osu 63, Michigan 39

[Niffla]

Harbaugh on his podcast:

"Nov. 24, the better team won," said Harbaugh, who drops to 0-4 against Ohio State as head coach. "Ohio State was the better team. Congratulations to them. Had that been a week later or week earlier, the result might have been reversed."

Oh really? That same Ohio State team beats this Michigan team's ass everyday of the week like that. Pick your week of the season. And it can be in Columbus, Ann Arbor, or on the moon. The end result would be just like we saw on Saturday. A complete and utter thrashing of epic and biblical proportions.

"There's things in life where they don't go your way. It almost seems like sometimes life is testing you. I believe the strong end up surviving and the weak end up keep having that happen to them the rest of their lives."

Hate to break it to you buddy, but as long as Urban is there, you losing to Ohio State will happen for the rest of your Michigan head coaching life. You're already 0-4 and as long as Urban is around that fat fucking zero on the W side of the column will be there too.

[hack]

I still think Harbaugh and his staff are on a learning curve, and that they're going to get there. Why it's going to take this long, and why OSU can't just stumble and hand us one like we do to them regularly, though, is a mystery.

[Hannibal]

I still think Harbaugh and his staff are on a learning curve.

A guy who has been a head coach for 15 years at various levels and is in his mid-50s is on a learning curve?

[hack]

John Beilein has been a head coach for some 40 years and is on a learning curve.

[froot loops]

Beilein is a better coach

[hack]

Precisely because he's a life-long learner. If JH isn't, he won't last. He's going to have to be. And, I think he is. He has shown the ability to learn from his mistakes and correct them, though at a pace slower than you'd like.

[Niffla]

Jim's a good coach. A very good coach. Has had a lot of success. Just seems to not be able to get over that final hump, though. Had a 12-1 season with Stanford where they finished 4th in the country by the end of that college football season. Remains his high water mark of his collegiate coaching career. Three 10 win seasons in 4 seasons with Michigan -- two of which he went into the Ohio State game with a chance at the college playoffs on the line. Of course we know how that ended up on each occasion. 4 seasons in the NFL as a HC. Three of the four were stellar campaigns. Two of those seasons ended in the NFC Championship game, the other in the Superbowl.

He's good. But so far the championship, legacy defining win alludes him.

[entropy]

Tom Osborne lost his first 6 games Barry Switzer... then he evolved his offense from a pro style to option... and became the greatest coach in CF history not named Saban.

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[WM Wolverine]

It's alot easier to go from where Hoke had this team to where they are today than getting to where Saban, Meyer, Dabo are. M is in good hands with Harbaugh though I'm not confident we'll compete with Urban, and Satan annually.

[AlabamAlum]

What I fear is that Kirby will become a Mini-Saban. He worked for him for 10 years and has stolen everything.

[THE_WIZARD_]

The only thing you have to fear is...fear itself...

[lineygoblue]

Wiz:

[THE_WIZARD_]

liney:

xoxoxo

[Jeff Buchanan]

talent ..... and anyone else who wants to understand 63 points ..... you wished Brian had done a UFR on the osu win. Another poster made an attempt. I looked at his first half attempt at a UFR and found it unrevealing. It also doesn't have video so you have to squint a bit to imagine the author's description of each play. I think it's clear enough to see the critical issues and the second half UFR hits some key reasons for osu's point-a-palooza:

I don't think it was as much Brown's fault as a function of scheme as it was atrocious S play but Brown probably did play a role (see below). I could certainly see what was going on live with the route coverages against osu's receivers and you did too when you re-watched the game and commented last week. What I didn't see live and is made clear here were a couple of big running plays that were horribly misplayed by both the LBs and Ss .... or throws to the backs/TEs as second reads when receivers were covered that got way too much YAC. IOW, a good play that should have netted 10 yards if properly defended that instead got 30+ or in one case 78!

Most observers knew that M's Achilles heel on defense was the three guys playing S: Metellus, Kinnel and Watson. They aren't awful. They were just OK to pretty good for 10 games against less competitive opponents and were good when M was able to get pressure on the opponent's QB. Still, they had noteworthy busts that Brian picked up on his UFRs. The UFR presented below mentions several plays where they misread or read it correctly then misplayed it (pursuit angles for example). We'd seen that during the season but not producing the kinds of results osu produced - credit to ufm and day/wilson for optimizing play selection and putting haskins in a position to succeed. Also credit to osu's OL play.

The OP suggests some complicity with Brown in that he plays the Ss, at times in both halves, in roles they looked to be unfamiliar with - he comments a busted coverage occurred because the Ss were playing roles they hadn't practiced/played a lot. Maybe Brown's intent was to present haskins with a look he hadn't seen. Well, it didn't work. IOW, Brown took a bad situation - marginal S play - and made it worse. I have a feeling he's losing a lot of sleep over that. Doubt it will be repeated. But if you have any doubt why Dax Hill was such a huge priority, you should have no doubt now.

Lastly, and everyone has picked up on this, the pass rush was poor and allowed haskins to do what he did. I think Brown was responsible for wrongly targeting osu's interior to get pressure when in fact, that was osu's OL strength. It appears, he made it too easy for osu to defeat any outside in pressures with double teams. You make that harder on osu by overloading one side on blitzes, e.g., put Bush or Hudson AND Winovich or Gary on the boundary or field side depending on how osu was lining up, nominal pressure on the interior and max on the outside in getting creative with those rushing lanes. I don't recall seeing any of that. I do recall seeing Dwumfor, Kemp or Solomon getting stood up a lot and either Winovich or Gary being ineffective I suppose due to double teams.

https://mgoblog.com/diaries/michigan%27s-defense-vs-ohio-state-2nd-half-bah-humbug-edition