While Ohio State has a significant advantage over the Michigan Wolverines' football team in most of the game's main offensive categories, the defensive statistics between the two are much more comparable.
We've taken a look at where the two programs rank in the sport's most important statistics heading into The Game, along with our biggest takeaways surrounding each.
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Takeaways
• Ohio State has the edge in seven of the nine categories above, with tackles for loss allowed and sacks surrendered being the lone exceptions.
OSU's offensive line has given up 25 sacks on the year, which ranks a dismal 83rd nationally (out of 130 teams).
Michigan, on the flip side, has been outstanding at not allowing opponents to stop its rushers in the backfield, with its 48 TFLs allowed standing as the 13th fewest in the country.
• OSU and U-M are nearly equal in their passing numbers, with the former throwing for 248.3 yards per game and the latter for 247.5.
Ohio State sophomore quarterback Justin Fields has exceeded 224 passing yards only twice in a game this year, and has yet to attempt more than 25 passes in any contest.
Michigan senior quarterback Shea Patterson, on the other hand, has averaged 375 passing yards and racked up nine TD passes over the last two weeks.
Takeaways
• The defensive statistics are much closer between the two clubs than the offensive ones are, despite the fact OSU still has the edge in all nine categories.
Both Michigan and Ohio State rank in the top-13 nationally in six of the categories on the list above, with the Buckeyes checking in first in the country in three of them (total defense, scoring defense and pass defense).
• U-M has finished in the top-3 in college football in all three of coordinator Don Brown's years on the job, tying for first nationally in 2016, concluding at third in 2017 and second in 2018.
The Maize and Blue may well be on their way to another top-3 finish, with their defense residing at No. 4 in the nation heading into this weekend.
• There is only one category on the table above where one of the two teams checks in lower than 54th nationally, and that is Michigan's opponent red zone touchdown percentage.
Teams are finding the end zone 65.3 percent of the time they reach the red area against U-M, which ranks 92nd in the FBS.
Michigan and OSU both rank an impressive 26th nationally or higher in 17 of the 19 areas above.
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