Care: Running with a Chip (Kelly) on our shoulder

This rushing offense is fantastic. The hype of having the "best RB duo in the country" was legitimate, and James Peoples looks extremely good as well. Quinshon Judkins is out-producing Trey right now but I really don't know if either of them is the true lead back. Trey is playing physical (what we heard all offseason about Judkins' style) and Judkins is breaking off massive runs for touchdowns (what we heard about Trey's style all offseason), they are both complete backs who can do it all.

I know we'll play better run defenses who will contain them, to a degree, but right now I'm happy to jump on the running game bandwagon. Chip Kelly's oversight and play-calling is working wonders, and the O-line is blocking really well. We haven't been this dominant on the ground (against any level of competition) in awhile. It makes me feel good.

Don't Care: The bye week blues

By now it's a troubling theme for Day's teams: we just don't get up quickly after a bye week. I'm not sure why, but we were lethargic against a team that brought a brand new game plan to our house. Marshall brought different looks, their first drive was scripted perfectly, and they have talented skill players that are much better than the school name would have you believe.

That first quarter (and some change) wasn't fun to watch and I was surprised to hear myself thinking "who would have thought this game we'd be hyped about the offense and so worried about the defense?". But it was still Marshall and I was never truly worried. Even if the punt wasn't penalized that gave us the ball back, we still win that game by 7 touchdowns is my guess.

I don't like our slow start here, and I'm not sure of the reason why it happened, but credit to Marshall for coming to play and hit us in the mouth. It gave us a lot to work on which is the point of games like this.

Care: Interior D-line depth

Maybe it was the slow start for everyone after the by week, maybe it was just a bad game, or maybe it's that Tyleik is just that good (he is), but our interior D-line showed it's lack of experience without Williams in today. They weren't nearly as disruptive as the first two games and it's a good thing it was Marshall and not a better team that these guys were forced to play.

There were missed containments and a lack of impact from the interior line that I really want to see fixed by next weekend. Our guys have talent, and the second half was much better, but when a team comes out spreading the offense so you can only rush four (or five) guys and they are running the QB as well, you need discipline and containment. That didn't happen as much as it should.

I'm glad they got snaps today and a ton of film to dissect and learn from. Hopefully it was a good lesson.

Don't Care: for the commentary on today's game.

It sucked. I have never really cared before about the commentary and Klatt and Gus have almost always been very good, in my opinion. But today something was up. I know Marshall came out firing and the story of a big underdog going toe-to-toe with a Top 3 team is fun to have, and that should be celebrated when they do good things to a much better team. But what the actual fuck was up with the lack of any commendation or praise for Ohio State in the first half? Every single time anything happened in favor of Marshall it was a massive deal (and sometimes it was), but if OSU did anything it was like "okay, they scored a touchdown".

When the commentators end a quarter with a line "it's championship or bust [for OSU]...we'll see" it makes me wonder what the hell they are trying to spin. It had nothing to do with the game at all and was clearly a storyline they wanted to push because Marshall wasn't losing by 35 points at the time.

I couldn't stand listening to them today and almost muted it a few times. Horrendous.

Care: The stats don't lie

Ugly game or not, this was dominance by the Buckeyes. Outside of a rough first 20 minutes, Marshall didn't do anything remotely impactful.

Some key stats:

- Average gain per play: 3.8 vs 10.0. Utter dominance and great offensive performance from the Buckeyes today.

- Yards per carry: 2.9 vs 9.0. Ridiculous. Our running game was on fire and they couldn't do anything on the ground. That 2.9 includes rushes of 14 and 10 yards on their first drive, and nothing close to a big play on the ground otherwise.

- 38% third down conversions for Marshall. This number seems high for our defense but if you keep an offense from getting the first down just over one third of the time, you're having a good day. For a defense that a lot of people complain about for not getting off the field on third down, they did so today.

- 71 yards in the second half allowed. Again, dominance.

Don't Care: The narratives after USC/Michigan

Turns out USC was overhyped. This is my shocked face: -_-

Turns out Michigan is a one-trick pony that is effective at it. This is my shocked face: -_-... again.

I couldn't care less about what the media says about Michigan after that win. I'm sure words like "gutsy" "grind" "moxie" "tough" will be used frequently.

But this is what I saw:

Michigan has a good O-line, a terrible (but athletic) QB, a truly excellent running back in Mullings, and jack shit for receivers (yes, I know Loveland was out). And USC let them do absolutely nothing outside of one play in the second half because it's an easy offense to contain.

This is also what I saw:

USC has a terrible, terrible O-line and faced a very, very good defensive line that trashed them all game. But Lincoln Riley did his QB no favors by calling maybe 5 total different plays all game, and all of them were semi-long developing pass plays to the sidelines which meant his QB was under pressure the whole time. If Riley called a better game, USC wins and his QB doesn't have nightmares of Michigan's DTs.

This week I predicted Michigan's decision to ride with Orji would benefit them because it would dumb down the offense and allow them to simplify assignments and focus on running the ball. It turns out that was right, but also was wrong because they were even more predictable than I imagined. It was the right decision but it will make them extremely vulnerable against any defense with a front seven that can contain them.

Michigan is going to get a lot of credit for this win, but it highlighted every major weakness they have which should give DC's the rest of the season a ton to feast on.