Worst: Sadism
OR
Best: Recycling

I'll write some new stuff about this game but, let's be honest, ain't that much new to say. Feel free to re-read my column from last year, or the year before, or the year before that, or maybe you prefer the season preceding that one, or maybe check out"Losing the Game - Classic Edition" for the tortured ramblings of someone trying to rationalize away reality. At this point, I'm just going to start repeating myself anyway, and I'll still get residual checks for every ad sale on those old pages*. * I do not receive any ad revenue from these postings, which is probably for the best.

Worst: The Wrong Side of History

 

Trying to come up with the best historic examples of “coach obviously doing a good job, but main rival is untouchably awesome” in CFB.

Osborne losing to OU every year from 1973-81, maybe?https://t.co/QLk4NG1HtA

— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) November 30, 2019

 

Yeah...I don't know. At halftime of this game Michigan had 285 yards of offense, was averaging 8.9 ypp and only punted twice...and was down 12. At some point midway through this game it was brought to my attention that OSU had scored 11 TDs on their last 14 possessions against Michigan, with one punt and 2 end of half/games constituting the rest. For the game OSU scored 8 TDs on their 12 meaningful drives, and until the last two (that came about because of short fields) all of them traversed at least 75 yards. For the game, Ohio State averaged 7.5 ypp, which is basically what they did against Maryland and Northwestern and only a shade worse than they put up against Rutgers (!!). Michigan's defense under Don Brown has admittedly struggled against OSU's particular brand of MurderBall offense, but...like...what do you even do with that?

via GIPHY

Ohio State isn't running some exotic offensive scheme against Michigan; despite what Justin Fields says, Michigan prepares for this game as intensely as one can imagine. The defense has players capable of at least getting in the way of OSU's offensive players, and for stretches of this game it absolutely felt like Michigan was on equal footing with the Buckeyes. But then the wheels just feel off, and guys were untying another guy's shoe, oblong balls dribbled back into arms or out of reach, and that's your day.

I'm not going to engage in the usual "should Michigan fire Jim Harbaugh?" discussion because it's a stupid conversation unless you have realistic replacements who could demonstrably make the situation better. Otherwise, you're trading in a top-10-ish team that loses to an historically great opponent for the opportunity to maybe field a top-10-ish team who loses to an historically great opponent. The coaches who could conceivably make Michigan more competitive against the upper echelon of college football (where OSU resides and Michigan decidedly does not) are guys like Saban, Dabo, Smart, or Meyer, and (a) none of those guys are going to leave their current situations to coach Michigan, and (b) frankly, I don't think their methods would work at Michigan for a variety of reasons. And this isn't to take some moral high ground; Michigan undoubtedly has skeletons in its closet. But Michigan's athletic department (and school's somewhat-staid culture overall) has made it abundantly clear they aren't in the business of pushing that envelop you frankly have to in order to maintain that top-level success that's eluded them for decades. And past that group you're getting, at best, different flavors of the same outcome or worse. And if you doubt me, ask yourself the last time Tennessee or Nebraska pop on the national radar beyond "check out how they lost THIS game!"

So I don't know anymore. This feels like Michigan's steady state. They'll beat OSU at some point; 00 does happen sometimes when a little ball goes around a Roulette wheel. But there's an ever-expanding gap between Michigan (and by extension the rest of the conference) and OSU, and it's unlikely to shrink barring a series of self-inflicted wounds by the Buckeyes. And let's be honest, even when they do, fate/hypocrisy steps in to smooth it over. For a long time I've said Michigan is going to have to catch OSU because they aren't going to come back to the pack, but at this point waiting OSU out may be Michigan's only hope. That or the NCAA's ever-loosening monopoly on player compensation lets Michigan, with it's massive alumni base of very successful people, unleash the money cannon and level the playing field that way. And yes, "we're so smart and successful we can spend money better than these dumb people" has totally never failed.

Best: First-Half Offense

This game began with such promise. Michigan scored on the first drive of the game somewhat effortlessly, gashing OSU's #1 rated defense in the air and on the ground. I knew it wouldn't be that easy for the entire game, but I've lived through enough of these contests to know that sometimes you just get into a gunfight and 3 hours later everyone leaves the stadium wondering who in the hell let the Big 12 get all over the field. Other than the errant fumble they didn't make any back-breaking mistakes, and while LOTS of people had an issue with the FG to end the half I think cutting a lead from 15 to 12 is meaningful when the downside of (a) not scoring any points is just as demoralizing and (b) putting OSU deep in their own territory would be negated by the looming halftime and, well, their general ass-kickingness.

Patterson played about as well as you could have hoped, completing 14/19 passes for 250 yards and a TD; despite not having much running game to speak of around him he was able to keep OSU honest with pin-point passing and just enough scrambling. I've given up on the idea of Michigan ever having a truly "high-powered" offense, but one where your QB averages 13 ypa and puts up nearly 300 yards of total offense against one of the best offenses in the country didn't feel remotely plausible after they barely cracked 300 yards total in regulation against Army. I know I've made not-so-veiled references to Patterson having a Rudock-ian end to his career this season, but much like that 2015 game Patterson kept Michigan in it when they were clearly overmatched, and for that he deserves praise.

And as he's done for most of the second half of the year, Hassan Haskins did yeoman's work providing Michigan with something resembling a running game. I know he messed up on that 4th-down conversion, but he was also most of their offense on their 4th-quarter scoring drive and generally looked physically capable of muscling past OSU's defenders. I was wrong early on in the season to wonder why the coaches had Charbonnet share carries with Haskins, as he's proven to be a great addition to the offense and someone more than capable of leading the team on the ground in conference play.

The second half was...less re-affirming, but this offense under Josh Gattis feels more coherent, more "modern" than we've seen around here. Michigan will lose a couple of these receivers in all likelihood this off-season, and the QB who replaces Patterson will be a relative unknown. Michigan's offensive line has depth but losing guys like Bredeson and Onwenu will test it, though I've got faith in Ed Warinner that he's going to field a competent line. Hell, whoever figured out the game plan that limited Chase Young to a couple of QB hits and only 2 sacks overall by the Buckeyes should be proud. Repeat that type of performance next year and Michigan's got a chance to have another pretty good season. Well, until they head to Columbus.

Worst: The Defense, Again

This isn't not purely a Don Brown thing, or a talent thing, or a masochistic Celestial being playing NCAA Football 20xx in whatever is the equivalent of Lima, Ohio in the cosmos thing. Since J.T. Barrett went down midway through the third quarter of the 2017 game, OSU has scored points on 19 of 28 functional drives against Michigan's defense. They've done it in the air (4 TDs in this game after 5 from Haskins last season), on the ground (200+ yards and 4 TDs by Dobbins this year), and if there were other ways to score consistently OSU would do so handily as well. I used to think Barrett was the worst type of QB for Michigan to face, a bulldozer of a guy who had a decent arm and a penchant for keeping drives alive on the ground. But that almost feels quaint at this point. Both Haskins and Fields have eviscerated Michigan's secondary now for years, finding gaping holes in the middle of the field and safeties fruitlessly chasing behind streaking receivers into the endzone. OSU's offense undoubtedly plays a huge role in this; Haskins has looked sorta lost in the Washington and Fields went from lying about being scared of racist Georgians because he couldn't beat out Jake Fromm to throwing for 37 TDs versus 1 pick in Columbus. Hell, Denard Robinson has more passes in the NFL than Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett combined. Still, it clearly works in college and for a variety of reasons this swirling ball of death has it's knives sharpened when they play Michigan.

Is there a defensive system/coach out there who could do better with the talent Michigan is reasonably able to field? I'm not sure. Yes, they have to recruit better at positions like cornerback and DT, and things don't look super-promising on that front right now. But again, Michigan is still recruiting about as well as a mortal program can, and it doesn't seem to matter when OSU's offense has the ball. If there's some amazing defensive coordinator out there who wants to make it his personal mission to give up fewer than 40 points to this OSU offense, I guess give him a shot. But this level of domination feels like a curse as much as some functional, schematic weakness. I've watched enough football that I can't think of a system (again, beyond having elite talent everywhere) that can consistently hold up against this offense, and so unless Brown leaves for a coaching gig somewhere else I don't see what you replace him with that is functionally different.

Worst: You Aren't Helping Yourself

All of these rationalizations shouldn't obfuscate the fact Michigan did itself no favors in this game. While untying Dobbins' shoe was funny and very much this rivalry, it also helped keep an OSU drive going. Patterson fumbling the ball when Michigan was deep in OSU territory killed their chances to keep pace a bit longer. The second half was littered with dropped balls and touchdowns, plays you absolutely have to make in a game like this. Hudson, who has had a fine career at Michigan but has a penchant for sometimes running himself out of plays, did so again in this game and added an offsides on 4th down to keep yet another OSU scoring drive alive. Metellus repeatedly let OSU's receivers get behind him, though if a UFR does ever happen for this game (I doubt it), I'd be interested to see how many of those were bad plays and which were RPS minuses.

This isn't intended to call anyone out; as always, these are (largely) unpaid college athletes playing a game for our enjoyment, and expecting perfection is unreasonable. But Michigan can't afford to make these mistakes against OSU, and they have for years now. Yes, OSU will have missteps (a fumbled punt return here and last season, a missed deep ball periodically), but their margin is so much greater they can weather them rather easily. Michigan doesn't have that breathing room anymore, and so when the mistakes start pilling up there isn't much hope they'll be able to overcome it.

Worst: Caring

Justin Fields stated after the game that OSU cares more about this game than Michigan, that they prepare for this game harder in the weight room and that's why OSU has dominated this series for 15+ years. Now, for a second let's leave aside the fact Fields fled UGA when he didn't get his wa...I mean was called a racist term by some good ol' boys on the baseball team during a game, may have thus feared for his safety (though a feeling apparently not shared by other members of his family) and sought an immediate transfer to OSU...where he then contemplated returning to Georgia after stepping foot on campus. Oh, and also set aside the fact he only takes online courses and rarely steps foot on campus except to engage in football-related activities. But yes, Justin Fields absolutely believes the reason Ohio State is better than Michigan at football is because they care more about perhaps the most storied rivalry in college sports. Much in the same way Mark Dantonio and MSU cared way more than Michigan during the RR and Hoke eras and then, apparently, moved on to newer obsessions (like beating Rutgers and sometimes making a bowl game) after 2015.

So yeah, people will glom onto this rhetoric because it feeds into one's pre-conceived notions of right and wrong, that one wins because he pulls his bootstraps up higher than someone else and not because of a million factors both within and outside your purview. If you want to believe all that bullshit about wanting it, I'm not here to stop you from being wrong. But so much of the narrative surrounding sports works backward from conclusions, that the final score is ordained from the the dedication and morality of the people who played it. It's why some asshole decided to ask Jim Harbaugh if the reason OSU kept beating them was because the players were worse, less prepared, coached poorly, or some combination of all three. Because while, yes, OSU is just a better team, trying to extract some character flaw of the players and coaches to help fill the space in your column you'd usually fill with independent thoughts and unique ideas is the order of the day.

OSU was better than Michigan today, and they have been for quite some time. That isn't because Michigan "deserves" to lose and OSU "deserves to win", that it's some battle of good vs. evil. At this point in the year 2019, I'd thought we'd all come to the realization that shit just sometimes...happens. There's no comeuppance, there's no karma, nothing. It's just life, and just be happy that your biggest problem is your favorite team didn't beat another one.

Quick Hits

• I mentioned this last year, but Gus Johnson has this...thing with calling college football. It can be exhilarating in the right context, but it can also be just stupefying outside of it (e.g. PSU's "redemption" story in 2016, Urban Meyer's "overcoming" Zach Smith in 2018). In this game, I learned a lot about J.K. Dobbins, to the point I was worried we might have a HIPAA violation when he jumped into various decisions that weren't made about two decades ago. I know it's easy filler to talk about the lives of these players, but at some point you enter the uncanny valley cringe and it's hard to get out of it.
• I'm legitimately excited about the offense next year, mostly because what we saw is somewhat player-agnostic. Obviously you want guys who are supremely athletic, but Michigan got a lot of their yards early on with schematic wins as much as performance ones. It'll be interesting to see how the offense evolves next year with the likely departure of Collins and DPJ, but if by some random act of fate they return this offense should be even scarier.
• I'm not going to fight people either way about the two FGs. The first was more defensible to me because it's the end of the half, you want some points, and that turns the game from a 2-score + 2pt for a tie to a 2-score for the lead game. The second FG felt like a James Franklin sad FG play, but it was also 4th-and-11. At the same time, assuming Michigan scores on both of those drives is probably being overly generous. If you assume they score on 1 of them, the net difference is 1 point in a game you lost rather handily. Kicking a couple of FGs didn't mean much in the wash either way to me.
• This is going to come across as petty but there's a non-zero chance this game won't exist in the record books in a couple of years. We all have closer personal friends who we meet right before we head off to college and who loan us money so that...someone can go...somewhere, and we are able to pay it back months earlier but only decide to bring it up to our compliance department toward the end of a season, but Urban Meyer's reputation for leaving a mess behind him is well-earned. And while Day may well be an elite gameday coach, I'm not sold his pact with the Devil is quite as robust. It doesn't change the fact OSU has manhandled Michigan for 2 decades, but it's in play.

Next Game: Florida?

I have no inside knowledge, but I assume it'll be Florida. It has to be Florida. I shutter to imagine what would happen to the world if Michigan didn't play Florida somewhere in the Sunshine State in December. I'm sure it'll be a football game. Maybe Michigan will win, maybe they'll lose. I'll probably care way more about the basketball team at that point, but I'll probably write something about it if they do. Thank you all for reading this column all season long, and who the hell knows what lies ahead.