Michigan’s offense the perfect cure-all for Ohio State’s defense
By Logan Woods
Ohio State has struggled defensively all season, even with lesser opponents like Oregon State, Purdue, Nebraska, and Maryland. The defense seemingly turned it all around against an unimaginative Michigan offense.
The Ohio State Buckeyes have looked like the least impressive one-loss team in college football coming into the week. This was something that was reflected in the latest playoff rankings with the Buckeyes coming in as the number 10 team in the country, behind a two-loss LSU team and an undefeated UCF team.
After being carried all season by one of the best offenses in the nation, the Buckeyes looked to be in trouble as they went up against a Michigan team that came into the game with one of the top defenses in all of college football.
Ohio State’s defensive coordinator Greg Schiano has taken a lot of criticism for the play of the Buckeyes defense all season, but there was not much to complain about on the defensive side of the ball on Saturday against Michigan.
Ohio State did not give up a touchdown until there was under one minute before halftime, although the Wolverines surged back to go into the half only down by two points. The defense then shut out Michigan in the third quarter, contributing to the Buckeyes building of a 22-point lead heading into the final 15 minutes of play.
Ohio State was able to completely dominate the line of scrimmage and it was clear that Michigan’s offense was never fully able to get comfortable against Ohio State. Michigan running back Karan Higdon was held to only 72 yards rushing with no touchdowns. The play calling from Michigan was not very creative at all and they gave up two costly interceptions in the second half to Ohio State defensive backs Jordan Fuller and Brendon White to help the Buckeyes eventually put the game away.
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Ohio State’s strong defensive performance, along with a total of 62 points scored, completely changes the narrative of a team that had seemingly played themselves out of College Football Playoff contention over the last four weeks. The Buckeyes will need to play dominant on defense against Northwestern in the Big Ten Championship if they want to make a claim as one of the top four teams in the country at the end of the season.