dude would have an 87% win rate under this hypothetical. just a bit shy of Urban's 89% at OSU.
Yes, Meyer thoroughly dominated Michigan but Michigan was not what it was by any stretch of the imagination during that time period. Michigan stunk under Hoke for Urban's first 3 years- and it took Jeem a loooong time but he's leveled his ish up. Jeem never had a QB as talented as he's had now, an OL as good or deep as he's had now, nor a single RB in the same universe as Corum let alone Edwards- all due respect to guys like Karran Higdon or Hassan Haskins.
Day is about as good as it gets as a head coach just shy of someone like Urban or Nick Saban. Or now the new king of the sport- Kirby. Think it'd be absolutely ludicrous if he was on the hot seat if he went 10-2 after losing maybe the best QB OSU's ever had- certainly the most accurate one they've ever had- and 3/5ths of his starting OL- including a pair of tackles- one that will probably go top 10 overall and the other in the 2nd rd.
First I totally agree that a lot of Urban's and Tressel's roughly 20 year domination of THE GAME had as much to do with Michigan not being very good as it did with what was going on in Columbus.
That, to me, is the problem with putting too much emphasis on the question of how a coach does against a rival.
To play devil's advocate, there is a problem with your last paragraph. In it you list an astounding embarrassment of recruiting excellence that Ohio State is about to lose on the offensive side, then you essentially make the case that it would be reasonable to expect a decline considering all of those losses. Well yeah, and if Ohio State had beaten Michigan the last two years then losing in 2023, in Ann Arbor, after losing all that talent would be a lot easier to accept.
The problem is that the Ohio State teams WITH all that talent you just rattled off scored 23 and 27 points the last two years in the program's first back-to-back losses to TTUN since Cooper's last two years.
Speaking of John Cooper, the frustrating part of his tenure wasn't the losses to superior Michigan teams (1988-1991, 1997, 1999, 2000). The frustrating part was the losses to clearly inferior Michigan teams (1993, 1995, 1996).
Cooper finished 2-10-1 against Michigan. He was kinda given a pass for the first four because Michigan was really good from 1988-1991 and because recruiting had slipped under Earle so by 1988 the cupboard was bare (at least by Ohio State standards).
If Cooper had beaten the obviously inferior Michigan teams in 1993, 1995, and 1996 he'd have finished 5-7-1 against Michigan and after the first four years he'd have been 5-3-1.
Michigan has been good the last two years but in watching the CFP this year I saw:
- Michigan lost to TCU
- Georgia BARELY survived Ohio State
- Georgia obliterated TCU
As an Ohio State fan it is hard to look at that and avoid thinking "how the _____ did this mediocre Michigan team that lost to freaking TCU beat our Ohio State team that looked like at least a near-equal to Georgia"?
You HAVE to beat your rival when you ARE better than them because there are going to be times when you aren't.
Looking at the talent that you listed,
Looking at recruiting rankings in general,
Looking at CFP results,
Looking at the results of all games other than THE GAME:
A pretty strong case can be made that Ohio State was a better team than Michigan in both of the last two years.
