Ohio State Buckeyes opponent breakdowns: Michigan

Opponents: Florida Atlantic | Cincinnati | Indiana | Miami (OH) | Nebraska | Michigan State | Northwestern | Wisconsin | Maryland | Rutgers | Penn State

The college football season is still weeks away but anticipation is starting to build as the calendar turns from June to July and we are closing in on less than two months from the first kickoffs of the season.

Much has been made of Ohio State’s schedule this season with its lack of a Power Five non-conference opponent on it, but don’t let anyone convince you that this schedule does not pose more than its fair share of problems for a team that will be breaking in not only a new quarterback but essentially a new head coach as Ryan Day takes over for Urban Meyer as the Buckeyes look to defend their back-to-back Big Ten championships.

The lack of a P5 non-conference opponent may overshadow the fact that Ohio State has about as difficult of a crossover schedule as a Big Ten East team can have with games against Nebraska, Wisconsin and Northwestern and the schedule maker did this team no favors with a final two of Penn State and Michigan to wrap up the regular season in November.

We have made it to the season finale, the biggest game of the year, ‘The Game’.

Ohio State has to head up to Ann Arbor (Mich.) this time around for Ryan Day’s first taste as the Ohio State head coach in this series. The good news is he has as many wins as head coach in this series as Jim Harbaugh does.

Each year we hear the question or statement of “if not this year, then when?” for Michigan. The Wolverines bring in the more experienced quarterback, have the more experienced coach, have homefield advantage, have lost 14 of the last 15 games in this series and have three wins in the series in the 2000s.

If not this year, then when, is right.

Ohio State’s season and Michigan’s season will be defined by much more than this one game in the era of the College Football Playoff. Expectations are that these two teams should be the class of the Big Ten, potentially setting up a big top-10 or even top-5 type of match-up in the final weekend of November.

This game is so far off in the future that it is almost hard to talk about it. Teams that we see in September will hardly resemble the teams we will see when these two teams take the field. We are talking about this game here in July, so the difference could be even more dramatic.

But it is all part of the best rivalry in all of sports, there is an expectation to talk about it 365 years a day, so here we go.

Last Year: 10-3, 8-1 Big Ten East

It was supposed to be a Revenge Tour. Three of the four stops were great hits and the last one was cancelled, but more on that later.

Under Jim Harbaugh, the Wolverines have been winning the games that they are supposed to win and not doing so well in the ones that are not set on the easy or medium difficult level. We don’t need to get into what Harbaugh’s record has been against Ohio State and Michigan State or even throwing Penn State in there as well. It had not been very good going into this season.

With a new quarterback in place, a very good defense and several years of recruiting, this was supposed to be the year that Michigan would challenge Ohio State for league supremacy.

For most of the year, it looked like that might be the case, especially after Ohio State stumbled against Purdue.

As for the Wolverines, they tripped out of the gate against Notre Dame but there was not much shame in that. The game was in South Bend (Ind.), it was a first game for Shea Patterson in the Michigan offense and while it would have been a tremendous way to start the season, it was a non-league game (all the games are non-league to Notre Dame, but I digress) and there was plenty of time to turn things around.

Things took off after that game with three straight offensive blitzkriegs of Western Michigan, SMU and Nebraska, hanging 56 points on the Huskers to move to 3-1 on the season. Michigan would then go on and steal one from Northwestern after spotting the Cats a 17-point lead. Even as people were watching the Wildcats get up by 17, America was saying that might not be enough points to put away the Wolverines. They were right.

That set up a top-15 match-up with Wisconsin the following week at home, a game that the Wolverines won easily, 38-13, checking a big box off the list by taking down the team that was supposed to be the class of the B1G West.

Then little brother was waiting for the Wolverines to come into their house. Michigan held the Spartans to 94 yards of total offense. Not rushing, not passing, total.

Needless to say the Wolverines won that game.

After an open week, attention turned to Penn State and Michigan exorcised some demons in that game with a 42-7 thrashing of the Nittany Lions in front of an all-too-happy crowd at the Big House.

Michigan just needed not to trip up before Ohio State and that is what happened with a rout of Rutgers and then a game that was closer than people expected against Indiana and many people feel that game exposed some things with the crossing patterns.

Ohio State really did not need all that much help going into that game and put down an historic beatdown of the Wolverines, 62-39. That game would ultimately be Urban Meyer’s last game against the Wolverines, walking away from the series with a perfect 7-0 record.

Michigan was knocked out of the top-four of the CFP, the B1G Champ Game was off the table as was the Rose Bowl. All that was left was the Peach Bowl against Florida, a team that Michigan has to be tired of playing in the post season.

Florida is not tired of playing Michigan however as the Gators rolled the Wolverines, 41-15.