Michigan hangs on to beat Ohio State, and now it can breathe again

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — After a game with stakes that seemed almost too high for human beings to function became a game with tension almost too steep for a lot of human beings to witness, Michigan functioned just enough Saturday. It drained all but one minute of eight remaining minutes off the clock. It grabbed a clinching interception with 25 seconds left from a junior defensive back from Ohio.

It exulted. Its fans flooded the field again. It edged Ohio State, 30-24, in the biggest game of the college football season as its suspended coach, Jim Harbaugh, watched from down the roads, and it relished a third straight win over its disliked rival and headed for the Big Ten championship game against Iowa with a 12-0 record and a heavy favorite’s chance to reach a third straight College Football Playoff.

With the No. 3 Wolverines ahead 27-24 after a fine drive from the No. 2 Buckeyes, a kind of a hush had settled over the Big House. An old scourge had resurfaced. That nemesis, Ohio State, which won 17 of the 19 rivalry meetings between 2001 and 2019, looked unbowed even after a 27-17 deficit and especially after quarterback Kyle McCord threw across the middle to the great Marvin Harrison Jr., who stormed in for a 14-yard touchdown.

Some 8:05 remained. Many of the 110,615 at Michigan Stadium felt labored breathing.

With four first downs and eight runs from essential running back Blake Corum, the Wolverines traveled up the field. They got to James Turner’s 37-yard field goal with 65 seconds left. Then, whew.

The Buckeyes began with no timeouts and hopes of unforgettable things. They got to their own 41-yard line with 48 seconds left on a 22-yard pass to the left corner to Harrison. They got to the Michigan 37-yard line with 34 seconds left on a 21-yard pass through the middle from McCord to Julian Fleming, who seemed to fumble to teammate Emeka Egbuka before a review to decipher whether Fleming had caught the ball at all before losing it.

When the ruling came that he had, all hell seemed primed to break loose. McCord backed up to throw. The pocket got smaller as the rush edged in. Then Jaylen Harrell got close enough for an official statistical hurry, and McCord’s pass floated as if doomed. Rod Moore scooped it just as much as he caught it, and the interception sent the Buckeyes to 11-1 and reeling.

It also upheld a lead Michigan took in the third quarter, just after Ohio State had tied the score at 17-17 and had looked foreboding. The Wolverines replied directly to that by going 75 yards in seven plays, and Corum surged the last 22 to the left pylon for a 24-17 lead. Then they got a stop and a 44-yard march and a field goal to get to 27-17. Then they got a reply stern enough to fiddle with functioning.

Then they functioned.

At an early point, it appeared Michigan might sustain its recent-years mastery of the contemptuous rivalry without all that much difficulty. It went up 14-3 with 10:22 left to halftime on J.J. McCarthy’s pinpoint throw up the right hash to Roman Wilson, who nabbed the ball just behind two defenders, spun around, bobbled slightly and clung to the football just enough to finish a 22-yard touchdown.

Ohio State, however, had brought its 11-0 record, its legacy and its players. It looked the superior of the two Godzillas for the remainder of the half.

First, it went 73 yards in seven well-crafted plays. It had Chip Trayanum’s nine-yard run around the edge, McCord’s pretty 32-yard pass through the middle to tight end Cade Stover, and McCord’s pretty three-yard flip to Egbuka for a touchdown. It never saw any third down in narrowing the score to 14-10.

When it traveled from its own 2-yard line to the Michigan 34-yard line just before halftime, and when it loosed Harrison for a 44-yard play on that trip, it had joined the game in full even if it missed a 52-yard field goal and still trailed. It seemed glaring that Michigan’s first touchdown had come on a four-play, seven-yard drive after Will Johnson’s perfectly read interception of a McCord slant for Harrison.

Once the Buckeyes had tied the score midway through the third quarter on a manful, 75-yard, 12-play drive that included nine runs, the Buckeyes looked like they might be in grand shape.

Then, they weren’t.