Let’s get this out of the way…I do not think Michigan is going to take down Ohio State on Saturday. The metrics say they are the best team in the country. The eye test says they are the best team in the country. Recent history says Ohio State owns this rivalry. Soooooo…that’s it, right? Chalk another one up for the bad guys?

The players aren’t going down without a fight, and neither will I. So I went digging for some numbers and narratives that might suggest Michigan has a punchers chance against the 2019 version of the Buckeyes. There aren’t many cracks in the armor of this juggernaut, but wouldn’t that make it all the more satisfying to play the role of spoiler for a change? Let’s grab a sling and see if we can hit Goliath in his big scarlet dome. 

“Like” The Warm Take on Facebook

Pressure is on them

Michigan’s Big Ten title hopes were extinguished earlier than anyone had expected. By the third week of October, Michigan had already suffered its second conference loss. Ohio State, on the other hand, is undefeated, has already locked up the Big Ten East, and will play for the conference championship. At this point, given their No. 1 College Football Playoff ranking, they have bigger fish to fry than just the Big Ten. A national championship could very well be in the cards for the Buckeyes. 

There has clearly been a noticeable shift in Michigan’s confidence since their early-season struggles. It appears as though the players have cleared a mental hurdle that was preventing them from playing to their full potential. Just go back and read some of the post game interviews from players and coaches alike that mention words like “pressing”, “pressure”, and “playing tight”. If you need a refresher, you can find some of them in my early-season takeaways here (Army) and here (Wisconsin).

Fast-forward in time, and the phrase “playing with confidence” is flying from everyone’s mouths. That confidence has allowed the team to play fast and loose, without the weight of championship expectations on their shoulders. Michigan has been solely focused on taking care of its rivals, and the results speak for themselves: 89-24 against Notre Dame and Michigan State. The bumps in the road came early and often for Michigan, and that adversity seems to have hardened this team.

Ohio State, on the other hand, has not faced much (if any) adversity this season. There is one key reason for that, get ready for some advanced analytics…they are really, really good. When you bludgeon every team you face you don’t really get much practice playing in pressure situations. OSU’s average margin of victory is 38.9. No team has been within one possession of the Buckeyes in the final 13 minutes of a game this season. For a team with a first-year (with OSU) QB, as well as a first-year head coach, this could eventually come back to bite them.

Sometimes teams are great frontrunners, but don’t respond well to being punched in the grill. Maybe OSU’s first taste of adversity comes against Michigan and not in a national title game against LSU.

Ohio State has a sneaky fumbling problem

Remember early in the year when Michigan was constantly putting the football on the ground. Would you believe me if I told you that OSU comes into this game with more lost fumbles than Michigan on the season? The answer is no, you wouldn’t. Because it seems impossible. Michigan once led the country in this stat. Those days are long gone, while Ohio State’s problems are just now rearing their ugly heads.

Michigan has fumbled a grand total of one time in the past five games. OSU, on the other hand, has five in the past two games alone. I’m not in the prediction business, but I feel strongly putting this not-so-bold statement on parchment: Michigan will not win if they finish with a negative turnover margin. And unless they play a clean game and break even, they will need to punch out a fumble or two, because Ohio State QB Justin Fields doesn’t throw interceptions. He only has one on the season.

Self-criticism

It can sometimes be a helpful exercise to take the opposing team’s point of view rather than overanalyzing your team. From the perspective of Land Grant Holy Land (OSU wing of SB Nation), Ohio State’s biggest weakness in 2019 is their pass protection. While Michigan doesn’t have a dominant pass rush per se, they are tied for 12th in the country with 35 sacks and rank 7th in sack yardage. They also have an eight sack game on their resume (Iowa). There is potential here for some QB pressure, but they will have to finish the job, because Fields can burn them via the broken-play scramble like so many Ohio State QBs of yesteryear.

Force Young to chase

Chase Young is a beast. Any time a defensive end makes his way into the Heisman Trophy conversation, you know you are dealing with a special player. The guy is averaging damn near two sacks per game and has forced seven fumbles in nine games. He is a major reason why OSU has a 14.2% sack rate, which is the highest by any team in over a decade. Long story short, you need to run where this guy isn’t. 

That being said, Shea Patterson just might be the perfect remedy to neutralize Young’s effectiveness, if he keeps his head on a swivel. We know Patterson keeps teams honest with his threat in the run-pass option, but it would be huge for Michigan if he turns a few would-be Young sacks into first downs via scrambling. Making this prospect even more enticing is that OSUs linebackers are their weakest position group. If Patterson can sense the pressure and run effectively, this just might turn into one of Michigan’s best sources of offense.

Preparation is going to be key to making this come to fruition. If Jim Harbaugh and company are overplaying the whole Xs and Os execution mantra, then they likely aren’t preparing for what could go wrong in this game. If they are envisioning a scenario where Chase Young isn’t getting to the QB, then this game is over before it starts. Prepare for the worst, that way you aren’t trying to figure out how to deal with it on the fly.

Michigan’s long and winding road back to the top ten

“But they aren’t in the top ten you silly billy”, one might say. Maybe not according to some lame committee, but the nerds and their calculators (the real heroes) say Michigan is, in fact, the top ten team they were projected to be heading into the season. It took a while, and it wasn’t pretty, but here we are.

Michigan now comes in at No. 10 in F+, which is the definitive ranking from the fine folks at Football Outsiders. Basically, we are talking about efficiency weighted against quality of opponents here. A look back at the leaders in this metric from previous seasons and you will see a whole lot of Alabamas, Clemsons, and Ohio States. This season, everyone is looking up at OSU. So being in the top ten puts them in good company. 

Let’s bleeping gooooooooooo!

Six weeks ago, this was a doomsday matchup for Michigan. Jim Harbaugh was on the hot seat, Josh Gattis looked like a confused first-year offensive coordinator, and Shea Patterson was the next in a long line of regressing Michigan quarterbacks. My how things have changed. We can at least entertain the idea of Michigan giving Ohio State a run for their money. If some of the scenarios above come to fruition, we could be in store for another classic chapter in this rivalry.

I have one final plea for Jim Harbaugh and his coaching staff headed into this game: Go all in with the #SpeedInSpace philosophy. If Michigan reverts back to the safe, conservative, run-first and control the clock type of team they have always been in years past, we are unlikely to get a different result. They made these changes because their most hated rival had proven year after year that the old Michigan is no match for the current Ohio State. There is no turning back now. If you go down swinging, so be it. But, as the great Michael Scott always says, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. 

What better way to end a seven-game losing streak against these clowns than taking them down when they are the No. 1 team in the country and costing them a national championship in the process. Hail!

Subscribe to The Warm Take to receive the latest articles straight to your inbox. It’s free!

Follow @TheWarmTake on Twitter

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may earn a commission.