Oller: Kyle McCord, Marvin Harrison take it up a notch in Ohio State win
Our hopscotch across college football begins not in Ohio Stadium, where the No. 1 Buckeyes improved to 10-0 and Marvin Harrison Jr. helped his Heisman campaign during a 38-3 win over Michigan State, but we start in Not-So-Happy Valley, where Michigan showed up Saturday without its coach and Penn State failed to show up with its coach.
Or as one trending social media quipster put it, “If the Big Ten really wanted to stick it to Michigan it would have suspended James Franklin.”
Before visiting the Ohio State blowout, what to make of UM’s 24-15 win at Beaver Stadium? How important is a head coach to game-day performance when the Wolverines can waltz into the Big Ten’s most intimidating venue with Jim Harbaugh suspended and tango out with a nine-point victory that felt bigger? Is Michigan that good on both sides of the ball? Are the Nittany Lions that bad on offense?
Penn State has no passing game. Michigan needed no passing game. It did not attempt a pass after 7:41 of the second quarter. Under fill-in coach Sherrone Moore, the Wolverines at one point ran 32 times in a row. Penn State’s defense is legit, but Michigan’s is even better. Compare it to Ohio State’s 20-12 win against PSU in the Horseshoe on Oct. 21 and you can make a strong case that the Nov. 25 showdown between the Scarlet and Gray and Maize and BlueDot shades will be both low-scoring with higher-than-usual drama.
Will Harbaugh, whose three-game suspension runs through the end of the regular season, be coaching when the Buckeyes visit the Big House? Will Michigan successfully get a temporary restraining order to allow their Michigan Man to patrol the sideline? Have I ever written a column with so many question marks? Ah, but these are uncharted waters we’re sailing through, where an elite(ist) university lawyers up against its own conference, which is governed by a former CBS sports TV executive whose toughest task before benching Harbaugh was trying to convince Tony Romo to take a breath.
If you thought former Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren found it challenging navigating the conference through COVID-19, wait until you see how Michigan tries in court to slice commish Tony Petitti into 10 pieces of Detroit-style pizza.
Back to Columbus. What if it were the Buckeyes instead of the Wolverines who took the field in State College without their coach on the sideline? Would things have gone smoothly? Almost certainly not, because Ryan Day calls the plays. The offense runs through him. At Michigan, coordinators handle the majority of heavy lifting. Jim Harbaugh has more important things to do, like make sure his low-level staffers are wearing their Michigan Impossible spy glasses.
It should be noted that the Buckeyes easily defeated Michigan State during the 2020 pandemic season, 52-12, when defensive line coach Larry Johnson filled in for Day, who was down with COVID-19. But OSU would not want to play The Game with anyone but Day calling the shots.
It’s a different story with Harbaugh. As Urban Meyer explained on the FOX pregame show, “players play, coaches get out of the way on game day.”
Meyer continued: “The one thing if (Harbaugh) is not there is the game management piece. The fourth down decisions. To me that’s the only thing that a Jim Harbaugh would do. He doesn’t call plays offense and defense. It’s game-manager decisions.”
Day calls offense and makes the crucial in-game decisions, the biggest this season coming against Notre Dame when he called a run on third-and-goal play with three seconds left that resulted in a Chip Trayanum touchdown and 17-14 Ohio State win.
On the other hand, as long as Harrison Jr. is on the field and OSU’s defense is bending without breaking, well, it doesn’t require coaching genius to know what to do offensively. TITM (Throw it to Marvin.)
“(It’s) what we expect every time we go on the field. We expect to score a touchdown,” Day said of OSU’s fast start.
The Buckeyes led 14-0 after one quarter and put the game away in the second with 21 more points to take a 35-3 halftime lead.
Harrison, who became the first OSU receiver to collect two 1,000-yard seasons, finished with three touchdowns, including a 19-yard end run – a call that likely does not happen if Day is sitting in a hotel room 8 miles from the stadium, as Harbaugh supposedly was while waiting to see if he would be able to coach against Penn State.
The point of all this? It’s not a huge negative for Michigan if Harbaugh can’t coach against Ohio State. Recall that the Wolverines went 3-0 with Harbaugh suspended for the first three games this season for his role in misleading NCAA investigators about a possible recruiting violation during a COVID dead period. Harbaugh also will be allowed to coach during practices and game plan during the week.
If the Big Ten wants to punish Michigan without impacting current players, it should reduce the scholarships UM is able to offer. Something in the range of 15 over three years feels about right.
But enough about cheaters. Let’s take a minute to extol the talents of quarterback Kyle McCord, who against Sparty looked more on-target and comfortable than at any time this season, finishing with 335 yards and three touchdowns. McCord operates in a world where when he makes a pinpoint throw to Harrison, fans and media gush, “What a catch by the future first-round NFL draft pick.” The perfect pass becomes mostly an afterthought. Such is life when playing with an incredibly gifted wide receiver.
McCord looks better with each viewing, especially when comparing him to the rest of the Big Ten quarterbacks. Is he C.J. Stroud? No, but few are. I have labeled him a B+ talent, but he played an “A” game against Michigan State, finishing 24 for 31.
And Day watched it all from the sideline, where he will be on Nov. 25 in Ann Arbor. Will Harbaugh be there, too? Michigan’s legal team is top-notch. Bet.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State rolls over Michigan State as Marvin Harrison Jr. shines
