Prior to last year's tOSU/M game the big discussion around Harbaugh was his losing the rivalry/big games. Now all of a sudden, Harbuagh is Big Game Jim.
You guys know I'm a data/numbers guy. I watched the College Football Nerds podcast which was filmed Saturday night and a bunch of Michigan fans were chiming in to tell the Nerds what idiots they had been for picking Ohio State and basically that Michigan was obviously better. That just annoys me because there were very good reasons to pick Ohio State and for that matter, nearly all of the Michigan fans I know thought that Ohio State would win.
Here are Michigan's results this year sorted by opponent Sagrin ranking (current):
There is no way you would predict Michigan's big wins over PSU or tOSU based on the rest of their results. Against teams ranked 22-40 they have two one-score wins and a two-score win. Based on that you'd expect that when Michigan's opposition upgraded from 22-40 to 2-6, the Wolverines would be in trouble or, AT BEST, that they might be able to eek out a win.
Another way to look at it is this:
Michigan beat PSU by 22 and tOSU by 24. Those teams are ranked #6 and #2 by Sagrin. The only teams that Michigan beat by more points are:
- #60 Nebraska
- #115 Rutgers
- #130 CoState
- #132 UCONN
- #154 Hawaii.
You can argue with Sagrin's rankings (he still has tOSU #2 ahead of M #3 for example) but the arguments are around the margins. Maybe Ohio State and Penn State aren't really the second and sixth best teams respectively but they are clearly VASTLY superior to the aforementioned UNL, RU, CoSt, UCONN, and Hawaii. They are also substantially better than Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, and Michigan State each of whom played as close or closer with the Wolverines than the Lions or Buckeyes did.
This isn't a one-game thing, the Wolverines substantially overperformed against PSU as well as tOSU but it isn't even just a one-season thing. Here are Michigan's results from last year:
So I guess there is an upper cap to it. They weren't able to just jump up their level of play enough to blow out (or even beat) Georgia but other than that the pattern is somewhat similar. Michigan had three REALLY good league games:
- beat #3 tOSU at home by two scores.
- beat #12 UW on the road by three scores.
- beat #25 Iowa in Indy by infinity.
This same 2021 Michigan team, however, struggled MIGHTILY with some opponents that were not as good as tOSU/UW and worse or only marginally better than Iowa:
- beat #18 PSU by one score.
- lost to #19 MSU by one score (remember this is an MSU team that tOSU beat by infinity).
- beat #48 Nebraska by one score (in their defense nearly everyone only beat Nebraska by one score but there was one exception, tOSU beat them by two scores).
- beat #88 Rutgers by one score.
Here is a more common profile, tOSU in 2022:
The Buckeyes' worst game is against the best team they played. Then they have a couple two-score wins over teams ranked #6 and #18. Then the blowouts start. There are still outliers (everybody has outliers). Ohio State's outliers are "only" beating Maryland by 13 and "only" beating Northwestern by 14 but those are things that happen. In general the margins get better for tOSU as the opponents get worse.
All of this is NOT a knock on Michigan/Harbaugh. Quite the opposite. It is to his/their credit that they've been able to perform so well in their biggest games these past two years. Heck, if John Cooper could have learned that trick he'd have retired from Ohio State as a legend with multiple rings instead of getting fired as the ringless guy who couldn't beat Michigan.
