Ohio State Thrashes Michigan State. Now a Hot Michigan Will Take Its Shot at Soaring Buckeyes.

C.J. Stroud has grown up and the defense has tightened up as Ohio State eyes going all the way.

It looks like Michigan—which has lost 15 of the last 16, including the last eight, to Ohio State—finally might be ready to give the Buckeyes a game in their top-five (or six) showdown. Then again, Ohio State has stepped it up, too. In a major way.

Maybe the Wolverines will surprise. They do have home-field advantage at what should be a rockin’ Big House. And they have run the table, with the exception of that 37-33 clunker trip to East Lansing in which they blew a 30-14 lead.

Michigan's 21-17 win at Penn State on Nov. 13 was impressive. And the Wolverines looked sharp in their 59-18 steamroll at Maryland on Saturday.

The problem for Jim Harbaugh is, Ohio State looks like it has put it all together at the right time of the season. In their 56-7 demolition of No. 7 Michigan State, the Buckeyes made hash out of criticism regarding their defense. And C.J. Stroud, with the aid of a tightened-up offensive line, has seemingly grown up overnight.

It was always clear that he had the tools. But now he is seeing the field, and connecting with an immensely talented set of receivers. In the 35-28 loss to Oregon on Sept. 11—a lifetime ago—Stroud completed 35 of 54. Two games ago, on Nov. 6, when Ohio State survived its trip to Nebraska 26-17, Stroud was 36 of 54.

In the aerial assault on the Spartans, Stroud completed 32 of 35 for 432 yards and a ridiculous six touchdowns—all of them in the first half, when the Buckeyes were building a 49-0 lead.

And the Ohio State defense, which had been a serious concern, was dominant against what had been a pretty potent Michigan State offense. It stuffed erstwhile Heisman Trophy candidate Kenneth Walker III, who had 25 yards on six carries.

If a magic wand could be waved and college football went back to selecting two teams to meet for the national championship, could anyone argue with a matchup of Georgia and the Buckeyes?

Eye test. Statistics. Whatever you want to use at this point in the season. . . Is there a team closer to the Dawgs than Ohio State with one regular game remaining?

No disrespect to Michigan. After taking that unusual pay cut, Harbaugh has delivered up to this point. The Wolverines are playing tough and inspired football.

The question is, can they overcome the recruiting gap? On paper and everywhere else, Ohio State has more talent. Elite talent.

The Game, as it is known, has had its moments of dramatic surprise over the years. Will this be one of those years? We’ll find out in Ann Arbor on Saturday.

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CAN THE IRISH OVERCOME THEIR WEAK SCHEDULE?

In the latest College Football Playoff Rankings, No. 5 Michigan obviously would become a playoff team with a victory over Ohio State. And No. 4 Cincinnati now seems to have a slot—after plenty of debate about whether a Group of 5 would/could make the playoff.

Given that either Ohio State or Michigan is going to drop, the key future controversy revolves around No. 6 Notre Dame. The Irish should move ahead of either the Buckeyes or the Wolverines.

If Georgia knocks out No. 3 Alabama in the SEC championship game, ND could move up to No. 4.

That sets up the question of the Irish vs. a 10-1 Big 12 team. Oklahoma State is No. 7 and Oklahoma is No. 10. But those two meet this week. And the winner would see No. 8 Baylor in the Big 12 title game.

With all of those opportunities to post big wins, would a Big 12 team leapfrog Notre Dame? That certainly makes perfect sense—given the way the The Committee pledges allegiance to strength of schedule.

Short answer: If Notre Dame is in and a 12-1 Big 12 team is out, there will be Bedlam in the mid-section of America.

If you sent out a search party looking for ND’s best win, it would come back with. . . Wisconsin. And that was an early-season win before the Badgers did their Jekyll-and-Hyde thing.

Trailing 13-10 early in the fourth quarter Notre Dame won that game 41-13 in Chicago’s Soldier Field on Sept. 25, a lifetime ago for the Badgers. Since opening 1-3 against the most ambitious/dumbest—choose your adjective for playing Penn State, Michigan and the Irish in its first four games—early schedule in the nation, Wisconsin has righted the ship.

Quarterback Graham Mertz, who was a disaster early, has become a serviceable signal-caller who now avoids makes mistakes and makes some good throws. Since throwing seven interceptions, four against the Irish, and two touchdowns in Wisconsin’s first five games, Mertz has reversed that—passing for seven touchdowns, with two picks, in the last six games.

And Wisconsin’s 17-year-old running-back phenom, Braelon Allen, did not even play against Notre Dame. Since then, Allen has reeled off seven straight 100-yard games, highlighted by his 228 yards on Saturday against a Nebraska defense that is better than the Cornhuskers’ 3-8 record would indicate.

If you haven’t seen the 6-2, 238-pound Allen yet, that’s bound to change, possibly in the Big Ten championship game. It would be very interesting to see how Allen would do against Ohio State, or in a rematch with Michigan. He’s a power back/speed back, the next in line for Wisconsin’s great running-back tradition, which includes most recently, Jonathan Taylor, Heisman winner Ron Dayne and so many others.

Look for Allen to get plenty of Heisman hype in the buildup to the 2022 season.

Hard to believe Allen started the season No. 4 on the depth chart, but he was so-o young. Allen still would have been in high school in Fond du Lac if he hadn’t reclassified to enroll early in college.

As with Oregon and Ohio State, if Notre Dame and Wisconsin played again now, the outcome might be a lot different. That’s the beauty and frustration of college football. Young players like Stroud and Allen grow up so much during the course of a season. And yet, the body of a team’s work matters a lot in college football, where merely earning one of the four playoff berths is a very big deal.

No disrespect to Notre Dame. You can only beat the teams you play. And who would have ever imagined that USC (4-6), Stanford (3-8), North Carolina (6-5), Virginia (6-5), Florida State (6-5), Georgia Tech (3-8) and Navy (2-8) would all be under-achieving in the same year? Even counting Wisconsin (8-3) and Purdue (7-4), the 10 teams the Irish have beaten are a combined 55-64.

Two of the schools that ND played—USC and Virginia Tech—already have fired their coaches. Who knows how many more will not return?

And yet, there are scenarios in which Notre Dame could sneak into the Final Four. Not likely, but not impossible, either.

More likely: No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Cincinnati, No. 4 Oklahoma State/Oklahoma.

That assumes a lot of things, of course. Notably that Georgia and Ohio State are who we think they are. And that the Big 12 manages to come up with a one-loss team.

No need to overthink it now. Enjoy the Thanksgiving Week Feast. At the table. . . And on the gridiron.