Michigan football secondary undaunted by Ohio State pass game
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — While most of the college football world is focused on what it might mean if Michigan football RB Blake Corum is either limited or doesn’t play vs. Ohio State, perhaps the more important battle that will decide the game is how the Wolverine secondary will handle the Buckeye wide receivers.
Despite winning 42-27, the maize and blue allowed OSU QB C.J. Stroud to pass for 394 yards a year ago, his sixth-best game in terms of yardage of the season, and 53 yards more than his average of 341 at the time. Though the talk about Ohio State’s epic passing offense has been centered around Marvin Harrison Jr., Stroud isn’t quite as prolific as a year ago. Thus far, he’s passed for 2,991 yards and his best game to this point was a 367-yard, five touchdown performance against Toledo in Week 3, followed up by Week 6 at MSU when he passed for 361 yards and six touchdowns. Last season, his worst game was when he played a partial game against Tulsa and threw for 185 yards, with the next worst being 266 against Indiana. This year, Stroud has had multiple sub-300-yard games, with that benchmark being topped six out of his 11 game appearances compared to nine-of-12 last year.
Ohio-native Rod Moore will have something to do with Stroud’s production this year, as he had last year. The second-year safety came on strong late in 2021, but has been a full-time starter this year.
He’s not particularly happy with how the Michigan secondary performed in The Game a year ago, and looks forward to potentially limiting the production on that front.
“They’re going to try to pass the ball like every team does,” Moore said. “But we just have to — I would say we have to cut that in half. 400 is way too much. And we don’t have to do that and continue to lock in and execute everything that we do.”
When it comes to the Buckeye receivers, Moore is leery, but isn’t writing off Ohio State’s biggest strength as a surefire win for the team down south.
Harrison leads the team with 1,037 yards and 11 touchdowns this year, while Emeka Egbuka has 914. The third option, Julian Fleming, the former No. 1 overall recruit, has 415 yards. It’s unknown whether or not Jaxon Smith-Njigba will be available, considering he’s missed most of the season with a hamstring injury.
Comparing and contrasting that to last year, in 13 games, Smith-Njibga led the team with 1,606 yards, Garret Wilson had 1,058, and Chris Olave had 936. Essentially, it’s as if the Buckeyes are missing all of Smith-Njigba’s production while retaining what Wilson and Olave were able to do a year ago.
Still, Moore knows what OSU can do, and he’s optimistic about the Wolverines’ chances to slow things down in the passing offense.
“They present a big challenge, just like any other team,” Moore said. “They have good receivers. I mean, there’s not one in particular, all of them, everyone there is good. So we’re just gonna have to do we do in the secondary and stop them.”
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Regardless, it’s a challenge he knows is coming. The best passing offense that Michigan has seen thus far have been Penn State (44th nationally) and Maryland (45th). The Nittany Lions passed for 157 yards against the Wolverines while Maryland posted the most that Michigan has given up, with 269. Inexplicably, Iowa, the worst passing team in the conference, posted the second-most yards allowed with 246 yards. Through 11 games, the maize and blue feature the nation’s fifth-best passing defense to Ohio State’s 17th-rated passing offense.
In terms of the team’s confidence entering The Game, it seems palpable. In years past, the Wolverines appeared hopeful, but it was more an ‘if we win’ rather than a ‘when we win.’ That changed last year, but this year it’s been even more evident that Michigan has an expectation to emerge victorious.
Still, despite winning last year, the Wolverines aren’t resting on their laurels, more so looking toward potentially starting a win streak in the rivalry for the first time in more than two decades.
“It hasn’t changed at all because that’s just one win,” Moore said. “And I would say I think it was 11 or 10 years before that we hadn’t beat them. So we just want to keep doing that and flip the script and do that every year from now on. Keep the streak going.”
If Michigan is to officially start a win streak, it will come on Saturday at Ohio Stadium, where it hasn’t won since 2000. The Game kicks off at 12:14 p.m. EST on Fox.
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