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It's hard to put into words how poorly Michigan's defense played in Saturday's 62-39 loss to Ohio State.

The Wolverines entered the day with the No. 1 defense in America (234.8 yards per game allowed), but yielded 567 to the Buckeye offense.

It was obvious from early on that Ohio State wasn't going to have trouble scoring, marching 57 yards in six plays on its first drive of the game, culminating with a 24-yard touchdown pass from redshirt sophomore quarterback Dwayne Haskins to freshman wideout Chris Olave.

The Buckeyes' next score came at the 9:08 mark of the second quarter when Haskins hit Olave once again, before the signal-caller added a third TD pass of the first half when he found fifth-year senior wideout Johnnie Dixon wide open in the end zone from 31 yards out and 3:18 to go until halftime.

The scoring only picked up in the second half, though.

OSU's offense actually punted on its first possession of the second half, before tacking on a field goal on its second drive.

The floodgates really opened when redshirt junior running back Mike Weber ran it in from two yards out with 3:10 to go in the third quarter, which made the score 41-19 at the time.

A 78-yard touchdown run by fifth-year senior receiver Parris Campbell only a minute into the fourth frame and a one-yard touchdown pass to redshirt junior receiver K.J. Hill were Ohio State's first two scores of the game's final frame, before Campbell hauled in a 16-yard touchdown for OSU's last score of the day.

"In the third quarter, especially, they ran a lot of speed plays that got out on the perimeter and got loose," head coach Jim Harbaugh recalled. "We also set them up in good field position with a couple turnovers, and of course the blocked punt contributed to the score as well."

As a whole, Michigan's defense gave up 318 passing yards and 249 yards on the ground, both of which were season-highs.

The Maize and Blue had no answers for Haskins, who completed 19 of his 30 passes for 318 yards with five touchdowns and no picks.

Prior to Saturday, the most passing yards U-M's defense had allowed in a game were the 209 it gave up to SMU — on top of that, only one team had thrown more than one TD pass on Michigan's secondary in a 2018 game (SMU tossed three).

Michigan's front seven, meanwhile, actually did a good job of shutting down sophomore running back J.K. Dobbins (46 yards on 12 carries), but struggled with Weber (96 yards on 13 carries) and gave up a staggering 8.5 yards per play (its previous high was the 5.8 Wisconsin averaged on Oct. 13).

The unit that had been so good at forcing turnovers as of late (seven in the last three games) failed to take the ball away from the Ohio State offense.

“It’s tough," senior safety Tyree Kinnel admitted in the postgame. "It’s very unexpected. We fought through adversity, but we didn’t think we’d have to go through that much pain during a game. But you have to give them credit — they had a great game plan and they played extremely well.

“We made adjustments at halftime. We addressed the issues we had in the first half, and they came out and beat us with something else in the second half. Credit to them and their coaches because they had a great game plan, and they completely beat us today.”

Michigan's special teams recorded a vital turnover late in the second quarter, when redshirt sophomore running back Demario McCall fumbled the U-M kickoff, and junior wideout Nate Schoenle recovered at the OSU nine-yard line.

The turnover instantly led to a Michigan touchdown with just 41 seconds remaining before halftime, making it 21-19, but the Maize and Blue's own special teams made two crucial errors midway through the third quarter.

It started when sophomore cornerback Ambry Thomas caught a kickoff that was going out of bounds at the 8-yard line with no return.

After picking up just one first down on the ensuing drive, redshirt sophomore Will Hart had his punt blocked and saw it land perfectly into the hands of OSU's Sevyn Banks, who ran it back 33 yards for a touchdown to make the score 34-19 at the time.

On the afternoon, however, Hart averaged 44.8 yards on four punts.

While the blocked punt was a negative aspect for the Wolverines, freshman kicker Jake Moody was once again a bright spot. He kept U-M in the contest early by making two fields — from 39 and 31 yards out — and is now 8 for 8 in his career.

• The 62 points were the most U-M had ever allowed in a game in regulation in its history, and the second most in any contest. The most are the 65 it surrendered to Illinois in the infamous 67-65 triple-overtime win in 2010.

• The 567 yards were the most yards Michigan had allowed in a game since it gave up 572 to Indiana in a 63-47 win over the Hoosiers on Oct. 19, 2013.

• Kinnel led the team in tackles with eight, including a stop behind the line of scrimmage.

• The Maize and Blue defense did not record a sack and only tallied four tackles for loss.

• The 24 first-half points were the most allowed in any first half under Harbaugh (since 2015). The Wolverines' record also dropped to 1-4 under Harbaugh when allowing at least 20 points in a half.

• Prior to Saturday, the highest-scoring contest between the two foes was a 42-41 OSU win in 2013 (83 combined points, while there were 101 combined on Saturday).

• The game lasted four hours and two minutes.

• Sophomore defensive tackle Aubrey Solomon missed the game with an injury.

• The loss was the first of the season for Michigan in conference play, marking the first time the program had lost one or fewer games in league action since it went 7-1 in 2006.

• Junior linebacker Devin Bush Jr. and junior cornerback David Long both left the game in the second half with injuries, and never returned.

"Devin has a hip [issue]," Harbaugh revealed afterward. "I don’t think it’s anything that’s going to be long term, but it wasn’t good for him today. David has a hip pointer strain."

• The 23-point loss was Michigan's biggest margin of defeat since falling at Penn State, 42-13, last year on Oct. 21.

• Prior to Saturday, the most points Michigan had allowed all season were 24 to Notre Dame in the season-opener.

• Despite the loss, Michigan still leads the all-time series with Ohio State, 58-51-6.

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