Michigan Football: Ohio State Looked Very Mortal Against Wisconsin

With it being a Michigan football bye week, watching Ohio State at Wisconsin was about the only thing to look forward to. The Buckeyes showed us something.

The big joke in 2014 was whether or not Michigan football would lose in its bye week. Those were good times. These days, it’s a relatively sad day, though sprinkled with other good college football action.

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The biggest one of the weekend was Ohio State at Wisconsin, a game in which the Buckeyes were a double-digit favorite against a Badgers team that Michigan had already beaten.

Besides missing a lot of familiar names, a big difference between this season’s Ohio State and last season’s is that these Buckeyes are dominating opponents, making Saturday’s a match-up look like a coming-back-to-Earth party.

Ohio State didn’t cover, but it still won in overtime. Now that Michigan and Ohio State finally have this quality opponent in common (and only a couple weeks apart), we can start to really dissect what might happen on Nov. 26 when the Wolverines travel to Columbus, Ohio for the regular-season finale.

First off, it’s worth noting that Wisconsin got Ohio State at home, while it had to travel to Ann Arbor. Second, the weather wasn’t perfect for this Saturday’s game in Madison, but it wasn’t completely adverse.

Ohio State and Michigan both beat Wisconsin by seven points, but we’re talking about two very different games.

Most notably, where Wisconsin had 159 yards against Michigan, the Badgers gained 450 yards on the Buckeyes and did a majority of their work on the ground (236 yards on 46 rushing attempts). Wisconsin only mustered 2.5 yards per attempt against Michigan. It was a completely different story against Ohio State: 5.1 yards per attempt.

It’s difficult to find a facet of the two games that aren’t at least almost in direct contradiction of each other. Let’s just lay it out in a chart.

The apparent theme: Michigan’s defense out-performed Ohio State’s, while the Buckeyes’ offense edged out the Wolverines’. I think it’s important to note, though, that had Michigan converted on its three missed field goals, it would have had 23 points, which is what Ohio State had at the end of regulation.

I already pointed out the most glaring difference in the numbers (yards gained by Wisconsin), but the other area I think Michigan clearly took the advantage was turnovers. Michigan and Ohio State both coughed up the ball once, but the Wolverines had three takeaways against the Badgers, two of which came in the final possessions.

At a glance, it looked like Michigan took the win on defense and Ohio State took it on offense. A closer look, however, reveals that the Wolverines weren’t edged out by very much on offense, and they really did own the competition on defense.

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This is not to say these results make Michigan a superior team to Ohio State. All it says is the Buckeyes were brought back to Earth by a good team and Michigan found similar success against a common quality opponent.