Previously: The Offense

Resources: My charting, OSU game notes, OSU roster, Bill C profile, CFBstats, 11W Snap Tracker

To be a college football fan in the Midwest in 2018 means moonlighting as Urban Meyer's sideline psychologist. The cameras are all too happy to oblige us, helpfully cutting to our patient's emotive state after every important event, capturing our client exhibiting all manner of worrying behaviors. He squats. He runs his hands through his hair. He paces. Squats again. Squeezes his face. Buries it in his hands. You have to wonder.

Since I happen to be married to an actual Psychologist I showed her the tape I've been analyzing for weeks, and asked the thing we've all been thinking since Brett McMurphy slimed through a noxious fissure named Zach Smith and revealed what's beneath the program that has owned our league since 2012: Does Urban Meyer look like he's losing it?

I'll spare you the professional details but the gist of her diagnosis was 1) Except in literally the most extreme case of megalomania with narcissistic personality disorder ever recorded, it's impossible to make a clinical diagnosis by watching a person on television, and 2) That's exactly what I look like when I watch Michigan.

Man Watches Sports is a controlled mental disorder. Our fake association with the outcome of a meaningless competitive event decided by randomness and an unequal system of advantages does in fact serve a few purposes. It's a way to belong, and a way to feel unmitigated success in a complex world where the payoffs of victory are abstract and delayed. The losing is good for a different reason: It is a way to break from the constraints of our rational lives and practice being in a state of distress. Your human brain is not wired to believe, on any given Friday, that today is the day you'll lose your livelihood, lose your dog, lose your dad, or find out your best friend at work has to retire at 30 from a disease that the social net doesn't even believe is real. The preparation you put in in practice will show on the field when it's your turn.

That wiring is also the reason that extremely lucky humans tend to mistake felicity for the natural way of things, and pout like spoiled children when they get a small taste of life for everyone else. Ohio State in the Age of Meyer has had it too good. The first time Urban coached The Game the elite athletes he inherited carried pharisaical Tressel off the field. He won a national championship two years later with the all-NFL defense Tressel left him, and a third string quarterback who meritocratically ought to have been starting over the other two. USC got caught lying about the same emolument schemes at the same time, and they're still in Clay Helton Hell to this day.

Urban's record in The Game is both a perfect 6-0, and extremely lucky not to be 2-4, despite a vastly superior team in all but one contest. Last year he again got ham blasted in every aspect of coaching except the recruitment of third string quarterbacks. It's no wonder that a man so favored by fortune should think he could tell bald-faced lies about the garbage assistant he covered for for years, then squeal at the unfairness of it all when the failed institution he so thoroughly corrupted could only get his fireable offense reduced to a week's vacation and three days off from televised therapy.

It's also the reason that Ohio State fans—including Meyer—are doing so much Man Watches Sports this year. Their offense, though schematically closer to the modern NFL than the college game Urban helped shape, is just as lethal as ever. This bad new feeling that's got Buckeyes pacing their living rooms and sidelines is all about having to work through what the common man's defense feels like. It's not a disaster like, say, Michigan's offense last year. Ohio State is 52nd in scoring defense, and 38th in S&P+, in a word: average. They've got a hole at boundary safety, and not quite enough first-class mercenaries trained up to cover for it.

But they're also already a lock to finish at least a game-and-a-half over their expected win total by coming out ahead in two coinflip games and two more dice rolls where they had to get a three or higher. One more catchable throw by a backup QB last week and Michigan's already the Champions of the East while Ohio State fans are left to grumble that the receiver was only open because an offensive lineman blatantly blocked his coverage. Every other sports fan outside of Alabama knows exactly what that's like; an Ohio State student today believes misfortune is having to spend a year with Luke Fickell in charge. Roll a five or a six tomorrow and the super-privileged will get to parade around in their gold pants yet again.

Probabilities, however, cannot account for individual mental states, nor the result of long-developing processes when the payoff has been artificially delayed. Judging by the last three years, Harbaugh's best offensive gameplan in 2018 will be tomorrow's, and the entire arc of his program has been toward preparing this year's charges to play the best game of their careers. That's no guarantee of a win— Runyan and JBB/Stueber get another elite edge test, the interior of Warinner's reclamation project hasn't faced a pair of DTs of this caliber since their 2017 Orange Bowl practices, and Michigan remains a mere snap away from another third-string quarterback.

I'm terrified, as any sane Michigan fan ought to be given the circumstances. But given what I've seen of Ohio State's defense on film, rationally, I think it's time again for the Buckeyes to get some emotional practice for life's real disasters.

The Film: Indiana because I wasn't going to waste last week actually watching Indiana, and Maryland because it's the most recent game against the most recent personnel, and because Maryland's offense is built around a running quarterback in an advanced, condensed, whipsaw scheme that mercilessly tests your assignments, and has to live with an offensive line of basically five guards. I also watched the rest of their games this year in the course of being a Big Ten football person.

The diagram:

PDF Version, full-size version (or click on the image).

The Charting:

[the breakdown after THE JUMP]

Personnel: As per usual Larry Johnson Sr. has built an incredible defensive line (statistically on par with Clemson's) despite losing Nick Bosa for the year/career. I will not rescind my Draftageddon 2017 man crush on NT Robert Landers that Rob Renes is 100% responsible for. He is small, fast, strong, perpetually underneath you, and unblockable because of it. He rotates often with backup NT Davon Hamilton, who's quite capable and probably a star next year. Next to them 3-tech Dre'Mont Jones is the least comprehensible decision not to turn pro I've ever seen this side of Tom Izzo. He remains the double-splitting terror he was last year, and cut down on the snap-jumping, and fallen 30 spots in draft position. He also rarely cedes snaps to his backups, DT Haskell Garrett and DE/DT Tyreke Smith, both just guys at this stage of their young careers.

Both DEs rarely leave the field. SDE Jonathon Cooper is tracking well behind his "as good as Gary" almost 5-star status from their recruiting class, but has a fair bit of pass rush and doesn't do anything irresponsible. Bosa's departure opened the gate for sophomore WDE Chase Young, a top-10 prospect last year who, while not a Bosa, is more or less on path to be.

The linebackers have come under a lot of fire this year for not being stars, but at least in these two games I didn't think they were the real problem. MLB Tuf Borland's high school coach is still mad (though understanding) that Michigan took Devin Bush instead. As justifiable as that decision looks in retrospect, Borland is a quite decent, if old school, linebacker against the run, though he has to come off the field on passing downs. Borland rotated this year with 5-star freshman MLB Baron Browning who's been out the last two weeks and wasn't that great when he played.

The OLBs are both hybrid types. WLB Malik Harrison, an explosive athlete prone to wandering aimlessly any given down, is playing full time after splitting with Cam Gordon clone Dante Booker last year. While Booker's body is too broken for more than special teams, Harrison has been extremely…eventful. His Janus style was an issue against Indiana, which punished his "AAAHHH A RUNNNNNN!!!!" mentality with RPOs, but the much bigger issue was when he missed the Minnesota game for concussion protocol and OSU was forced to play backup/former #1 LB recruit WLB Justin Hilliard. The Gophers messed Hilliard up all day with RPOs, and Harrison, distracted as he may be, has rarely come off the field since. The hybrid this year is SAM Pete Werner, an all-around solid defender who doesn't come off the field and didn't pop off the screen in any of the games I watched—PFF's solid 75.7 run defense grade is a fair testament to the solidity of his solidness, which, though not technically any kind of matter, is solid.

The field safety job that Damon Webb used to occupy went former safety-mate and Michigan target SS Jordan Fuller, who is about as capable as Metellus minus a fair bit of coaching. The real issue Ohio State has this year is boundary safety. When they played IU they had just replaced Isaiah Pryor with Jahsen Wint, and that went so badly that Pryor was back the following week. After his role in the Nebraska debacle Pryor got benched again in favor FS Brendon White, who got to watch his front seven dismantle Michigan State then was—I'm not kidding—more than half of the reason they nearly (and should have IMO) lost to Maryland. That +2/-22 from a single game is not a typo. Maryland schemed to attack him and were rewarded with many touchdowns. I don't know whose idea it was to start a kid who doesn't know his gaps yet against a Matt Canada offense but it sure made for some nice film to show future recruits and their coaches. After THAT I have no idea which safety they'll start against Michigan, but I have a pretty fair idea what Michigan's going to attack in this game. They've got a talented nickel safety, former 17th overall freshman CB/S Shaun Wade, who medshirted last year and might be a little less bad, but in the plays I saw him he wasn't much better than the other options.

Speaking of ways to negative recruit against the Ohio State maaaaaan if you want convince a coach not to send his star cornerback to Columbus just show him some tape of what they've done with what they've got.

Brett Kollman's episode on Gareon Conley as a draft prospect could apply to every NFL-bound corner to come through there recently—Roby, Apple, Lattimore, or Denzel Ward—but pay attention to the part at 3:00. OSU gets NFL 1st round-level talent, and at that position that's more than enough to be good at it. But they don't seem to be teaching any technique, and when they do meet someone they can't run with it shows. This is former 5-star/Alabama transfer CB Kendall Sheffield:

CB on the bottom of the screen

And here's the other starter, CB Damon Arnette, who in his defense was a mere 3-star (that D.J. Durkin wanted baaadly for Michigan):

Cornerback coaches across America saw this and blew their shit on twitter, and I'm mad with them. He's starting flat-footed, weight leaned back. When his hand swats there's zero leverage. These guys and third rotational CB Jeffrey Okudah will all go to the NFL, and rightly so, but hopefully not before getting featured on a DPJ highlight we show in Michigan Stadium forever.

Base Set: They're multiple, a mix between Under and Over. They favored under formations against IU and over formations for Maryland, but never seemed to stray more than 60% one way or another. If you shift the strength of the offense they'll shift the line, making Landers the DT and Jones the NT. Since they're kind of specialized players Maryland did that a lot, doubling Jones and putting Landers on a guard. Landers feasted.

Against Indiana they often had a linebacker, usually the MLB, standing up as a fifth lineman, sort of like how the nose guard in Woody Hayes's 5-2 Eagle defense would stand up a yard off the line of scrimmage (moving that guy back to full-time linebacker is how Jimmy Johnson invented the 4-3 by the way):

That didn't totally go away by Maryland but I saw it much less.

Ohio State starts from a lot of two-high looks but they still play a lot of man defense, with the backside safety bailing at the snap and the frontside safety/guy on the motion screaming down at that.

As mentioned earlier the nickel package lifts a linebacker (usually Borland) for Wade. They also will split the front way wide then have a safety and/or a linebacker show in the wide gap in the middle.

we can't call this The Woody because phrasing

Man or zone coverage: Even mix of both. I think they trust their man coverage more and they go to it almost exclusively on passing downs, but they play a lot of Cover 2 zone on standard downs.

Pressure: GERG or GREG: Greg.

There are a lot of six-man pressures. It was hard to tell when they were blitzing or just firing their linebackers on run action, especially against Maryland because "run action" included any kind of motion and well, you know Maryland.

Dangerman: So you've scrolled a lot already and I don't want to wear out your mouse wheel any more so I combined the Chase Young clips into one video:

You are welcome, I am sorry. We shouldn't be surprised, even after the Bosa tap ran dry, that Larry Johnson with access to any recruit in the country could produce a worthy heir. Young had a few negatives in the Indiana game as he Young-Winoviched past his lane a few times, but those were absent against Maryland. The Terps tried to pick on him for a drive, then gave up when all led to was three of the clips in the video above, and there were easier fish to fry.

Indiana avoided the DTs altogether while Maryland thought they could single-block Robert Landers. I can't save your mouse wheel this time.

He plays with incredible leverage, and given IU, who picked on Michigan's DTs pretty well, didn't want anything to do with him, I be scared. And Jones is Jones and remains Jones and should be Jones in the NFL because watch #86 and wonder why they bothered to defend this with everybody else:

He stays on the field in passing downs, of course, and attempts to get around him just wind up making your OC look stupid.

OVERVIEW

I dunno man. The last time Michigan played a good defensive line with depreciating returns behind it was Penn State, but that line was good because of its pass rush and Michigan was able to expose some major run deficiencies that OSU's line definitively lacks. The closer thing might be Michigan State, especially up front, but MSU's defense has a much better linebacker level and as much as we rip on Willis he's not this guy:

State did have that one cornerback DPJ toasted for the "Ah yes wheeewwwww" touchdown, but that guy's got way better technique than this guy:

And Northwestern had that Cover 2 outside linebacker who was screaming down at run action but Michigan never punished him like IU did this guy:

And while those were all important games, I am certain that while preparing to face all of those guys Harbaugh, who's just as much of Sideline Emoter as the rest of us, can't have stopped thinking about how everything this year comes down to beating this guy.

[Eric Upchurch]

Let's go Blue!