Michigan football undoubtedly put together its best performance of the season in Saturday's 50-6 senior day win over Northwestern. The 50 points scored by the offense was a season high, and the defense allowed a season-low six points, marking the first time this season the Wolverines' opponent failed to find the end zone.
But in the words of offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell on Tuesday night's episode of "Inside Michigan Football," the Wolverines "got the trophy ... sung The Victors ... slapped high fives" and were immediately "ready for the Buckeyes."
Because as great as a 50-6 senior day victory may feel, Michigan will not win by 44 points in Columbus on Saturday. The Buckeyes will pose a much greater challenge than the Wildcats did last week.
"This game we have coming up is a completely different animal. You know it," defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said on "Inside Michigan Football." "They've got three werewolves (Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate) out there that we've got to try to cover, and it's going to be a great challenge for us."
Through 11 games this season, Smith, Egbuka and Tate have combined for 143 receptions, 2,116 yards and 22 touchdowns, making Michigan's passing attack look lifeless — a description many would agree is accurate of the Wolverines' passing game this season.
For reference, Michigan's three leading receivers (Colston Loveland, Tyler Morris and Semaj Morgan) have combined for 101 receptions, totaling 950 yards and eight touchdowns.
Ohio State quarterback Will Howard has thrown for more than 2,600 yards and tossed 26 touchdowns, while Davis Warren just surpassed the 1,000-yard mark last weekend and has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns.
When asked what concerns him the most about Ohio State's offense, Martindale didn't hold back.
"Everything. I mean, seriously. They're a machine right now offensively. We know that it's going to be a physical game. To me, that's advantage us — in the physicality area. We have done a great job of patching together a secondary, essentially all season. So that's going to be a test, because you've got to have some premier guys to go against premier guys, and it's going to be a great challenge for us."
Despite the great challenge, Martindale revealed that Michigan has not shown a majority of its defensive package yet.
"Somebody asked me this the other day. A pro scout said, 'How much of your package have you run since you've been here?' And it's really about, honestly, about 25 percent of the package. So we've got a big library to pull from. ... This is one of those games where you just line up and go play. ... We know we're the underdog going into it, and as long as we don't play like the underdog, we'll be alright."
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