If there was ever a time for the Michigan offense to have a chance against Ohio State, this is it

If not now, when?

That’s the rhetorical question that I’d ask Jim Harbaugh about his Michigan offense battling the Ohio State defense on Saturday.

For the first time in the Harbaugh-Urban Meyer chapter of this rivalry, the Wolverines finally have the offensive weapons to make the Buckeyes pay. That’s not a knock on the likes of Jake Rudock, Jake Butt or any other Michigan Jake that I forgot, but let’s be real here. While those offenses had success, none were built the way that this 2018 group is.

Even the 2016 group that averaged 40 points per game couldn’t check all the boxes like this year’s group.

Balance? Check. Big-play ability? Check. A mobile quarterback who can do just about anything? Check. An offensive line that’s actually shown it can push around a top-25 team? Check.

Michigan’s offense finally has all the things working in its favor to stack up with the Buckeyes.

Then again, so did Maryland.

Ohio State is obviously coming off a horrendous defensive performance in which it surrendered 51 points and barely kept its division/conference/Playoff hopes alive. An on-target overtime pass from Tyrrell Pigrome and we’re talking about whether the 2-loss Buckeyes can simply play “spoiler” this weekend.

In the same way that Michigan has its best offense of the Harbaugh era, this is easily the worst Ohio State defense that Harbaugh has seen.

It’s not just the fact that for the first time, Harbaugh won’t have to game plan his offense around containing a Bosa, though that certainly doesn’t hurt Michigan’s chances. Still, one player wasn’t the reason that the Buckeyes allowed 339 rushing yards to Maryland. That group — with Bosa — coughed up nearly 200 rushing yards to Oregon State, too.

Those lackluster defensive performances bookended what’s been just a roller coaster year for Ohio State. They had the big defensive stand late at Penn State that put the wheels in motion toward what looked like another B1G East title. And they obviously had whatever that was in West Lafayette.

Obviously the loss of all of those front 7 staples finally caught up to Ohio State. Not having Tyquan Lewis, Jalyn Holmes, Sam Hubbard and Jerome Baker was perhaps an even bigger factor than many realized this preseason. It was Hubbard who took over that Michigan game last year with 2.5 sacks, while Baker helped keep the Michigan running game to less than 3 yards per carry.

What suggests that Ohio State is going to slow down the Wolverines run game this year? Anthony McFarland probably wishes he could face the Buckeyes every week after he nearly hung 300 on them.

Maybe Karan Higdon will be thinking the same thing by game’s end on Saturday. Since that Notre Dame loss, Higdon has at least 100 rushing yards or multiple rushing scores in every game he played in. The senior is plenty capable of adding to the Buckeyes defensive woes.

Meyer called Saturday’s defensive performance “alarming.” That’s probably an understatement. I mean, not to take anything away from McFarland, but woof.

https://twitter.com/SchutteCFB/status/1063845300513722369

The alarms weren’t sounding when Ohio State dominated Michigan State in East Lansing en route to a 26-6 victory. That was the only time in the last 4 games that the Buckeyes didn’t allow at least 450 yards of offense. They were gashed by the likes of Maryland, Nebraska and Purdue. That ain’t exactly Murderers’ Row.

Granted, those 3 teams all have something in common. They all have creative offensive minds running their teams. Between Matt Canada’s pre-snap motions, Jeff Brohm’s trick-play bonanza and Scott Frost’s run-pass option attack, nobody just lined up in an I-formation and tried to be basic against Ohio State.

If Harbaugh is basic with his offense on Saturday, there’s certainly a chance that history will repeat itself and Michigan will once again end the regular season with a loss to Ohio State.

But would Harbaugh really do that? In what could be the last regular season game coaching Shea Patterson, I’d be stunned if the game plan didn’t allow him to roll out of the pocket and air it out. This late in the season, he’s shown that he’s capable of executing a game plan that’s more complex than the one we saw at Notre Dame.

Now, that game feels like a lifetime ago. Michigan actually has an offensive identity, and it’s one predicated on Patterson making things happen off the play-action pass.

Nothing suggests that Ohio State is ready to handle that. Patterson has the ability to remind the Buckeye defense of Adrian Martinez, Peyton Ramsey and David Blough, all of whom made plays outside the pocket and torched OSU for north of 330 yards of offense.

If Ohio State contains Michigan’s offense, it’ll certainly buck that awful trend (pun intended). The nation’s No. 77 passing defense isn’t seeing a banged-up Brian Lewerke on Saturday.

Of course, this is only half the story. The counterpoint is that Ohio State is better equipped to get into a shootout than it’s ever been during the Meyer era. That’s true. What’s also true is that Michigan ranks No. 1 in the nation in both pass defense and total defense. Since that opener at Notre Dame, nobody has hit 24 points against Don Brown’s defense. Ohio State, on the other hand, hit that mark in each contest of its current 6-game win streak against Michigan.

Enter “something has to give” cliché here.

More times than not this year, Ohio State’s defense has been the something that gives. Everything is setting up for Michigan to take something that’s been the missing piece during the Harbaugh era.

If there was ever a time to change that, Saturday is it.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Tradition. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.