1. This is Not the Same Michigan Run Offense as Last Year. Michigan has been one of the best running teams in the country the past two years.

They are not that this year, although they've been able to hide it because their schedule is absolutely awful. Their offensive line is not as good (especially at tackle), Corum (in my opinion) has never recovered from his injury against Illinois, and Edwards has a lot of horribly negative plays.

Their rush offense is demonstrably worse than the 2022 version by every available metric:

FYI, "EPA" is "expected points added," which measures the outcome of a play. Basically, it summarizes how good a play was by crunching numbers and determining how many expected points it adds (e.g., a 10 yard run on a second and five moves the ball forward and thus adds "expected points").

Michigan's run offense last year was elite by every metric. This year's is not so much. The interesting thing is that almost no matter what the metric is, they are about 25-33% worse than last year's team. That's a huge drop-off.

Individually, Corum dropping off a yard per carry is significant (Edwards dropping off more than 4 yards per carry is unprecedented). For comparison: 2023 TreVeyon Henderson is averaging 6.7 YPC and he averaged 5.3 in 2022. We all know how big of a difference that is.

We have our entire front six back. Sawyer and JT are playing their best ball, especially defending the run. Simon has emerged as a quality LB if we need to go 4-3. Our safeties are much better at run fills. I would expect them to move us a bit at times, but if we prevent explosives here we will be fine.

2. Michigan's Pass Defense is a Paper Tiger.  This is perhaps an overstatement, because personnel wise they are solid. Johnson is a solid five star corner and Sainristil is as good of a slot corner as I've seen (reminds me of Wade in that role), although he's bound to give up a big play here or there because he's so aggressive. They've actually been moving Sainristil to the boundary at times, which is something to watch.

But Josh Wallace is a transfer from UMass, and he is extremely gettable. The Michigan X/O guys on Twitter have noted that he's very susceptible to double moves.

Their linebackers are quick and disciplined, but there's no way they can guard Ebuka, Johnson, or Henderson out of the backfield.

I'm confident in saying they are a paper tiger because it is almost impossible how bad their passing opposition has been this year:

So, on average, they have played the 98th ranked passing offense this year in terms of Yards Per Attempt, and 99th in terms of Yards Per Game. For comparison's sake Ohio State has faced an average of the 79th ranked passing offense. 

The fact of the matter is that Michigan has played nobody who can throw the ball like Ohio State can, with the exclusion of possibly Maryland. We saw what they did to UM Saturday and I think it's fair to expect at least similar numbers for Ohio State (hopefully minus the horrific turnovers).

3. McCarthy Isn't the Same When Sherrone Moore is Acting as Head Coach.  McCarthy has not been the same guy the last two weeks. A lot of people are assuming it's about the competition, and that is partially true, but an even more interesting trendline is that McCarthy just isn't the same QB when Moore is acting as HC. Those three games are the last two weeks plus the Bowling Green game.

To me this is two-fold. First, say what you want about Harbaugh, but he does a nice job with his quarterbacks. He was an all Big Ten player and played in the NFL for a decade. It's actually kind of a miracle that he has kept Michigan in so many games against OSU and/or beat them with such bad QBs (2016, 2017, 2021 come to mind); plus he got Kaepernick to three straight NFC title games.

Second, Moore seems to turtle as acting HC. He seems overwhelmed by being OL coach, OC, and acting head coach. It's too much for one guy to handle and it's showing. 

As soon as Sherrone Moore sees pressure he reverts to the run game. He's been getting a lot of credit for this but if you look at the second half drive charts the last two games, they read like this:

Penn State: Field Goal, Punt (Three and Out), Punt, Punt (Three and Out), TD (Corum breakaway run), End of Game.

Maryland: Punt (Three and Out), TD, Punt, Punt (Three and Out), Punt (Three and Out), End of Game.

Collectively on ten drives that's two touchdowns, one field goal, and seven punts (I'm excluding the end of game drives). That's 17 offensive points in the second halves of the last two games. I don't think that's good enough to beat Ohio State.

4. Michigan Allows a High Havoc Rate. This may surprise most people, but Michigan has given up a pretty high havoc rate this year. "Havoc rate" is the percentage of plays in with the defense recorded a TFL, forced a fumble, intercepted a pass or broke up a pass. For this one stat I'm willing to compare the common opponents:

In sum, against 7 common opponents, Michigan gave up more than double the havoc rate per game.

Michigan is also dealing with some OL injuries. Henderson (starting LT) did not play against Maryland, but supposedly he will be back. His backup (Milton) went out with what looked like a gruesome injury against Maryland. Chop Robinson put Barnhardt (their RT) in a NutriBullet two weeks ago.

Sawyer and JT are playing their absolute best football of the season. I don't think Michigan's interior OL has played anyone like Tyliek or Hall that can generate a pass rush through the middle. We are hugely variable on our blitzes and they seem to be getting home more often (especially Hancock from the slot).

Combine this with the previous couple reasons (McCarthy not being the same guy without Harbaugh, and Moore turtling upon the first sign of pressure), I think we will be okay.

5. Ohio State's Elite Talent is Peaking at the Right Time.  Last but not least, I think we can all agree that this Ohio State team is peaking at the right time, but most especially its elite players are peaking at the right time.

Ohio State always has an overall talent advantage over Michigan if you look at pure recruiting numbers. Last year we had a team composite of 983.26 (with 14 five stars), while Michigan had a team composite of 848.36 (with 3 five stars).

But if you dug deeper into last year's team, Ohio State's five stars weren't ready. Out of 14 five stars, many did not even play: JSN, CJ Hicks, Sonny Styles, TreVeyon Henderson (injury), Kyle McCord, and Palaei Gaoteote. That's 6 of the 14. Five others were true sophomore - JT, Sawyer, Burke, Ebuka, and Jackson. The only five star guys we had playing at their peak were Stroud and Paris Johnson.

Now these guys are ready. Ohio State's five star players are as follows:

JT (Junior), Sawyer (Junior), Fleming (Senior), Ebuka (Junior), Styles (Sophomore), Jackson (Junior), Henderson (Junior), McCord (Junior), Innis (Freshman), and Hicks (Sophomore). Eight of ten are playing their best football.

Dig deeper and the highest rated four stars are also producing: Marvin Harrison (LOL at being a four star), Jermaine Mathews, Mike Hall, Jordan Hancock, Cody Simon, Josh Proctor, Cade Stover, etc.

This team is peaking at the right time. Michigan does not have the elite talent to match. 

BONUS: The College Football Nerds Model Has Us Losing but Outgaining UM by Almost a Yard Per Play. If you follow CFB Nerds you know they are a nice data point.

Their model predicts 23-17 UM win, but has Ohio State averaging 5.64 yards per play to Michigan's 4.85 yards per play. 

Earlier this year their model predicted a Penn State win, but had Ohio State outgaining Penn State by a yard per play. That seems nominal but again I'll remind you of Henderson -- he's only averaging about a yard per play better than last year, and the difference is stark. We saw how that game played out.

A yard per play better on a team basis generally means a solid win. I think their model is missing the mark because it includes non-Henderson run data, doesn't account for UM's injuries, doesn't account for UM missing Harbaugh, and most of all hopefully doesn't account for Day building this offense to culminate in this one game.

GO BUCKS!