ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Players huddled at midfield like a herd of buffalo trying to block the snow, guarding against a threat that never materialized.
Michigan players were making sure Ohio State didn’t try to return the favor from last season by planting a flag on the Block M logo inside Michigan Stadium. It was one of the few times all day that Michigan successfully defended its own turf, though Ohio State didn’t make a serious attempt to storm the ramparts. The Buckeyes were too busy making snow angels, high-fiving their fans and taking a victory lap inside a stadium that has been a house of horrors for them in recent years.
“We can’t let that happen,” Michigan running back Bryson Kuzdzal said. “We didn’t know if they were going to or not, but if they were trying to, they were not going to (succeed).”
The No. 1 Buckeyes didn’t need to put a flag in the ground. Their 27-9 victory against No. 15 Michigan was enough of a statement. Michigan’s reign in this rivalry is over, and so is the mythos Michigan constructed around its four consecutive victories against Ohio State.
The narrative was that Michigan kept winning this game because the Wolverines were tougher, more physical, capable of dominating Ohio State in the trenches. After last year’s stunning upset, there was talk of Michigan having a psychological hold over the Buckeyes and coach Ryan Day. None of that mattered Saturday. The more talented team won. Now that the spell has been broken, Michigan has to figure out what kind of program it wants to be.
At 9-3, the Wolverines are going to miss the College Football Playoff for a second year in a row. They hung around the rankings thanks to a weak Big Ten schedule, but at no point this season did they look like one of the 12 best teams in the country. On its own, a 9-3 record with a freshman quarterback and a bunch of first-year starters is an acceptable result. But the gap between Michigan and the best teams on its schedule was significant.
“Nine wins is great a lot of places, but we want to be better,” coach Sherrone Moore said.
Michigan won three consecutive Big Ten championships with an elite defense and one of the league’s most rugged rushing attacks. The Wolverines have tried to keep the same formula under Moore, who replaced Jim Harbaugh two years ago. This loss should be a wake-up call that the Wolverines can’t keep doing the same things and expect it to work just because of who they are.
Michigan’s plan in this game was to run the ball. That’s Moore’s M.O. in big games. He did it against Penn State two years ago, USC and Ohio State last year, Michigan State earlier this season. The problem was that No. 1 running back Justice Haynes was out with a foot injury and his replacement, Jordan Marshall, was nursing a sore shoulder. After gaining 61 yards on his first four carries, Marshall took a hit on his shoulder and ran to the sideline with his arm dangling at his side.
Michigan’s only idea, it seemed, was to keep running the ball with Kuzdzal. Once the Wolverines fell behind, it was obvious they weren’t built to come back from a deficit. Sometimes it seems as if the trait that once made Michigan successful — its ability to run the ball at will — has become a straitjacket.
“When you face the No. 1 defense in the country and you’re kind of one-dimensional, it puts a lot of pressure on the other guys,” center Greg Crippen said. “As an offensive line, we take accountability for how the offense didn’t execute well enough.”
That brings us to Bryce Underwood, the freshman quarterback whose first taste of the Ohio State rivalry was a bitter one. Michigan and its NIL network — including billionaire Larry Ellison, whose company now controls CBS — committed a large sum of money last year to help the Wolverines land the No. 1 player in the Class of 2025. The seven-figure investment penciled out to 8-for-18 passing, 63 yards, zero touchdown drives and one interception against the Buckeyes.
This is less about Underwood’s performance on Saturday and more about Michigan’s strategy as a program. What’s the point in spending millions on a quarterback and having him attempt five passes in the first half of the biggest game of the season?
The reason to sign a quarterback of Underwood’s caliber is to build the offense around him. The Wolverines gestured in that direction by hiring offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey, but the marriage between Lindsey’s Air Raid background and Michigan’s ground-and-pound mentality was uneven at best. In big moments, including Saturday, the Wolverines didn’t seem to trust their quarterback.
“That wasn’t the plan,” Moore said, asked about Michigan’s 19 first-half runs and five passes. “We wanted to be balanced in what we did. But when you’re successful in the run game like that, that’s what you want to do.”
Aside from a few early runs, Michigan’s ground game wasn’t so successful that the Wolverines couldn’t pry themselves away from it. Michigan simply failed to establish confidence in its passing game. The people who said that might be a problem against a team like Ohio State were proven correct in the end.
Moore has some soul-searching to do in the offseason, which has already begun for all intents and purposes. He has some promising young players to build around, starting with Underwood, Marshall and wide receiver Andrew Marsh. He needs to figure out how to get the most out of that talent, which starts with accepting that Michigan isn’t the team it was in 2021, 2022 or 2023.
Maybe that was harder to do when Michigan still had its winning streak against Ohio State to lean on. Saturday made it clear that Michigan has no magic formula for beating the Buckeyes. Moore should take that as a mandate to reengineer this offense around a quarterback who could be a top NFL Draft pick two years from now.
After the game, Michigan players were asked what Moore has done to advance the team’s culture in his two seasons as head coach. Of course, players took responsibility for the loss and said it came down to execution. But the answer was telling.
“I think he tried to keep the culture the same, and I think he’s done a great job so far,” linebacker Jimmy Rolder said.
It’s understandable that Moore wanted to stick to what worked in Michigan’s three consecutive Big Ten championships and four consecutive wins against Ohio State. Two years into his tenure as head coach, with the winning streak against the Buckeyes now history, it seems that the Wolverines are doing a lot of the same things, just not quite as well.
Maybe that’s part of the problem.