Calling for Knowles to be fired this year is a stupid overreaction by the fans. But if we go 4 years in a row of underperforming against ttun, who btw has an average offense or maybe above-average but not great (East Carolina held them to 30, PSU held them to 24and Maryland to 31), then we are having a real discussion about Knowles regardless of the other games leading up to The Game.
I've said the blame goes all the way around, but I thought the defense would hold them to 20 points or less. The McCord INT in the first half definitely hurt that outcome, but in the second half the defense took a horrible dive when we needed them. I guess my point is that it is foolish to want to fire Knowles after the improvements he has made, but this shit cannot happen every year against ttun. That's why I said him and Day are in the same boat, you can't win 10-11 games a year if *ichigan is not one of those wins at least 50% of the time. Fair or unfair, that is what you sign up for being a coach at OSU.
That was the narrative to begin the year, but their OL got better each week by a lot and ended up probably the best in CFB (or damn near it). But that is where I am at, the last two years were the years to do it and we failed miserably both times. Anything can happen of course but I will not go in thinking a win is likely as I did the past two years. But circling back to Knowles, we can get it done if he just calls the same defense he did before The Game imo.