It's definitely easy to manipulate numbers and act like someone is or is not an impact.. Looks like both sides can do it.. because when the game was in jeopardy and Michigan was only up 4, Donovan was the biggest part of the offense that lead to JJ's qb sneak touchdown.
Then when OSU brought the game within 1 score again with plenty of time remaining.. Edwards put the nail in the coffin. You can spin it however you want and if you want to dismiss the final 85 yarder, then so be it, but don't for a second try to convince others that his 75 yarder td was not relevant and was not meaningful. It absolute was.
I looked at the Worldwide Leader's "Chance of victory" thing:
- Once Michigan forced a FG and tOSU made the FG to make it a one score game at 31-23 ESPN says M's chance was 92.4%.
- After the 75 yard TD run M's chance was 98.8%.
Did it matter, sure but it improved M's chances by 6.4% from almost certain to absolutely certain.
The thing is that yes, it was technically a one-score game at 31-23 but that drive started with 7:23 to go and it was "one score" but you have to include the 2pt conversion so in order for Ohio State to win (in one score), all of the following needed to happen at that point:
- Ohio State has to stop M
- Ohio State has to score a TD
- Ohio State has to get a 2pt conversion
- Ohio State has to stop M again (assuming that #2 doesn't chew up the remaining time)
- Ohio State has to win in OT.
The problem for tOSU in that situation is that they need to win all five. None are individually all that unlikely but M only needs one. Even if we assume that all of those are 50/50 propositions individually, the chances of them ALL happening are pretty small:
- 50% chance to stop M
- 25% chance to stop M and score a TD
- 12.5% chance to stop M, score a TD, and get 2pt to tie it up
- 6.25% chance to stop M, score a TD, get a 2pt to tie it up, and stop M again
- 3.125% chance to stop M, score a TD, get a 2pt to tie it up, stop M again, and win in OT.
I'm not saying and didn't say that it didn't matter. I referred to it as "the dagger" because it was but the game was more-or-less decided BEFORE that play happened. According to ESPN that play improved M's chances by 6.4%.
The later TD, the 85 yarder only improved M's chances by 0.1% from 99.8% to 99.9% so yes, I'm absolutely dismissing the final 85 yarder as irrelevant to the outcome of the game.
FWIW:
Getting argumentative about it doesn't make much sense to me. M won, tOSU lost. So if I make an argument that Donovan Edwards wasn't that big of a contributor that isn't to say that tOSU won. We already know the result. Credit taken away from Donovan Edwards necessarily must be credited to some other M player.
In the same vein, my argument all along is that the failure for tOSU in that game was the offense not the Defense. The defense "looks" bad because M scored 45 points but half-way through the fourth quarter the tOSU D had held M to 31 points. IMHO, part of the blame for the last two M TD's has to go to the tOSU Offense. At that point in the game the tOSU defense was gambling and for good reason. They were gambling because they were down 8 (later 15) and needed to QUICKLY get a stop. Playing solid defense and forcing a punt after a five minute drive really doesn't help there*. In that situation it makes sense to stack the line and *HOPE* for a stop. If you stop them in three plays you get the ball back with ~6 minutes to go and it is a game. The obvious downside is exactly what happened. If you stack the line and don't stop them at or near the line it is a TD because there is nobody back there.
That last part is my point vis-a-vis Edwards. A big part of the reason that he got a 75 yard TD there was because the tOSU defense was fully committed to getting a stop RIGHT at the line. Once he broke through it was all over. Had that play happened against a typical defense it probably would have been a nice gain of say 5-15 yards.
*In theory tOSU would still have a chance with the ball and down by 8 with ~2.5 minutes to play but that chance is MINIMAL. If I'm Ryan Day / Jim Knowles at the 7.5 minute mark I'm rolling the dice because an IMMEDIATE stop gives tOSU at least two ways to win:
- Score, get the 2pt, win in OT, or
- Score twice.
If you get down to 2.5 minutes to go your only chance is #1.
Finally one stat that isn't listed but I think is underappreciated is something akin to the Baseball concept of "stranded runners". In that 2022 game Michigan was incredibly efficient. Not counting kneeling down at the very end, M had 13 possessions and here is what they resulted in:
- 6 TD's
- 1 FG
- 1 Missed FG
- 5 3-and-outs.
There is VERY little wasted there.
In contrast, Ohio State was extremely inefficient. They also had 13 possessions (not counting kneeling at the half) and here is what they got:
- 2 TD's
- 3 FG's
- 2 INT's (both late after the game was more-or-less decided: one after 10 plays for 59 yards and one after 4 plays for 12 yards)
- 1 loss on downs - after 8 plays for 36 yards
- 3 3-and-outs
- 1 punt after 5 plays for 17 yards
- 1 punt after 4 plays for 21 yards
On the FG's tOSU got as close as the 9, the 14, and the 29. Those three, the loss on downs, and the two INT's together account for a boatload of yards that tOSU got only 9 points out of. That is a lot of "wasted" yards.
Conversely, M "wasted" almost nothing. On the FG they never got closer than the tOSU 31 and on the missed FG it was only a 4 play, 18 yard drive that never got closer than the tOSU 39.
This doesn't matter much when viewed in light of the 45-23 final AFTER the two late M TD runs AND the two late tOSU INT's but if you back up to the half-way point of the fourth quarter it matters a LOT. At that point:
- TD's: 4 for M, 2 for tOSU
- FG's: 1 for M, 3 for tOSU
- Missed FG: 1 for M
- 3-and-outs: 5 for M, 3 for tOSU
- Other drives: 0 for M, 3 for tOSU
Efficiency matters a LOT. Recall that at this point M led 31-23. If you convert one of tOSU's FG's to a TD it is a 4 point game. Two of them and it is tied. Or if you convert one of tOSU's productive but non-scoring drives to points it is a 1 or 5 point game instead of 8.
None of that is to say that M didn't do what they did. It is discussion of WHAT was the difference. IMHO, the problem for tOSU was the ineffectiveness and particularly inefficiency of their offense. Conversely, the credit for M belongs to their defense and specifically for their ability to minimize the damage. They gave up yards but not points.
