The Dueling OSU Narratives on the Board
So I see a bunch of griping / trolling on the board about how we can't and won't beat OSU or compete for championships because
1) They get all these 4 and 5 star recruits and simply out-talent us and
2) Urban Meyer is a genius college coach and his system is amazing and he is more accomplished than Harbaugh, etc, etc
The echo chamber on the recruiting front has gotten even louder this year, due to what appears to be an underwhelming incoming class (based on the sites/starz) and another apparently top 3 incoming class for OSU. IE, I think the recency bias of this particular class is blinding people a bit regarding actual talent levels on the respective teams.
So my question for the board is, which narrative is true - because Meyer is either underachieving at OSU (I know- heresy to have such a thought), or the "talent gap" is simply not what the recruitniks would like to believe.
Nobody here is in to moral victories, but the facts, since Harbaugh took over, are that
While UM is a brutal 0-3 against OSU....
In year 1 they were clearly out-classed all over the field by a team many considered the best in college football, despite a fluke loss to MSU in the rain. There was a clear talent gap, but hard to put it all on Harbaugh, given he only had 12 months to develop those players.
Harbaugh year 2, it would be fair to say that UM outplayed OSU for most of the game despite having an injured QB and horrible officiating going against them.
Harbaugh year 3, UM has a chance to win the game on a final drive, starting their 3rd string QB and playing underclassmen all over the field after having 8 players drafted to the NFL from the prior year.
Don't shoot me for not doing all the advanced analytics, but since taking over, UM under Harbaugh has only been completely out classed in 2 games. OSU 2015 and PSU 2017 (revenge game under the lights)
Meyer, with despite a 2 year head start at OSU, has been blown out by Oklahoma and Iowa this year, and the Clemson playoff debacle last year. It would seem to me that if this "talent gap" is as wide as the recruitniks are preaching, we'd have to say Meyer is underachieving with all these top rated classes - given they have just 1 B1G title in the past 3 years. They should be dominating at BAMA levels.... Or
The "talent gap" as evidenced by the games on the field (both head to head and vs. similar competition) just isn't what some here keep preaching.
This isn't meant to be a snarky post, just curious as to which narrative will continue to be pushed, because either 1) Meyer is underachieving despite absurd talent and resources at his disposal (a narrative I see a lot of Bucknuts pushing) or 2) The "talent gap" just isn't there and we've had some bad breaks the past couple years in terms of officiating and injuries at the QB position.
For the record, I think OSU has underachieved a bit the past few years but Meyer is still clearly one of the top coaches in college football. Regarding UM, we've been incredibly unlucky in a few big games (MSU 2015 and OSU 2016) come to mind first, and the "talent gap" just isn't what many on here keep claiming.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:48 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 3:47 PM ^
because they adopted a culture of cheating.
JH has shown we can and will rise above their cheating and beat them fairly
December 23rd, 2017 at 9:35 AM ^
If I were wrong, Tressel would still have a job.
December 23rd, 2017 at 9:34 AM ^
If I were wrong, Tressel would still have a job.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:04 PM ^
I make no excuses: losses are losses. But if OSU beats us because they out-talent us, then I’d love to hear them explain Iowa this year, Penn State last year, or Virginia Tech a couple years before. Those teams had talent that were, collectively, far inferior to what OSU has. And in two of those cases, they got whooped by double digits.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:09 PM ^
the MSU losses
December 21st, 2017 at 6:09 PM ^
If them winning games by out-talenting us was actually true, they wouldn’t have beaten a hapless Michigan team by only one point in 2013. They wouldn’t have needed a very generous spot last year, and they wouldn’t have needed a third string QB to play against that literally handed them the game this year.
I think "out-talented" suggests that we outcoached them but they had enough talent to survive. The examples of 2013, '16 and '17 don't necessarily refute that. I don't think OSU really had stellar gameplans in any of those.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:06 PM ^
is there a tl;dr version of this tome? No? Oh well, guess i'll live in ign'ance...
December 21st, 2017 at 4:14 PM ^
Yes, yes you will continue to do so...
December 21st, 2017 at 2:22 PM ^
Meyers system is getting old and exposed more frequently, especially by teams with *similar* talent. Harbuagh has a complex approach on both sides of the ball, and atleast currently is more of the counter to current cfb styles. This is the more desirable position to be in, and recruiting at a *similar* level. Doesn't help get the shit taste out of your mouth tho Also Fuck OSU
December 21st, 2017 at 3:18 PM ^
Nothing is wrong with Meyer's system, it just seems that way because they've been trotting out a subpar passer in Barrett for the last 9 years.
December 21st, 2017 at 4:11 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 4:53 PM ^
if Don Brown really set up the solution to beat Meyer's system and that's why we're seeing other programs with quality defenses take them down now.
December 21st, 2017 at 9:41 PM ^
Don Brown should beat Meyer's system once before we pretend he's cracked the code.
December 22nd, 2017 at 4:25 AM ^
Oh puh-leeze!
Last year's QB tossed some crucial picks and pick-6, this year's over shot every receiver except your deep safety. But it's Don Brown's fault?!
A buckeye will not recall (or at least not admit) how many BS calls went against M in last year's game. The result of many of those calls were extending osu drives or killing M's. In either case the result was keeping the D on the field far longer than it should've.
Better QB play will protect the D. Let's see what a fresher D can do
December 22nd, 2017 at 9:13 AM ^
This year's version of Don Brown's D gave up three scoring drives (and a 4th resulted in a missed 40 yard FG), at home, to lose the lead, to a backup freshman QB cold off the bench.
Last year's version gave up 150 4th quarter yards, the game tying score, and was also bailed out by another missed OSU chip shot FG, or the game doesn't even go to OT.
Look, I think Brown is a great coordinator. I'd trade him for ours in a second. But c'mon, to act like he's created an entire defensive scheme that's stopped Urban Meyer and is being used across football now--when he's 0-2 against him!--is absurd.
Also, if your argument is "Well Don Brown needs a good offense to really see what his defense can do!" then, 1. I agree, good offense helps protect a defense, but 2. but maybe we should pump the breaks on anointing Brown as the Urban Meyer stopper if he needs his offense to be awesome to prop his defense up enough.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:08 PM ^
From a 1000 ft view, he's underachieving. I think OSU fans would agree that they have better qb's on the roster than Barrett. Problem is that point doesn't matter because their WR situation is terrible...and their OL recruits haven't exactly panned out. But he's had a fairly easy Big Ten to contend with so he's definitely underachieving.
Also...the gap isn't that wide. This year could've easily been a win with competent qb play, and last year...well should've been a win.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:25 PM ^
Not a criticism of your point but just a quick statement - Fans of teams with struggling QB's will nearly always claim that there's a QB on the bench better than the one starting. Not even saying that they aren't right in this circumstance, but the "fan" perspective is only a theoretical statement at best.
December 21st, 2017 at 3:20 PM ^
The backup QB is always better than the starter until he's not.
Case in point: O'Korn
December 21st, 2017 at 3:19 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 3:43 PM ^
I think there is more to winning than recruiting star rankings.Of course there is... The foundation for the chip on MSU's shoulder is built upon 2 and 3 stars.
December 21st, 2017 at 4:35 PM ^
The Team The Team The Team!!!
December 21st, 2017 at 10:43 PM ^
Is OSUs Wr problem because of Barrett or is Barretts problem because of the WRs?
December 21st, 2017 at 2:12 PM ^
How about this stat:
Urban Meyer has been at OSU since the 2012 season, how many STARTING QB's has he had...? Braxton Miller (kind of) and JT Barrett. 5 years and really only ran ONE QB... let's see what that sample size is like under different QB's.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:19 PM ^
Looks like he’s at least as good an athlete as Barrett is, which is more than good enough for that offense. But he can make the throws that Barrett can’t. So the rest of the conference will have it’s hands full.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:48 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 3:38 PM ^
I was just gonna say - he was hitting on slants and meshes, and then that heave on 3rd and long. Not a huge sample size.
December 21st, 2017 at 7:36 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 2:58 PM ^
I do not think he is equal to Barrett in terms of athleticism. Barrett is a top notch athlete and is really the only reason he has found any sort of success. Haskins will be a better passing QB because anyone other than JOK would be. I am interested in seeing how the QB changes with a less dynamic QB, but a better thrower.
December 21st, 2017 at 3:18 PM ^
I talk to a huge OSU fan about football quite often at work. Haskins is supposed to be very slow, but he had a nice run against us (on the hold) and I can't find a 40 time anywhere to confirm.
December 21st, 2017 at 3:23 PM ^
He's an athletic pocket passer, comparable to Cardale Jones or Carson Wentz as the best case scenario (for them).
December 21st, 2017 at 3:52 PM ^
While I greatly appreciate everything JT Barrett has done and all the record he set at Ohio State, I do think Dwayne Haskins skillsets are a better match for Kevin Wilson's offense.
Barrett was brought in to run Urban Meyer/Tom Herman's RPO-heavy scheme, but Kevin Wilson's offense needs a QB that is a much better pocker passer. I think the goal of an Meyer/Wilson hybrid offense is something like what Lincoln Riley/Oklahoma ran this year, which Barrett didn't have the requisite arm talent to run consistently.
December 21st, 2017 at 7:09 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 2:16 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 2:17 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 2:46 PM ^
If Speight didn't get hurt (or Peters was the #2) we would have been 11-1 this season.
We now have three damn good QB's on the team and we're returning a helluva lot more starters that we did last year.
Even with the brutal road schedule I expect us to win at least 10 games in the regular season, including OSU and MSU.
December 21st, 2017 at 3:43 PM ^
We don't know that our QB situation is stabile. People thought our QB situation was stable heading into the 2017 season.
December 21st, 2017 at 4:44 PM ^
Who really had faith in Speight? Not I
Who thought O'Korn was a "stable" option? Not I
Who said again & again that even if Speight got the start vs Fla, we should transition to Peters asap after? I
Ceiling vs floor was my argument then. But even I would not have called the QB situation "stable"!
Now we have Peters, Patterson (maybe), and McCaffrey.
Now THAT'S starting to be a "stable" QB situation
December 21st, 2017 at 2:19 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 3:33 PM ^
They're the football equivalent of Kentucky Basketball. Super talented and capable of winning a title every year, and probably will here and there, but not developed and experienced enough to actually do it year to year as there is just too much roster turnover.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:17 PM ^
What are the narratives? And how are they dueling?
Is this it? -
Narrative 1: OSU is out-performing UM on the recruiting trail (but you say there is recency bias)
Narrative 2: OSU is under-achieving on the field when they play us (let's ignore the record in the interest of a good story), because we have been very competitive against them.
Narrative 1 vs. Narrative 2: [I dont see the duel here, they seem congruent]
So you then say that narrative 1 is false. That's the story here, right? If that is the case, I still dont see what the duel is. The narratives still seem congruent.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:49 PM ^
1) OSU is so much more talented, we won't be able to compete
2) Harbaugh is a good but not great coach like Meyer. Harbaugh's system is fine for the NFL, but unlike Meyer, won't get the most out of it's players.
My point is, they can't be both 1) so superior in talent AND 2) so superior in coaching
given the results on the field over the past 3 years. IMO, both Meyer and Harbaugh are excellent coaches and the "talent gap" is not what many are claiming. I do, however, believe that OSU has slightly underachieved the past 3 years, but also believe our record is worse than what it could have been given a healthy starting QB the past 2 years.
Basically, things seemsreally shitty/skewed right now because we are 1-2 against MSU and 0-3 against OSU, but a bounce here, a call there, and a competent QB completely changes all of this. These are not excuses, you are what your record says you are - just trying to say we're getting close to where we need to be.
December 21st, 2017 at 5:02 PM ^
aside from '15 OSU and '17 PSU - the offensive line is directly or indirectly responsible for all of Harbaugh's losses at Michigan
December 22nd, 2017 at 4:28 AM ^
The OL did NOT fumble the snap on that punt!
December 21st, 2017 at 2:28 PM ^
Meyer at OSU:
- 2012: Overachieved (12-0 coming off a 6-6 year; would've very likely won the B1G, remember they would've played a mediocre Nebraska team Wisconsin slaughtered, if not for a self-imposed ban).
- 2013: On par (12-2; undefeated regular season; did lose to MSU in Indy, but that Spartan team truly was elite. Performed slightly worse than expected against Clemson in the Orange Bowl, but the 12-0 regular season makes up for that in my mind).
- 2014: Overachieved (14-1; National and B1G Championship with backup QBs)
- 2015: Underachieved (12-1; had the most talent in the country that year and lost to a good, but not elite, MSU team at home despite a backup Spartan QB).
- 2016: Overachieved (11-2; had close to the youngest team in the Big Ten, but still made the playoffs, beat a Michigan team with much more experienced talent than them, beat a Top 10 Wisconsin team in Madison)
- 2017: TBD (11-2; they did blow a game to a mediocre Iowa team to miss the playoffs and lost to an elite Oklahoma team. That said, they won the Big Ten, beat a Top Ten Wisconsin team, beat a Top 10 Penn State team, beat Michigan on the road and beat a Top 25 Spartan team by approximately 800 points. If Ohio State beats USC, I'd call this On Par. If they lose the bowl, underachieving).
Meyer has 3 overachieving seasons, 1 on par season, and 1 underachieving season. 2017 still TBD in my view.
Harbaugh at Michigan:
- 2015 Overachieved (10-3 coming off a 5-7 year, with one fluke loss to a Top 10 team, blowout of SEC East champion on their home turf in a bowl, 3 shutouts in a row).
- 2016 Underachieved (10-3 with the most draft picks in college football, a senior laden roster, and a manageable schedule with 8 home games and 2/4 road games against non-bowl qualifying teams. Michigan went 0-2 in its road games against teams with winning records and also fell short in its bowl from what would've been a signature win)
- 2017 Underachieved (8-4; would be on par if this was 9-3, but you cannot lose at home to an MSU team that is even younger than you are and coming off a 3-9 season and be on par. A win over a mediocre South Carolina team will not be enough to reverse that).
Harbaugh has 1 overachieving season and 2 underachieving ones.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:34 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 2:45 PM ^
The over-under on wins was 8.5 in 2017. We won 8. That's actually worse than it would seem before the season though, because Florida turned out to be much worse than expected; Indiana also was worse than expected, most people though they'd win 7 games and they won 5. MSU has a younger team than us, worse recruiting rankings and beat us in Ann Arbor despite it all. So I think it's extremely fair to characterize 2017 as an underachievement, and based on Harbaugh's recent public comments, I think he'd agree with me and not you.
Sure, Michigan looked better than OSU in 2016 because they were a better team and should've been a better team. That's a game that we should win by double digits on a neutral field. In 2017, I don't know how on earth you could say Michigan looked better than OSU. We didn't necessarily look significantly worse, but definitely not better than them. Their backup quarterback came into the game too (when OSU was losing) and immediately thrashed our Top 10 defense on consecutive drives, so not sure how much you can rely on that.
December 21st, 2017 at 2:56 PM ^
December 21st, 2017 at 3:08 PM ^
"Reasonably" claim Michigan would've been 11-1. Yeesh.
Maybe. Maybe not. It's at least as reasonable to assume Speight-led Michigan loses to Purdue as it is that Speight-led Michigan beats Wisconsin, MSU or Ohio State.
Way too many assumptions need to be made to project what that record would be to be reasonably considered.
December 21st, 2017 at 5:01 PM ^
The single biggest problem I have with Harbaugh's tenure at Michigan (well it's 2-pronged) is his QB judgement - and that's supposed to be his greatest strength!
Rudock, unquestioned home run, the QB whisperer is in AA, sky is the limit... but then:
O'Korn may have had enough talent at Houston to be worth a flier, but he certainly didn't get even one iota better in 3years under JH.
And then not playing Peters sooner because supposedly he was either a) aloof or b) unprepared doesn't speak that well to QB coaching either.
I think (hope) that something was leaarned during the last two years, and that QB play will be our greatest strength going forward. There is a significant track record suggesting that should be the case!