Doug Lesmerises has a good piece on cleveland.com breaking down the last 5 drafts and examining the talent gap between OSU, Michigan and everyone else. He does this because in an overall draft pick sense, Michigan is somewhat close to OSU (43 picks to 36 picks). 

A couple of interesting things, that may be obvious but really pop when you look at the numbers:

- OSU is crushing Michigan on top-end talent, with many more high first round picks and mid-first and second round picks.

- Michigan is fielding a lot of good but not superb talent, with a lot of mid round picks.

- Michigan has no excuse for not being the second best team in the league. They have had better talent than every other team, and it's not really close. 

While Doug makes the case that Michigan may just be a few top-end guys away from competing with OSU (because it has comparable depth of talent), I would argue something different. Michigan has had NFL talent all over its roster and still regularly lost to PSU, Sparty, and Wisconsin. At some point, it's not talent, it's the coach. I know the fans up north like to say it's just about the QB, but MSU, PSU and Wisconsin have not had great QBs and still managed to regularly thump the blue. 

Here is the piece: https://www.cleveland.com/osu/2021/05/is-the-talent-gap-between-michigan...