Three keys for Ohio State Football to beat Michigan
By Ryan Stano
The Game is the biggest rivalry in all of sports, not just college football. This year, the hate between the Ohio State football program and Michigan seems to have reached an entirely new level. Both teams and fanbases are voracious towards each other.
Ohio State comes into this game undefeated and ranked as the number two team in the country. Michigan comes in as the third-ranked team. Whoever wins this game clinches the Big Ten East and likely will clinch the Big Ten in next week’s Big Ten Championship.
What’s more, is that the winner of this game clinches their berth into the College Football Playoff. The winner also gives them a good shot to be the number one team in the country in the final CFP rankings, especially if Georgia loses either of the next two weeks.
The stakes couldn’t be any higher for this game. The Buckeyes prepare for this game all year long. They are looking for revenge after having lost the last two seasons. They want to prove it’s because Michigan cheated in those two contests by stealing their signs illegally.
There are three keys for the Buckeyes to walk out of Ann Arbor with an undefeated regular season. This is by far the best team these guys have faced, so they must do all three of these things in order to win. Failing to do just one could result in a loss.
The first thing is they have to stop the run.
1. The Ohio State football team must stop the run.
The best part of Michigan’s offense is the running game. They like to run it up the middle and create holes in the second level to go for big chunks of yards. Once they get into the red zone, they love giving it to Blake Corum to finish off the drive. He has 20 rushing touchdowns this season.
Perhaps the biggest reason why the Buckeyes have failed to win this game in each of the last two seasons is because they couldn’t stop the run. They let Michigan get six to nine yards a carry every time they ran it. That’s not a sustainable model if Ohio State wants to win.
Stopping the run would force J.J. McCarthy to throw the ball against the number one pass defense in the country. Michigan clearly doesn’t trust McCarthy to throw the ball in close situations as evidenced by the last two games. Stopping the run would give them no choice.
Jim Knowles won’t sell out to stop the run, but the will certainly make sure the defense is tailored to do so. There will be times when he leaves his corners on islands so that the rest of the defense is in a position to stop Corum and Donovan Edwards. It’s their best chance to win.
The next key to the Ohio State Buckeyes winning this game lies with Kyle McCord.