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Originally posted by lineygoblue
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(1) day's poor decision to talk trash about laying 100 on Michigan. He'll they couldn't lay 24.
(2) day brought Knowles in to replace Combs on defense. It is pretty clear that day didn't want M repeatedly running plays of 4-6 yards, moving the chains and burning clock - what they did on the way to victory in 2021. He told Knowles to stop M's run game in 2022. His approach to day's demand was to come up with a defense that osu may have shown a couple of times in the season but kept it under wraps until last Saturday. It was heavy on cover zero schemes that were often disguised but, at the snap, that's exactly what they deployed. It was playing with fire.
That kind of defense requires the corners and in the case of LBs who occasionally but rarely dropped into coverage to be NFL caliber. They may be 5*s but the got repeatedly beaten in coverage. M's players were better. The real failure was at the LOS. Knowles has every gap covered and edges over manned - of course he did, he had 11 or 12 guys within 5y of the LOS on a whole bunch of plays. For Knowles plan to work, he needed NFL caliber DT, DEs and LBs. They're good, very good but M's OL is better. In the end, osu got beat at the LOS too. M's players were better.
Seth, in his regular mgo, Neck Sharpies article linked below takes the coverage busts of the DBs on the backend and the front 7, augmented with a lot of S help in the C-0 scheme knowles over used. Seth diagrams plays demonstrating how M's OL beat that approach and how McCarthy and his receivers feasted on a shit-ton of predictable coverage mistakes that the M offense was prepared for, planned for and great reads by JJ. It's fascinating and gets to the nuts and bolts of M's win. While a lot of M's win came from stuff that is hard to be objective about - its a feeling, an emotion, a team chemistry thing. That's fine - all of that plays in the analysis of the win. But how this game was won was way more about scheme, game prep, knowing what to do if day pulled out all the stops to stuff the run game, daring McCarthy to throw. well, day did exactly that and M beat it. Thoroughly and convincingly. Set's article is all about that. Solid stuff.
https://mgoblog.com/content/neck-sha...ouchdowns-ohio
A final comment on the BTCG and playing in the CFP. When one delves in to the nuts and bolts of how M scored 45 points and held osu to 23, no one should doubt that M's approach is repeatable, effective and can produce wins against Purdue, who ever ends up playing M in the CFP semis and whoever survives the other CFP semi and ends up facing M in a game for the MNC. IOW despite allegations that M can't beat UGA, if it comes down to that, I have no doubt they can an no one else here should doubt that either. The only caveat to that is high variance things happen in CFB games, injuries happen, the unexpected happens and what should happen doesn't. Ask osu about that.
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