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A Short Recap of The Game, 2018

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My Dad Is A Wolverine But I'm A Buckeye's picture
February 3, 2019 at 1:45pm
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Hello, 11W Commentariat,

 

I got bored and decided to try my very amateur hand at an article recapping The Game from this past season. Of course, a little bias seeped in, but it was still fun to write. Hope you all enjoy it, I hope that it isn't too long, and I hope that it brings back the wonderful memories of that divine beatdown of those assholes from That School Up North. Go Bucks! 

 

Each season, sports writers and so-called college football “experts” fail miserably at trying to predict how any given game or season will play out. At the current moment, only three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and Alabama’s continued dominance of the amateur sport. On any given Saturday, any team can beat the other. It’s one of the oldest pieces of wisdom in college football that has been proven in every season since Rutgers and Princeton first kicked off in 1896. So, it’s easy and difficult to blame those writers when their “expert” predictions blow up in their faces.

 

Everyone knew what was going to happen: Ohio State, saddled all season with negative media coverage and a historically porous defense was finally going to fall to the invincible Michigan. The Wolverines were good all season, of course, having found their ideal QB to fit Jim Harbaugh’s antiquated offense. In addition, their defense was the epitome of lockdown, statistically ranked as the best defense in all of college ball. After years of irrelevance, Michigan was finally going to be back on the mountain, ready to challenge Nick Saban and his jolly band of genetically enhanced man-children to claim the national championship. Based on how the media talked about Michigan’s team, you would think that they had cured cancer in their spare time.

 

The media treatment of Michigan can only be described as shamefully shilly. Did they dominate their opponents? Yes. In their frenzy to pre-emptively crown Michigan as B1G Champs, nobody seemed to dig deeper into how Michigan won and, more importantly, who they were beating. All of their big games were at home. Michigan State’s offensive ineptitude was historic. Wisconsin couldn’t throw the ball. Penn State lost almost all of their offensive output and creativity from 2017. If Michigan had not beaten those teams, someone who was actually paying attention would have been concerned that Michigan was a bit of a paper tiger.

 

In retrospect, Michigan was lauded for kicking their opponents while they were down. Kyle Rowland, the inimitable prophet from the Toledo Blade, put forth the absolutely farcical notion that Michigan was “battle-tested,” despite them only needing to come back once all season (against Northwestern), and losing their biggest game thus far at Notre Dame. They were tested in battles against papillons, not dobermans.

 

The classic Michigan arrogance started to flow into the national consciousness. Boy band frontman and part time Michigan defensive lineman Chase Winovich coined their wins as “The Revenge Tour.” What he actually did was inadvertently create the idea that Michigan was “owed” its final victory on said tour. Karan Higdon, Michigan’s running back, guaranteed a victory in The Game. Linebacker Devin Bush followed suit. The stars were aligned. Michigan was owed this victory, no hard work necessary. Pieces in place, the Wolverines boarded their buses for the final stop on their ever-marketable Revenge Tour. Down south, Ohio State had heard it all. Coming off of a sloppy, close win over Maryland, the story, again, was when OSU was finally going to fall. Urban Meyer had spent the season fighting an arachnoid cyst during games, clutching his head in visible agony at certain points on the sidelines. Especially in the Maryland game, the broadcasters seemed more interested in Meyer’s health than the actual action on the field. Hate Week arrived with all that baggage and a bag of chips. Eventually, Ohio State’s players started getting questions about their rivals’ infamous guarantees. Each answer sounded something like this: “We respect our rivals and we’re going to keep working to get ready for The Game.” Quick, humble, to the point. No gallivanting, no flexing. It didn’t matter. The narrative still stood. This was Michigan’s year. Nothing stood in their way. Nothing, except arrogance.

 

The Revenge Tour was going to nuke Columbus on the way to the playoff. The narrative was written before The Game was even played, to the point that you would have thought that God himself had declared Michigan the winners.

 

What happened next can only be described as divine. Maybe God was upset at the media for christening Jim Harbaugh (and to a certain extent, QB Shea Patterson) as Jesus Christ Himself. Maybe God decided that instead of blessing the arrogant Wolverines, he would humble them with a hell storm.

 

An overcast, misty day greeted the 115th meeting of these two teams. Good weather for a punishing ground game, something that Michigan excelled at executing and Ohio State struggled at utilizing. Ohio State’s only hope was to start fast, put up fourteen points before Michigan could, and hang on.

 

What followed was, simply, the most complete and unexpected ass whooping of the 2018 college football season. Murphy’s Law bent Michigan over and didn’t even call them back. Their vaunted defensive line bookended by Rashan Gary and Chase Winovich? They touched Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins maybe once all afternoon. Karan Higdon and their punishing ground game? Demolished by a fierce Ohio State defensive line that didn’t have a Bosa playing in The Game for the first time since 2013. Their improved offensive line? Blown up by that same Ohio State defensive front. Shea Patterson, Michigan’s offensive messiah? Handcuffed by Harbaugh’s antiquated offense and unrelenting pressure from the Ohio State defense. All to the glorious tune of the tenth ranked Ohio State Buckeyes absolutely manhandling the fourth ranked Michigan Wolverines 62-39.

 

Every single storyline from the offseason up until Hate Week was shattered in a four hour football game. It has rarely been as sweet as it was that afternoon.

 

About halfway through the third quarter, all watching knew that Michigan’s offense was going to do them in. Slow, methodical, the definition of outdated, Michigan’s drives gorged on precious clock. Ohio State’s offense was wisely tailored to be quick strike, crushing the over-aggressive, over-pursuing Wolverines with crossing routes and deep passes. Ohio State wide receiver Parris Campbell’s jet sweep to the house in the fourth quarter was a perfect microcosm of how much faster Ohio State’s wide recievers as a whole were than Michigan’s defensive backs and safeties.

 

Another aspect to note is the emergence of certain players. It is routinely understood that The Game is the most important game on the schedule for Ohio State. That is the absolute time to step up into your role and make a name for yourself. Steve Deace, host of the very good Michigan Podcast, regularly laments the fact that Michigan players, both known and unknown, do not step up in big games to make those plays. Luckily for Ohio State, true freshman wide receiver Chris Olave decided to have the game of his life in The Game. He started the day off with a couple of bangs, scoring the first two touchdowns for Ohio State on passes from Haskins. However, Olave’s biggest moment came when he blocked a Michigan punt in the third quarter. The ball sailed into the waiting hands of Ohio State player Sevyn Banks, who cleanly ran it in for a touchdown. Those watching could see the proverbial wheels shoot right off of Michigan’s wagon. The rout was on. This also begs the question that I don’t necessarily have the answer to: why don’t Michigan’s players step up in the big games? Why don’t they seem to have that extra drive to fight for their team and their school? I’m sure some of them do, but it just never seems to come out at the right time for them. Oh, well. Not my problem.

 

In an afternoon full of shattered narratives, two moments of disrespect stood out that may be added to the annals of Ohio State lore. In the fourth, Ohio State was threatening at Michigan’s goal line. K.J. Hill, one of Ohio State’s best wide receivers, motioned across the line of scrimmage, pointing all the way at Michigan safety Josh Metellus, telling him, “It’s coming your way, big guy.” Sure enough, the play started, Haskins tossed a short pass to Hill, and Hill ran right past Metellus for the score. While that’s enough disrespect for one year, the most disrespectful moment came soon after. Having already crushed Karan Higdon on a screen pass earlier in the game, Ohio State cornerback Shaun Wade decided he wanted another helping of arrogant moron. Michigan tight end Sean McKeon caught a screen pass, turned upfield, and was summarily leveled by Wade. The hit drew an audible reaction from the stadium, which can be heard on the broadcast. Wade then stepped right over McKeon, calling back to Allen Iverson’s infamous step over Tyronn Lue. McKeon, apparently thinking he had some ground to stand on, popped up and followed Wade, looking for a fight and jawing all the way. Yes, that sort of behavior from a Michigan player does sound familiar: it’s the noticeable look of all talk, no walk.

 

As with many sports outings/storylines, there is absolutely a lesson to be learned here: The Game is not over until it is over. Also, because God is good, there are extra lessons for the lovely boys in the Maize and Blue. Chief among those lessons is simple: shut the hell up. If you spend all of your time running your mouth, you’ll also spend a lot time watching your opponent run away from you. While you were talking about how great you were, they were spending their time making sure they were better than you. The other valuable lesson is don’t expect your success to be handed to you. Nothing worth a DAMN in this world comes easy, no matter where you come from. The Buckeyes understand that. Maybe that’s why they keep attaining the success that Wolverines think they are owed.

 

To be fair, who knows what next year holds? Ohio State comes in with a new, but familiar head coach in Ryan Day. Day, of course, was Ohio State’s offensive coordinator who outschemed the vaunted Michigan defense that looked like it forgot what sport it was playing. Day will have to prove himself worthy of the head coaching job, there’s no way around that. Thankfully, he seems to understand the rivalry. Considering how foolish he made Michigan look this past season, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him do it again on November 30th, 2019. But, he and the team have to put the work in. No game is more important than The Game and I pray that that attitude never stops permeating the hallowed halls of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.

This is a forum post from a site member. It does not represent the views of Eleven Warriors unless otherwise noted.

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