key to all of this.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:41 PM ^
A solid run game is also a factor. Staying on the field on offense means the defense is resting. It also generally means that you can grind the clock late in games if necessary.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:41 PM ^
How many random discussion threads do you need TK?
November 21st, 2018 at 1:50 PM ^
A lot.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:34 PM ^
At least one more than you are willing to allow.
November 21st, 2018 at 4:33 PM ^
All of them
November 21st, 2018 at 1:43 PM ^
You missed the two most important factors - injuries and depth.
This is the first year that we've been overall healthy as a team heading into OSU. It's also the first year that a player like Winovich can go down without it totally damaging the performance of the team.
It's a damn shame that Dylan went down this year. I hope we don't need him during the OSU game. We're dangerously shallow at QB, but otherwise, the depth seems great everywhere.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:54 PM ^
$20 says Peters looks wildly improved if he needs to play extended time this year at some point. A bad O-Line has a tendency to make a mediocre QB look terrible.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:12 PM ^
If he has to come in, that would make the typically frustrating ground and pound offense feel worth it (assuming the osu defense starts to wear out) because our best chance is if he hands it off a majority of his snaps.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:19 PM ^
I definitely hope so. However, I was expecting him to look improved in the bowl game too...
November 21st, 2018 at 2:02 PM ^
"Dangerously shallow"
You mean a situation where a bigtime recruit that has big game starts under his belt and is making the jump from rFR to rSO is our backup?
Better than 90% of other programs, even with McCaffrey out.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:15 PM ^
Don’t you know...? If we don’t have RS Seniors with 20+ games of starting experience and former 5* recruits with current NFL draft prospects across our entire 3 deep, we are in dangerous water of going 3-9 next year and will have to start over from scratch with a new staff.
/s obviously.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:43 PM ^
The only way our defense might wear down this year is if Patterson is throwing TD passes every time on the first play of each series.
November 21st, 2018 at 3:54 PM ^
Don't be so sure. Lots of our guys on D had hands on hips late in the third against Indiana. As the announcers, and Brian have keyed on; our defense isn't used to being on the field more than 55 snaps or so. OSU will push that.
November 21st, 2018 at 4:59 PM ^
Not to mention temps in the low 50's and their short passing game possibly up tempo offence after seeing what Indiana did to us and all the guys cramping up. I have tremendous faith in our defense but this is what scares me.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:45 PM ^
I would add:
3. Severe disadvantage at QB for Michigan. We have started MAC level QBs the last 2 years. This year it's advantage Michigan. Haskins is a 1 read QB and will be exposed on Saturday.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:55 PM ^
Speight was fine. He was injured and had a rough game in '16, but he's not MAC level. He just had a huge game at UCLA last week against USC.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:06 PM ^
The USC that's not going to a bowl game?
Him being debatably fine is MAC level.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:24 PM ^
I think Speight was pretty limited but looked fine because Harbaugh is a great QB coach. Speight was the best we had, but he’s clearly not at the level of QB skill that Harbaugh/Michigan can pull.
November 21st, 2018 at 10:39 PM ^
The Amazon series gave me the "oh--I guess all our qb's really did suck" experience. It would be cool to have a similar level look-in to Shea's mind/attitude/approach. I bet you it's night and day.
(McCaffrey too)
November 21st, 2018 at 1:55 PM ^
I blame our QB's the last two years. No one else.
Well....maybe those refs in 2016. He was short
November 21st, 2018 at 10:54 PM ^
The root of the offensive woes was on the OL, IMO. It all started there.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:02 PM ^
Isn't it weird, in this instance General Factors don't out rank Major Factors.
And the Private Factors are the hidden strategy that will have the biggest impact.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:13 PM ^
Thought for sure the OP was going to say:
1. Refs
2. Refs
November 21st, 2018 at 2:18 PM ^
For those looking for the stars to align and to have another reason to be hopeful; I'll give you one more reason to be optimistic. Obviously the third factor has been officiating, most particularly in 2016.
Any reason to believe the officiating will be any better in 2018?
Answer: Yes. For the first time since 2011, Michigan's defensive line is drawing offensive holding calls at a faster per play clip than Ohio State. As you can see, some of those years were downright dreadful. This year, Ohio State seems to have caught the "can't buy a flag" bug as it relates to holding.
It could be coincidence; it could be shifting biases. Nobody really knows.
Who won the game in 2011? I may just have to Google it...
November 21st, 2018 at 2:26 PM ^
This should be a fair game simply because if Michigan wins we go to the playoffs, but OSU probably/hopefully won’t.
There’s no incentive for the B1G to tilt the field in OSU’s favor.
November 21st, 2018 at 3:26 PM ^
Sure there is. Screwing over Harbaugh is a pretty big incentive.
November 21st, 2018 at 3:56 PM ^
They seem to have strongly jumped off that train since the awful Higdon holding call. Harbaugh was cool about it.
Someone should do an event study for that call. The reffing appears to have become MUCH less bullshit after that.
November 22nd, 2018 at 8:53 AM ^
End of 1st half versus Indiana says b.s. remains....
November 21st, 2018 at 6:33 PM ^
Exactly! Delaney will make sure Michigan will have a fair game or even somewhat an advantage with some Michigan born refs. Michigan in the playoffs and Ohio State vs Oklahoma. B1G $$$$$$$
November 21st, 2018 at 2:19 PM ^
Besides Purdue, hate to say it but they have made good half time adjustments this year and pulled out a couple they should’ve lost.
November 21st, 2018 at 4:22 PM ^
Their problem is that they had to make halftime adjustments to pull out narrow wins against Maryland and Nebraska, and it was less that they adjusted to stop Maryland and more that they had to pull out all the offensive stuff they wanted to save for this week (Haskins actually running on a read option comes to mind).
November 21st, 2018 at 4:31 PM ^
Other than perhaps PSU, which game should OSU have lost? Scraping past Nebraska and Maryland (in OT!) isn't a huge accomplishment.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:46 PM ^
I just want to see this all day long......
EDIT- I've been sitting here for 5 minutes watching this.... It's glorious. I cant look away.
November 21st, 2018 at 4:15 PM ^
I'll never understand how he held on to that ball.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:56 PM ^
Outrush the opponent and win the turnover battle. Do that and I predict we will be very happy Sunday morning. Both seem attainable, now have to go out and do it!
November 21st, 2018 at 4:30 PM ^
In 2016 - the only really relevant comparison to this year - we were outscored 10-7 in the second half. That was way more on our offense for committing two killer turnovers (one denying us a TD, the other setting up a TD for them) than on the "defense wearing down."
November 21st, 2018 at 7:33 PM ^
Need to go N.Y. Giants 1991 Super Bowl on them.
November 21st, 2018 at 11:00 PM ^
The line at bovada.lv has slid from Michigan -4 to -4.5 with more money on -4.5. It's -115 for Michigan -4.5 and OSU +4.5 pays -105. It means that bettors still see the 4.5 point spread as generous towards Michigan.
November 22nd, 2018 at 10:46 AM ^
Turnovers in either red zone is one of the few direct paths to losing this game. 2016 was a 20-0 restoration of order for M without those three killer TO's by Speight, and the same thing could certainly happen again. But please don't!
November 22nd, 2018 at 3:28 PM ^
Interesting thanksgiving story.. close family friend is Kevin Wilson’s nephew and told me a story that before the Purdue game Kevin went to Ryan day and laid out around 10 plays based on Purdue’s defensive tendencies he thought would hit for big play. Day didn’t call one play and Wilson from that moment on has checked out and there has been a divide in coaching staff since then...not that this is the major reason this osu team has been crap this year but I think it could be a little piece of what’s going on.