Until they didn't.
The Michigan Wolverines pounded the Buckeye defense again and again on the ground, took their first win over Ohio State since 2011, and for the first time over a good Ohio State team since 2003.
C.J. Stroud threw for 394 yards and two touchdowns and both Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Garrett Wilson caught double-digit passes and finished with over one hundred receiving yards.
The disappointing loss means that Ohio State finished 10-2, 8-1 in the Big Ten which gives them co-champion status with Michigan with the Wolverines winning the head-to-head tiebreaker and the resulting trip to Indianapolis.
Ohio State will likely wind in the Rose Bowl against the winner of the Pac 12 championship game between Oregon and Utah.
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1) Michigan ran for almost three hundred yards (297) and ran for each of their six touchdowns, so it doesn't take very much to circle the key stat in the upset win.
2) Give Jim Harbaugh credit for having his team ready to play and even had a few wrinkles in his fairly staid offense.
Harbaugh had been criticized for not focusing enough on this game and he vowed that this year would be different and for one year- it was.
3) I as almost everyone did, picked Ohio State to win but one thing that I mentioned when asked about the game was my concern about C.J. Stroud.
Despite Stroud's numbers this season, the best team that Ohio State had played on the road in front of a hostile crowd was Minnesota and how would the redshirt freshman react?
4) Stroud didn't throw any interceptions but he resembled another Ohio quarterback a few hours north up I-71 with many missed passes going high.
Stroud didn't play badly but he didn't dazzle in defeat either.
5) One reason that the crowd may have become a factor?
Ohio State didn't take nearly as many deep shots down the field to Chris Olave or Garrett Wilson and as a result, the crossing and curl patterns that the Buckeyes often turn a twelve-yard gain into a sixty-five-yard move were stifled by very few yards after the catch.
Was this on Stroud's being bothered by the Michigan pass rush and wanted to get the ball out fast? Or was Ryan Day being overly safe under the circumstances?
6) The other main worry of mine entering the game was the Michigan defensive ends, Aiden Hutchinson and Ojabo and both were a handful with four sacks, three of those by Hutchinson.
Ohio State has had the dominant pass rushers in this rivalry for years but they didn't have them on Saturday.
7) Is that a long-term issue for the Buckeyes?
I doubt it- remember Ohio State nabbed both of the top two defensive linemen in last year's recruiting in J.T, Tuimoloau, and Jack Sawyer and while neither had huge impacts this season both should take huge jumps next season.
8) The first half touchdown catch by Garrett Wilson was out of this world and while players like Chris Olave and Wilson will be hard to replace the Buckeyes are more than equipped to do so (remember this is a team so deep in wideouts that Jameson Williams transferred to Alabama, of all places, to make the field regularly.
9) I would think both Olave and Wilson will be first-rounders and guarantee that at least one of them will be.
The fact that with three receivers like Ohio State has and does not have a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award is a joke.
10) The Buckeye defense let them down on the biggest stage and makes me wonder what would have happened against a higher-powered offense but there were a few bright spots.
Steele Chambers seemed to be all over the field and Bryson Shaw made a very good interception in the first quarter in the end zone to kill a Michigan scoring drive,
11) The win snapped an eight-game losing streak for Michigan against Ohio State and the first win for Michigan in ten years, since Michigan skipped last year's game due to issues with Covid-19.
12) It wouldn't be Jim Harbaugh, a guy that took seven years to win this game, without being able to be a sore winner as after the game Harbaugh referred to Ryan Day as a guy that "was born on third base and thought he hit a triple".
The observation of Day as a coach that won immediately with a team built by Urban Meyer isn't completely unfair ( the term for that is called pulling a Mike Tomlin) but in typical fashion came off as a smug jackass.
13) As for Ryan Day, the next two games against Michigan could set his legacy at Ohio State after such a stunning loss.
Next year's game will be key in Columbus as in taking their measure for this loss and Jim Harbaugh's smack talk to show it was the rare win in the series and not allow Michigan to set the narrative that the tide had turned.
14) However, even with a 2022 win for the Buckeyes in Columbus, the pressure will not truly be relieved until a 2023 win in Ann Arbor for a second win in a row and a road win.
That is how important regaining control of this series rather than allow Michigan to think of themselves as equals.
Dominance cannot be taken for granted.
15) Wrapping up with this hot take- Is it possible that C.J. Stroud has made his first and last start in a game against Michigan?
After all, Ohio State signed not just the number one quarterback in the nation, but the number one PLAYER in the nation in Quinn Evers, and would Ryan Day take the chance of losing a talent like Evers to keep Stroud?
I might wonder if in this loss if it isn't possible that one of the many things that were lost in Ann Arbor in this game, one may have been C.J.Stroud moving from Heisman finalist to possibly not even starting the game in 2022?
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