Nov. 29—COLUMBUS — Ohio State and Michigan are ready for another one-game season Saturday at Ohio Stadium.
While Michigan fell out of the Big Ten title race weeks ago, No. 2 Ohio State is in the conference championship game with a win — and the Wolverines would love nothing more than to ruin the Buckeyes’ season with a fourth consecutive victory in the series that began in 1897.
Here are five questions that will likely decide who wins the 120th edition of The Game:
1. What’s Wink got in store for the Buckeyes?
Trotwood native Don “Wink” Martindale is in his first season as the defensive coordinator for the Wolverines after spending the last 20 seasons in the NFL, but Day said the scheme resembles what Michigan ran the past three seasons when the Wolverines kept high-scoring Ohio State offenses in check.
“A little bit more pressure, but he’s got his own flavor to it, but similar to what they’ve done in the past,” Day said. “Same philosophy in terms of the structure of the coverages, but a little bit more aggressive in terms of pressure.”
2. Is Will Howard up to the moment?
The transfer quarterback from Kansas State has certainly talked a good game this week. Saturday he said he was psyched to get to play in his one and only Ohio State-Michigan game because he wants to help deliver a victory of the seniors who are 0-3 against the Wolverines and Day, who is 1-3.
Tuesday he said he looking forward to the biggest stage of his career.
“It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of, and it’s all every kid ever dreams of,” Howard said. “It’s like you’re shooting hoops in your front yard, you’re not thinking about just shooting hoops. You’re pretending you’re hitting the fadeaway jumper to win the game in the NBA Finals. That’s the mindset that you want to have. So, I just try to take advantage of every one of these opportunities because this is my only time getting to play in the game, so I’m not going to let it pass me by.”
While the Ohio State-Michigan game typically comes down to what happens in the trenches, this could be an exception. The Buckeyes certainly cannot be dominated up front on either side of the ball, but the surest way to victory this week could be the put the ball in the hands of Howard and his talented receivers to establish before turning to the running game to put the game away.
3. Can Ohio State’s interior offensive line pass another test?
Michigan has two of the best defensive tackles in the country in Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant.
They have a combined 13 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks and pose a major threat to any offensive line, but Ohio State’s could still be vulnerable after having to replace two starters since the middle of the season.
With Carson Hinzman sliding to center and Lakota East grad Austin Siereveld replacing him at left guard opposite right guard Tegra Tshabola, Ohio State is relying on a redshirt freshman and two third-year sophomores inside.
“Those guys just keep rising the challenge, I’ve just been so proud of how they have responded,” Howard said. “And they haven’t listened to the outside noise. They’ve stuck together, and when those guys are on, when those guys are hot, man, they’re the lifeblood of that offense.”
Michigan’s edge rushers are no slouches, either.
Josaiah Stewart has 13 tackles for loss, including 8.5 sacks, while Derrick Moore has four tackles for loss and two sacks.
4. What about Jim Knowles?
The players decide what happens during a game good or bad, but Knowles said he tells them to blame him for anything that goes wrong between the lines.
No doubt Ohio State fans have done that the last two years as his unit has been beaten in basically the opposite way.
In 2022, a handful of explosive plays sunk Ohio State, and some of them were the result of unnecessarily risky defensive calls, but last season the Buckeyes just couldn’t get off the field in the second half. Ohio State stayed within a score, but Michigan possessed the ball and finished the game with scores on its last four possessions before running out the clock. Although two of those were field goals, that was enough to prove to be the difference in a top five matchup that launched Michigan to another Big Ten Championship Game and eventually the Wolverines’ first national championship since 1997.
This year the Ohio State defense has been surging since a loss to Oregon in early October. Michigan struggled to move the ball most of the season, but the Wolverines are coming off by far their best outing of the season, a 50-6 beatdown of a Northwestern team that has a respectable defense, and seniors Kalel Mullings and Donovan Edwards make a formidable one-two punch at running back.
5. Will the head coach have the Buckeyes ready to go?
On Tuesday when he met with reporters for the only time this week, Day kept coming back to one phrase: Trust training
That might be coach-speak, but it also seems to fit this week.
If any one thing flipped the rivalry more than anything else, that would be it. The Wolverines rededicated themselves to getting better off the field in the weight room, and they got good at a ground-and-pound offense that has proven to be lethal for the Ohio State defense no matter what it did to any other opponent.
“It’s always personal, this game, and the last three years have been tough,” Ohio State senior defensive end Jack Sawyer said. “I’m not going to sit up here and tell you it hadn’t been because this game means everything to this program and everything to anybody involved. So we’re using this fuel. We’ve used this fuel the whole offseason, but we’re just ready to go out there and play and compete. And we’re ready for a war.”
SATURDAY’S GAME
Michigan at Ohio State, Noon, FOX, 1410
