I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I underestimated Michigan again. I really should know better by now when it comes to the Ohio State game, but I just thought the #2 team that was 10-1 going into The Game would be good enough to beat the 6-5 team with no hope of a Big Ten Championship, no hope of a playoff, and a barely achieved realization of bowl eligibility. The 6-5 team was missing its best offensive player (Colston Loveland) and best defensive player (Will Johnson), not to mention a great senior safety (Rod Moore) who sealed a former iteration of The Game with an interception. By the day of the game, it was a 19.5-point spread and the only people picking Michigan were homer TV personalities like Charles Woodson and Desmond Howard.
Hit the jump for more.
We should apologize to Wink Martindale. First-year defensive coordinator Wink Martindale called a masterpiece of a game. He took a lot of heat early in the season for his coverages, blitzes, etc., but he was an NFL veteran who needed some time to adjust to the college game. The pace, the hashes, the rules, the officiating, etc. are all adjustments. Perhaps he could have adjusted a little sooner, but a grace period is necessary. His last few games have been very good, including this fourth-quarter performance:
Pregame analysis: "We’d love to see this one as a fourth-quarter game … when OSU fans squirm and its coaches pucker." pic.twitter.com/PjEi8ZVQ25
— Chris Balas (@Balas_Wolverine) December 1, 2024
Ohio State had 2 carries for 9 yards and completed 1/5 passes for 1 yard in the fourth quarter. Quarterback Will Howard completed 19/33 passes for 175 yards, 1 touchdown, and 2 interceptions. Star Ohio State running backs TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins combined for 22 carries, 67 yards, and 0 scores. All-world freshman receiver Jeremiah Smith had 5 catches for 35 yards and the lone OSU touchdown. Michigan trusted the defensive line to dominate Ohio State’s offensive front, leaving light boxes to defend the run so the linebackers and defensive backs could focus on coverage. It was outstanding execution all around.
Kalel Mullings is a legend. I’m not sure how many running backs have produced better than Kalel Mullings behind a worse offensive line at Michigan. Mullings had 185 carries for 948 yards and 12 touchdowns during the regular season, despite the team lacking any kind of deep receiving threat or quarterback run game. Whenever Mullings got the ball this season, it was basically up to him and fullback Max Bredeson to make something happen. In this one Mullings had 32 carries for 116 yards and 1 touchdown. The biggest play was a 3rd-and-3 near midfield when Mullings got hit in the backfield, stumbled sideways, and then broke into space for a 27-yard gain, converting a first down and helping the team score the game-winning field goal. It was somewhat reminiscent of when he put the team on his back against USC to eke out a victory in the fourth quarter. Considering that run helped seal perhaps the biggest upset for Michigan in the series, it will be remembered for a long time as one of the great plays for the Wolverines, even if it didn’t result in a touchdown.
I hope the “Fire Sherrone Moore” crowd has been quieted. I thought it was silly all along to say Moore should be fired when he didn’t even have a full off-season at the helm yet. And this win doesn’t erase all the misjudgments from earlier this year – the quarterback juggling, the clock management, the offensive line playing time decisions, etc. But it does suggest that Moore “gets it” and has a little something to him. Everything was stacked against him in this game, and he pulled off a huge upset.
All hail Dominic Zvada. Zvada hit his seventh 50+ yard field goal of the season and two field goals total, including the game-winner from extra point territory. How he isn’t a Lou Groza Award finalist is beyond me. Michigan has had some good kickers – Jay Feely, Jake Moody, Quinn Nordin, Remy Hamilton, etc. – but Zvada is the best I’ve seen in a Michigan uniform.
Davis Warren is also a legend, by the way. Any quarterback who beats Ohio State earns a special place in our hearts – though Cade McNamara transferring to Iowa and talking crap about Michigan doused that flame a little bit – but Warren managed this team to a win against the Buckeyes, in Columbus no less. It was a cool moment to watch him savoring the moment. If we’re being honest, none of us expects Warren to be Michigan’s starting quarterback in 2025. Whether he’s a backup or moves on to another place, he’s almost certainly going to be replaced atop the depth chart. So I’m glad he enjoyed it while he could. He completed just 9/16 passes for 62 yards, 0 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions, but he had some key throws, didn’t take any sacks, and made a huge 11-yard run. This game wasn’t going to be won through the air for Michigan, and indeed it wasn’t. But there were some who thought the season was doomed with him at the helm, and obviously that wasn’t the case. I thought he made good decisions throughout the game, and even the second interception to Jack Sawyer at the goal line was a good choice – but his mechanics failed him, he threw off his back foot, and he didn’t put enough air under the ball to Hogan Hansen, which resulted in allowing Sawyer to sink back and pick it off. Some people are saying Ohio State only lost because they missed a couple field goals, and I say maybe they were lucky to even have a chance at the end of the game, because Hansen should have had a touchdown there and Michigan would have been up 17-10. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
Flag nonsense. Two things are true about the flag-planting incident at the end of the game:
- Planting a flag at someone else’s stadium is petty, disrespectful, and unsportsmanlike.
- Starting a brawl because of a flag is violent and reckless and dumb.
It always seems to be the guy or guys who don’t play very much who do these ridiculous end-of-game celebrations. Maybe it’s because they have time to think about it while they’re on the sideline. In this case it was backup offensive lineman Raheem Anderson II who ran out with the flag and planted it in the turf – not Mason Graham or Aamir Hall or Kalel Mullings or Max Bredeson, but Raheem Anderson. I saw comments on social media like, “If you don’t want the other team to plant their flag, win the game.” That’s bulls***. Just because you win a game doesn’t give you freedom to do whatever you want on someone else’s field or in their stadium. Regardless, Ohio State’s team running out to midfield to start a brawl was both understandable and the worse offense of the two. And then police officers pulled out pepper spray to mace Michigan’s players. So . . . one team started a brawl, and the other team got pepper sprayed? Yeah, that makes sense, right? (And before anyone says Well, Texas did it at Michigan Stadium so it’s okay . . . no, it’s not. Yes, Texas did it and Michigan didn’t start a brawl. Texas shouldn’t have planted their flag, and Michigan was correct not to start a brawl.) In my opinion, the whole flag-planting trend should result in the offending player or coach being suspended for all or part of the following game. Maybe if players knew that Sherrone Moore would be suspended for the first half of the bowl game, they would think twice about doing something so silly.
Speaking of being dumb . . . Ryan Day. This isn’t an Ohio State blog, so I’m not going to spend too much time on this. But the Ryan Day situation is a very peculiar one. He only has 5 losses in the Big Ten since he became head coach in 2019, and 4 of those losses have come against Michigan. He also has won zero national championships up to now, though he still has a chance, since Ohio State is likely to be part of this year’s 12-team College Football Playoff. I happen to know a media guy from Columbus, and he says that plans are being made for Day to be replaced. I think it would be hard to fire him if he wins a national championship, but anything short of that is looking scary for his job prospects. I feel like that sounds crazy with his overall record, but he and his players are being paid a ton of money to beat Michigan, and they’re not getting that job done. The NIL number being tossed around has been $20 million for this year’s roster, and I think the coaching staff altogether is making $22 million. So that’s $42 million on salaries against a team known (up until recently) for not really playing the NIL game very well. Not only did Day make some silly play calls (running twice on 3rd-and-long, not throwing the ball more when OSU clearly had an advantage on the perimeter, etc.), but he also just stood around and watched the brawl after the game. He didn’t try to intervene or calm down his players. There’s a clip of an OSU staffer walking past, and Day just calmly says “What happened?” Jack Sawyer was screaming at Michigan people, and Day just stood there and watched. After the game, Day admitted he didn’t know what to do next since they planned to beat Michigan and play for the conference championship next week. Not only did Day lose, but he’s clearly lost.
What does this mean for Michigan? It’s a great way to move toward bowl season and the off-season. Michigan has some recruiting momentum, and they have reason for optimism for guys who could potentially return. Do you want to beat Ohio State again? Yes? Okay, let’s run it back. Even though Michigan had a questionable quarterback – the most important position on the field – the team won 7 games and beat its two most important rivals, Michigan State and Ohio State. It also means Ohio State hasn’t beaten the Wolverines since 2019. There are basically zero players left in college who know what it’s like for Ohio State to be Michigan. High school players are going to forget what it looked like when Ohio State dominated the rivalry. Oh, and it might mean that Ohio State will have a changing of the guard with coaching changes and personnel changes, perhaps opening up opportunities for Michigan to make even more progress.
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