Ryan Day: Ohio State hasn't faced a defense as strong as Michigan's elite unit

Ohio State has put up a combined 118 points on Michigan’s defense in the last two meetings, but the Wolverines have made wholesale changes to the unit, bringing in first-year coordinator Mike Macdonald this offseason. Macdonald has taken a unit that ranked 84th nationally in yards allowed per game (429.3) last season, and turned it into a group that’s top 10 in both total (ninth, 306.6 yards per contest) and scoring (seventh, 16.3 points an outing) defense with one game left to play.

There’s no question the Buckeyes’ offense, which leads the nation in scoring (47.2 points per game) and yards per contest (559.5), is the biggest challenge Macdonald and Co. will have faced, but Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said Tuesday that his offense hasn’t played a stronger defense than Michigan’s. It’s game on, in that respect.

“This is a very good defense,” he said. “I think they’re well coached and they have really good players, playing with an edge. So we’ve got to practice with an edge, and we’ve got to bring it as well.

“It’s going to come down to, certainly, how hard each team plays. I think you’re going to get everybody’s best effort, but then it’s going to come down to execution, who makes plays in the end. The preparation this week is very, very important.”

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The Buckeyes are led by redshirt freshman quarterback C.J. Stroud, a former Michigan target, and a trio of wideouts — Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson and Jaxon Smith-Njigba — who each have more than 840 receiving yards and total a combined 30 touchdowns on the season. The prolific passing attack has produced 362.3 yards (sixth nationally) and 3.5 touchdowns per outing.

Within the matchup between the Buckeyes’ offense and the Wolverines’ defense, there’s another strength-on-strength battle that will take place and be an interesting subplot. The Maize and Blue tout two elite edge defenders in junior end Aidan Hutchinson and redshirt freshman outside linebacker David Ojabo, with each having 10 sacks on the season. On the flip side, Ohio State’s offensive tackles, Nicholas Petit-Frere (left), a projected NFL Draft pick, and Dawand Jones (right), have allowed only three sacks combined on the season, per Pro Football Focus (PFF).

“It’ll be a big challenge for our tackles and our whole offense,” Day said of containing Hutchinson and Ojabo. “Those guys do a great job off the edge, and up front too. The two inside guys are very powerful. And they do a great job in coverage.

“So it’s going to be a big challenge for our guys in protection, and for C.J. and everybody. But it’s also going to be the receivers, to make sure they’re getting open with separation. It’s everybody across the board — it’s the running backs picking up things. So yeah, very talented and powerful off the edge. They mix up their rushes. Big challenge.”

Mixing up rushes, disguising blitzes and coverages, and playing more zone on the back end has been key for Michigan this season. Under former coordinator Don Brown, the newly-appointed head coach at UMass, the Maize and Blue were aggressive with bringing blitzes and primarily played man-to-man coverage, which the Buckeyes picked apart in the last two meetings. Day is anticipating facing some more resistance this time around.

“Significantly different,” he said when asked to contrast the Wolverines’ old defensive system to the one they’re running now. “I think this style of defense is a little bit more NFL-oriented, the way that they’re structured. I felt like Coach Brown was a little bit more college-oriented. And they’re very good — they have very good personnel and they’re doing a good job this year.

“I just think that when you’re playing matchup games like this, it comes down to whatever edge you’re looking for — whether it’s a schematic edge, whether it’s an edge fundamentally. Whatever it is, you have to find that edge in games like this.

“Both teams have played a lot of football now, so they kind of know where they’re at. It’s just about putting together a great game plan, practicing it and then putting it on the field on Saturday.”

As for the dominant offensive performances Ohio State has put forth against Michigan in recent years, Day said they’re irrelevant.

“That means nothing. We’ve got to play really good in this game, and maybe in a few years we can go back and look at what these years have been like,” he said. “All I can think about is playing in this game.”

More Notes From Ryan Day’s Pre-Ohio State vs. Michigan Press Conference

• Day acknowledged that only one player on the Buckeyes’ roster — left guard Thayer Munford — has started in the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry, but he assured fans that his players know what the game means.

“Well, we work it year round,” explained Day. “Every day, we work it. We work it in the offseason. We work it on Fridays during the weight room. We have so many different things that we talk to our guys about. We have our sessions in the preseason and spring. We have meetings about it. So we constantly talk about it. And we talk about it in recruiting.

“This is our No. 1 goal here at Ohio State, to beat the team up north. Period. And we have to do it. I think the guys know what this week means for so many reasons.

“First of all, just the rivalry itself, and secondly, there’s everything on the table here, with the opportunity to go to Indianapolis — we have their attention. Those guys have not played in the game, though, but there’s a first time for everything.”

• Michigan freshman quarterback J.J. McCarthy has been the backup to redshirt freshman signal-caller Cade McNamara all season, but he’s played a role in every game except one. The Wolverines have mostly used the athletic youngster in read-option run plays — he’s gained 65 yards and scored two touchdowns on 17 carries — but he’s also thrown four touchdowns and completed 25 of his 38 pass attempts.

“He’s very, very talented, and he has a dual-threat approach to his game,” Day said. “He can do some things in the ride-and-side game, and he can also throw the ball. He’s quick, and he has a little bit of that dual-threat. It seems like that’s kind of what they’ve done a little bit when he’s been in the game, but he can also throw the ball really, really well.

“We’ll have to go through and really look at the film and find out what the tendencies are, but at the end of the day, we’re not going to change what we do defensively based on who’s in the game. They don’t have that much of a different package.”