Michigan 24, PSU 15.

[Hannibal]

UM has other running backs waiting in the wings (including Mullings) that clearly run with more authority than Edwards at this point. Move Edwards to the slot. He has demonstrated his competence as a receiver and has breakaway speed.

Agreed. He might be a better fit there.

[maxreturn]

Interesting Stat...while the offensive and defensive stats are very close for both teams, the big glaring difference is in red zone defense. UM is #1 allowing points (TD or FG) only 45% of the time. PSU is 93rd having allowed points 88% of the time.

[Hannibal]

PSU has played a better schedule, although it hasn't been murderer's row either (besides OSU on the road). The B1G might just be the worst that it has been in maybe 30 or 40 years, so almost nobody can claim that they played a tough schedule. Although OSU's has decent SOS having played Penn State and ND.

[WingsFan]

Big 3 little 11

[Mike]

Well 2.5 and 11.5.

I heard Michigan’s defense has not faced a goal-to-go situation this year. Is that true?

[WingsFan]

I believe so

[lineygoblue]

I'll be glad when they get this game in the past.

[klondike]

Valenti brought up the fact Michigan hasn't faced an offense any better than #90. Most at the bottom of the top 130 schools.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Well no worries there. Our offense runs like a '79 Gremlin.

[Mike]

Penn State is 60th in total offense. I'm assuming that's the metric he was using.

Michigan is #42 and OSU is #45. That's not a stat indicative of much other than style of play.

[iam416]

Ohio State at #45 is indicative of the fact that there some truly god-awful offenses out there. Because Craig Krenzel looks at Ohio State's offense and asks, WTF?

[THE_WIZARD_]

What does Bauserman say?

[maxreturn]

Just finished watching replays from the Purdue game. Morris (#8) is very impressive. Great speed, runs precise routes. Need to get him more involved in the offense.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I've got some concerns about the outcome of this game. Walters (Purdue) deployed an effective defense that stopped M's running game and got JJ out of his comfort zone. Walters runs an unusual 5 man front with C1-man to back it up. Purdue frequently dropped LBs into zone coverage but retained upfront pressure harassing JJ with two NFL level DEs. Mani Diaz, PSU's DC, has equivalent talent at TE. He doesn't run a 5 man DL but he does blitz a lot from disguised players. I'm expecting the same result from PSU that Purdue got.

Despite the above M still scored 41 points. That's not going to happen in HV. The game is going to be decided by high variance events, e.g., turnovers. Unfortunately, the turnover margin for PSU is #1 nationally (M is 6th). PSU's LBs are speedy types that can deny completions underneath and are backed up by more than serviceable DBs. M's decided talent advantage is going to be neutralized v. PSU. M has the advantage of the better QB play and passing game - I doubt they will play to slow the game down and shorten it. I would not be surprised if M threw the ball more than 60% of the time and work to run a fast pace, quick scoring offense v. a PSU offense that can't keep up.

M 34, PSU 23

Things that will make me look stupid:

PSU wins the turnover battle.

Drew Allar actually has a big play capacity.

M has a targets to catches ratio in the area of 3:1 (JJ's completion rate is under 65%)

[Cody_Russell]

It now has to be one of the more significant M regular season games in recent memory. Not up there with OSU vs M in 2022, 2021, 2016, 2006… but close to that tier.

The everybody vs M mentality. Trying to figure out how significant M’s sign stealing was due to Connor Stallions… this is game 3 without that advantage. Now you have prominent figures in the M community tweeting out “bet” as in bank on this team. This is also M’s first challenge this season and we’re trying to figure out if this team can win a title.

A LOT at stake. Go Blue.