2B — Monday, December 2, 2019
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
W
hen it all ended,
when the blowout
was codified and
the Michigan football team
was taking a
never-ending
walk up the
tunnel, Ohio
State ran to
the nearest
end zone.
They linked
arms and
swayed, the
band giving
the music, a
sea of fans
clad in red — the only ones still
left in Michigan Stadium —
supplying the vocals to “Carmen
Ohio.”
It all felt like a repeat, because
it was. A repeat of last year, when
“Harbaugh sucks” chants rattled
around the Horseshoe after a
62-39 Ohio State blowout win.
A repeat of the year before that,
when the Wolverines let Dwayne
Haskins take control after
coming into the game as a backup
and walk out with a 31-20 win. A
repeat of the last eight years, over
which Ohio State has outscored
Michigan a combined 331-216
without dropping a single edition
of this now-annual ruination. A
repeat of the last 16 years, over
which the Buckeyes have won 15
of these, the only loss coming in
a transition year between scarlet
and gray dynasties.
This is what this rivalry is.
This is what Ohio State is, and
this is what Michigan is. A 56-27
drubbing. Jim Harbaugh sitting
at one podium saying, “They
played better today.” Ryan Day
sitting at the other saying, “In
games like this, it comes down
to players. Our big-time players
played well.” The Wolverines
slowly walking off the field.
The Buckeyes linking arms and
singing their alma mater.
If you think it’s any different,
you haven’t been paying
attention.
This isn’t a Jim Harbaugh
problem, a Shea Patterson
problem or a Don Brown
problem. Harbaugh brought
Michigan to 10 wins in three
of his first four years and still
has a chance to do it for a
fourth time — more than on
par with what the Wolverines
did regularly before a six-year
Rich Rodriguez/Brady Hoke
odyssey sunk the program to new
depths. Patterson set a record
on Saturday for the most passing
yards a Michigan quarterback
has ever had over three games.
Brown’s defense has been top-
10 in SP+ every year since he’s
come to Ann Arbor, and even
after Saturday, it’s on pace to do
so again.
Since 1969, the start of the
Bo Schembechler era, Michigan
has averaged 9.44 wins per year.
Harbaugh has 47 in five years
— 9.4 per year. You want him to
restore this program to what it
was under Bo? Check. Harbaugh
has the Wolverines right where
they’ve always been.
It’s not Michigan that’s
changed. It’s Ohio State.
In that same 50-year span,
the Buckeyes have averaged 9.78
wins per year. Since Jim Tressel
took over the program in 2001,
that number has rocketed up
to an even 11. Since Harbaugh
took over Michigan in 2015, that
number is at 11.8. It’s a whole
different stratosphere than
Michigan, and it’s been borne out
on the field.
“It’s just kind of the same
thing every year,” senior tight
end Sean McKeon said. “Gotta
execute better, and yeah it gets
old, but just gotta play better
against them.”
But the gap goes beyond
execution and just playing
better. In the Harbaugh era, the
Buckeyes have out-recruited
Michigan in all but one year, per
247Sports’ composite rankings.
They’ve landed four top-five
classes (including 2020). The
Wolverines have landed one,
in 2017, and failed to get the
production they could have out of
it. Want to find the difference on
the field Saturday? Look there.
On defense, the Buckeyes
landed five-stars Chase Young
and Jeffrey Okudah, two future
top-10 picks in the NFL Draft.
Young didn’t fill the statsheet on
Saturday, but set an Ohio State
record with 16.5 sacks this year
and will likely be a Heisman
Trophy finalist. Okudah held
Nico Collins, Michigan’s best
receiver, to two catches for 42
yards. On offense, the Buckeyes
also landed J.K. Dobbins, who
ran for 211 yards, and three
starters on an offensive line that
paved the Wolverines all day
long.
Michigan got two five-stars
in that class: Donovan Peoples-
Jones, who caught three balls
for 69 yards and accounted for a
number of second-half drops on
Saturday, and Aubrey Solomon,
who transferred to Tennessee
before the season. Of its 19 four-
stars in 2017, just three — Collins,
cornerback Ambry Thomas and
center Cesar Ruiz — started
and made a tangible impact on
Saturday. Eight are no longer
with the program.
The 2016 season and that
next recruiting class was
the Wolverines’ chance to
narrow the gap, to capitalize
on two years of building hype
around Harbaugh and position
themselves as real contenders to
the Buckeyes. Instead, they were
inches from beating Ohio State,
failed to get everything they
could from the next recruiting
class, and now, this is just reality.
Ohio State is one of the best
three or four programs in the
country every year. Michigan
is one of the best 14 or 15 every
year. Harbaugh is a very good
football coach who got the
Wolverines back to this level. But
there’s only so many Jim Tressels
and Urban Meyers.
Before them, both programs
could count themselves in that
tier of programs good enough to
get nine or 10 wins annually and
compete for a title every so often.
Then the Buckeyes took a leap.
The Wolverines couldn’t make
the same jump.
Saturday is just what generally
happens when a top-four team
plays a top-15 team. So is nearly
every iteration of this game in
the 21st century.
“We knew we had the athletes
and the players to get the job
done,” former Ohio State receiver
Parris Campbell told The Daily a
month ago.
He was talking about the 2018
game, when the Buckeyes gashed
Brown’s corners with crossing
routes for 396 passing yards. He
might as well have been talking
about most of the 15 games prior,
or predicting the future.
This isn’t a gap that gets
bridged in one year. It’s one that
takes a recruiting cycle, and
maybe more than one, to mend.
And to get that kind of recruiting
cycle, the kind it takes to beat
Ohio State, Harbaugh needs to
… beat Ohio State. Thus is borne
the never-ending cycle Michigan
finds itself facing. Get lucky once,
or find itself unable to meet an
impossible expectation.
“We didn’t really put them in
a position to be of pressure on
them,” Harbaugh said. “And they
played really well. They made
those plays, they made those
drives, they got those stops.”
If he wants to fix that, it’ll take
far more than a few adjustments
on a whiteboard.
Sears can be reached at searseth@
umich.edu or on Twitter @ethan_sears.
This is what Michigan is
ETHAN
SEARS
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
The Michigan football team lost its eighth-straight game against Ohio State on Saturday, a marker of the level of both programs over the last 15 years.
Offense goes quiet in second half
Shea
Patterson
took
the
snap at Ohio State’s 16 early
in the second quarter, hoping
to convert third down and
potentially
bring
Michigan
within two points.
But he dropped the ball, and
a Buckeye fell on it. You’ve seen
that before.
What happened next should
be familiar, too.
After staying with Ohio State
in the first quarter, trading
blow for blow, the offense
went quiet. Mistakes piled up.
The Wolverines scored just
11 points in the second half.
Jim Harbaugh spent nearly
two minutes after the game
diagnosing the problems: red
zone issues, lack of momentum,
not making plays.
But the phrase everyone who
spoke to the media used more
than any other was we didn’t
execute. That about summed it
up.
When the dust cleared on a
56-27 loss, Michigan’s eighth-
straight to the Buckeyes, it
was clear: the Wolverines may
have had a new look offense
complete with a flashy hashtag
and some gaudy stats against
mid-tier teams, but it wasn’t
good enough to keep up with
Ohio State. Again.
“It was in just the second
half, a few errors,” Patterson
said. “ … You just gotta play the
same way for four quarters, not
just two or three.”
At the end of the second half,
Patterson found junior receiver
Donovan
Peoples-Jones
in
the end zone for a would-be
touchdown — would be, if
Peoples-Jones hadn’t dropped
it. Michigan was forced to kick
a field goal.
Peoples-Jones had two more
drops in the third quarter.
Sophomore
receiver
Ronnie
Bell had one, too, when a catch
would’ve
converted
third-
and-16. Even when Patterson
tried to put the team on his
back, the receivers didn’t hold
up their end of the deal.
“Just
made
too
many
mistakes. Too many drops,”
said senior tight end Sean
McKeon. “ … Just gotta be
confident in catching the ball.
Gotta make the tough plays, the
one-one-one matchups.”
Other times, the Buckeyes
simply
made
plays.
The
Wolverines’ receivers are big,
strong, athletic.
But they hadn’t faced a
secondary like Ohio State’s,
either. And when it came to
50-50 balls, for the first time all
season, Michigan
was on the wrong
side of the coin.
And that’s not
even to speak for
the
run
game.
The
Wolverines
rushed for just
91
yards
and
struggled
to
get
anything
going
on
that
side of the ball
the entire game. No play was
more emblematic of that than
an
attempted
fourth-and-1
conversion
in
the
fourth
quarter,
when
Michigan
attempted to run a wildcat play
and opened a gaping hole for
Hassan Haskins — but Haskins
didn’t see it and got stuffed.
With the run game struggling
to get off the ground and the
Wolverines down big in the
second half, the Buckeyes could
focus their game plan on trying
to stop Michigan’s receivers.
They did just that.
“Just gotta find a way to get
on top and play with a lead if
they allow you to on offense,”
McKeon said. “… Can’t afford
to throw the ball every play. It
closes off half our offense.”
Meanwhile, on the other
end of the field, Ohio State
put star running back J.K.
Dobbins in a position to run
wild. Quarterback Justin Fields
picked his spots and took his
shots and converted every time.
The Buckeyes were a more
talented team,
yes
—
with
three
legit
Heisman
candidates and
a glut of five-
star
talent.
They didn’t get
ranked No. 1
in the College
Football
Playoff poll for
nothing.
But on Saturday, they were
also the better team. The team
that made fewer mistakes.
“They definitely made deep
shots when we didn’t, took
more deep shots, coverage on
those, it was kinda deflating
to our defense,” McKeon said.
“They converted on all of their
red zone drives, converted
touchdowns. We didn’t.”
Ohio State executed, plain
and simple — and in doing so,
showed
Michigan
what
its
offense wants to be, but has
never quite actually been.
You’ve seen that before.
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Shea Patterson said Michigan struggled to keep the same level all game.
Just made too
many mistakes.
Too many
drops.
Once again, ‘M’ defense falls flat
Jim Harbaugh brought his
hands to hips, an empty stare
glued to his face.
If he had looked forward, he
would’ve seen Ohio State running
back J.K. Dobbins leaping into the
end zone, sparking pandemonium
from the sea of red behind him.
Instead,
Harbaugh
looked
down, training his eyes toward his
playbook, seemingly in search of
answers.
For the eighth-straight year
— and fifth in Harbaugh’s five
seasons — there were none. Just
a 56-27 defeat, further cementing
the balance of power in a rivalry
that leaves Michigan searching for
its soul every November.
It’s a program that, as long as
Harbaugh has been here, has hung
its identity on its defense. Every
year, its defense is lauded as one
of the nation’s best. Every year,
its defense is the reason it thinks
it can beat Ohio State. Every year,
the stats back those assertions up
through 11 weeks.
And then this game comes,
obliterating those misconceptions
and exposing the talent gap that
the
Wolverines
spend
three
months dismissing.
“They’re a very talented team,
obviously, (have been) throughout
the entire year,” said fifth-year
senior linebacker Jordan Glasgow.
“But we’re just as talented, I feel
like.”
Minutes
earlier,
sophomore
defensive end Aidan Hutchinson
sat in the same seat, rejecting the
notion that defensive coordinator
Don Brown’s scheme was at fault.
“It’s not scheme, we just gotta
execute,” Hutchinson said. “That’s
it.”
The answer most likely lies
between scheme and talent. Per
247’s composite rankings, Ohio
State’s roster has 13 former five-
star recruits to Michigan’s four.
For four-stars, the gap is 47 to 36.
None of that is insurmountable,
but it creates an uphill battle.
A year ago, that talent gap was
evident when Dwayne Haskins
shredded Michigan for 396 yards
and six touchdowns. In that game,
though, Brown stood at the center
of criticism for his inability to
scheme against the Buckeyes’
crossing routes. This year, there
was no single weakness that stood
out so glaringly.
Dobbins piled on 211 rushing
yards, quarterback Justin Fields
passed for 301 and four scores
and, once again, Ohio State
did whatever it wanted to the
Wolverines.
By the time the Buckeyes
congregated in the south end
zone, dancing on the maize ‘M’
while Michigan trudged down
the tunnel, they had scored more
points than they did against
Florida
Atlantic,
Cincinnati,
Indiana,
Nebraska,
Michigan
State and Northwestern.
“We gotta dig down next year,
see what we got,” Hutchinson said.
“You’re not gonna win ballgames
when you’re letting up 50 to 60
points. It’s not gonna happen. So,
we gotta be better.”
It’s an eerily similar sentiment
to
the
one
the
Wolverines
preached a year ago, with an
identical silence enveloping Ohio
Stadium’s auxiliary media room.
“We’ll come back motivated and
make darn sure it doesn’t happen
again,” Harbaugh said then.
To make sure he stayed true
to his word, Harbaugh went
out and hired a young, forward-
thinking offensive coordinator,
relinquishing the keys to his
offense for the first time in his
coaching career. But on the
defensive side, his only changes
came when his hand was forced
by these Buckeyes poaching two
of his most respected assistant
coaches.
So a year later, when a near-
carbon copy of that game unfolded
in Ann Arbor, there were more
questions than answers.
“I’m
not
going
into
the
criticizing,
and
blaming
and
things like that,” Harbaugh said.
He doesn’t need to — the stat
sheet does it for him. Ohio State’s
composite offensive line over
these past two versions of The
Game: 118 points, 1,144 yards.
Minutes later, as Hutchinson
stared at that stat sheet, all he
could do was pause and shake his
head in disbelief.
“It’s
hard
to
look
at,”
Hutchinson said. “We’re just a
better defense than this, we’re a
better team than this.”
For the second year in a row,
they’ll have to wait 12 months to
prove it.
THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Editor
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Michigan’s defense gave up 56 points to Ohio State on Saturday a year after giving up 62 to the Buckeyes.