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The big week is here, The Game, with both Michigan football and Ohio State entering Week 13 undefeated. However, there are big questions entering the contest that didn’t exist a week ago.
Both the Wolverines and Buckeyes struggled this past week, but the maize and blue lost star running back, Blake Corum, for the bulk of the second half. The Michigan offense struggled, but still figured out a way to win against the Illini in Week 12.
OSU has some injury issues of its own, but it appears to have figured out some stop-gaps in the meantime.
The man calling The Game, Fox Sports’ premier analyst, Joel Klatt, previewed the matchup on his podcast on Monday. Here’s everything he had to say.
“Second time in the history of this historic rivalry, that we’re gonna get these two teams that at least 11-0 to face off,” Klatt said. “The other one was in 2006. To say that I’m excited about this, like — I was pacing around the room watching Michigan early in the day, and I was pacing around our truck and our compound and then the booth in the Rose Bowl watching Ohio State in Maryland. That was way too close for both of those teams. And you know, I’ll talk about it later but it’s just the nature of trying to go through a season, a nine-game conference schedule, where you don’t have one of those nonconference games late. If this is the nature of it, you’re gonna get beat up, and at some point, find yourself with your back against the wall, and you’ve got to find a way to win. Both of them did that.
“First, Michigan. So Michigan, the biggest question coming out of last week is going to be Blake Corum, himself. And quite frankly, that’s probably the question in the game. This whole week is going to be how healthy is Blake Corum? What is Michigan going to be able to do in the run game? How healthy is Corum going to be or not be? Or will he be available at all? This is is 100% the cloud over the game right now. But Wolverine fans, you’re gonna get exactly zero sympathy from Ohio State fans because they’re just gonna be like, ‘Hey, see that guy that’s only had, what is it? Five catches on the year? He was probably one of the best players in the country, and a likely favorite to win the Biletnikoff award and we haven’t had him at all. So cry me a river if Corum can’t play this week,’ that’s what Buckeye fans are going to be thinking. I don’t know if they’re all that wrong, but that’s what they’re going to be thinking, Corum for his injury. And let’s hope — and I touched on this a little bit — but as news is trickling out of Ann Arbor, apparently no structural damage. There has been news and he does a great job, by the way, this week of going and handing out turkeys and being within the community and apparently, he’s been out doing that. But this is a massive deal. Now it was compounded on Saturday against Illinois because Donovan Edwards was not available to them. So now he’s banged up, Corum is banged up, A.J. Henning was not available, who they think can kind of go into at backfield and spell those guys at times — he’s one of those guys. They had — Schoonmaker was banged up. Keegan, they had a lot of guys not out there and so all a sudden you’re relying on C.J. Stokes and — and what is it? Isaiah Gash? And that’s not going to cut it.
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“So first things first, in the entire conversation of this week’s matchup, if Donovan Edwards or Blake Corum is not healthy, and they can’t go, Ohio State has a massive advantage, massive advantage, because that’s not going to cut it what we saw in the second half against Illinois. Stokes and Gash, 14 attempts, 42 yards, three yards per carry, that’s not going to cut it. You have to remember, control the terms of the game against Ohio State in order to beat them.
“So then I thought to myself, OK, the second half is going to be all about J.J. McCarthy. And guess what? J.J. actually played pretty well. In that second half, he did not get a lot of help around him. Andrel Anthony dropped that ball in the endzone when they were taking a shot. They thought they got the offside, he takes his shot, he drops the ball gas dropped the ball. There were things he could have done better, yes, and I understand that but he was not helped out and now, all of a sudden, you’re looking at this and this not this is not a quarterback that is learning and developed and gotten better and better throughout the season — it’s that it’s actually the exact opposite. So now J.J. McCarthy, who started off red hot and he was supposed to take this offense to the next level. He was leading the country and completion percentage through eight games at about 70-what-5%? Now in the last three, he’s thrown it for 50%. So again, if Blake Corum or Donovan Edwards can’t go, they’re in trouble. They’re in trouble.
“This is a defense that’s going to have to play really well. And obviously, statistically, they’re very good but they did give up a lot of yardage to Chase Brown and Illinois and Illinois had every opportunity to win that game. And of course, Bret Bielema was incensed at some of the penalties and officials’ decisions, but that is what it is. That’s a lot of different games. For Ohio State on the opposite side, they were dealing with something very similar, but they got a very different result out of it. OK, so Miyan Williams, not available. TreVeyon Henderson goes out there and they think OK, he’s gonna be back — totally ineffective. You can tell he was banged up still and not healthy. But they’ve got better depth than Michigan at running back because Dallan Hayden rolls out there, and he’s got 27 carries for 146 yards. So they got to feel a lot better about their backfield situation going into the game, even though they each got some of those injuries going on. I also told you that there was an issue brewing in terms of wide receiver production that they were relying too heavily on Marvin Harrison Jr. In fact, over the previous three games before Saturday, Marvin Harrison Jr. was accounting for about 49% of the receiving production for Ohio State — that was too high. So, I said Julian Fleming or Emeka Egbuka was going to have to step up and re-emerge as a true secondary threat to Marvin Harrison. Because in obvious passing situations, if I’m Michigan, I’m just doubling Marvin Harrison Jr. Because that’s where the ball was gonna go. And so Emeka Egbuka steps up, six catches, 82 yards, leads them in receiving. So in a week in which both of these teams were tested, the depth was tested and the specific areas of their team were tested. Ohio State comes out of that looking and feeling a lot better moving into game week than Michigan, because Michigan has major questions now about the health of their running back room.
“And then whether their quarterback is going to be able to stand up and actually be the catalyst to go win a game. Think about where we started in this podcast talking about Caleb Williams — he’s the MVP, the most valuable player, possibly the Heisman Trophy winner. Why? Because he lifted a team by himself to a point where they are 10 and one, and he can go for over 500 total yards on a big stage. I’m not saying that. That’s the standard with which we need to hold J.J. McCarthy — but I am saying we don’t know if he can go do anything resembling that. If the game comes down to just a J.J. McCarthy show, we don’t know if that can work. We don’t know. Meanwhile, Ohio State at least has some answers to both their running back questions and their wide receiver production questions.
“OK, the blueprint to beat Ohio State — remember this? Remember, this is exactly the way that Michigan plays. So stylistically, if I’m a Wolverine fan, I’m still confident in the fact that the architecture of their defense is built specifically to combat what Ohio State does tough interior against the run, hard edges to rush the passer. And then hybrid style players that tackle well in space at the second level, third level, and at the corner position, because you got to tackle well to beat Ohio State. The key thing that Oregon did last year, and Michigan did last year wasn’t just totally shut down Ohio State, no, because I think that that’s almost impossible to do. It’s that you’ve got to limit the explosive plays by tackling well, force them to execute eight, nine, 10, 11 plays in a row is exactly what they did a year ago.
“And then on the opposite side, you’ve got to control the game on the ground. The game has to be played on Michigan’s terms. OK, Michigan can’t go into The Shoe and play an Ohio State-style of game and win. But if they go in there and control the line of scrimmage and control the terms of the game, then they’ve got a shot. That’s just the kind of the style of the game and I can’t wait for this one. I think it’s going to be an absolutely epic game and environment and I can’t wait.”
Michigan and Ohio State kick off at 12:14 p.m. EST at Ohio Stadium, with the game being broadcast nationally on Fox.
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