Rutgers coach offers insight on 1-loss contenders
Ash’s team lost to Washington, OSU, Michigan
College football’s regular season winds down in the next two weeks, and about seven true College Football Playoff contenders remain — barring chaos. One team (Alabama) is unbeaten, and there are two two-loss contenders in Wisconsin and Oklahoma.
The four one-loss teams — Clemson, Ohio State, Michigan and Washington — are perhaps the most intriguing piece of the Playoff puzzle. And only one team has played against (and lost to) three of them.
That would be Rutgers and first-year coach Chris Ash. The Scarlet Knights opened the season with a loss at Washington and suffered back-to-back shutouts against Ohio State and Michigan in October.
This is the most important week of the season for all three. Washington faces Washington State for a spot in the Pac-12 title game, and Michigan and Ohio State play the most anticipated game in their rivalry in a decade.
Ash helped USA TODAY Sports analyze the strengths, weaknesses and differences of the three oneloss contenders he faced and what you should know heading into their regular-season finales.
“There’s one common theme throughout all of them: They all have great defenses,” Ash said. “That’s what it takes to be able to win a championship in this day and age of offensive football and scoring points. Really, if you don’t have a great defense, you have no chance. All three of those teams have great defenses.” ON WASHINGTON’S DEFENSE
“At the start of the season, Washington was underappreciat- ed for how good they actually were and are. Through studying them and playing them, when we were done, I said, ‘That team right there is going to be right in the mix.’ Their defense, they’re big up front. They’re stout. They’re hard to move. They can stop the run. Their back seven there are as fast as anybody out there.
“That includes Ohio State. That includes Michigan. Their linebackers can run. They’ve got several DBs, whether it’s your base defense or nickel, third-down package — they’ve got a lot of guys that can run. They’re really fast. I like the way they’re built. They can stop the run, they can rush the passer and they can play a lot of coverage.” ON MICHIGAN’S DEFENSE
“You talk about playing great defense — it starts with the defensive line. They probably have one of the top defensive lines in America right now. They’re big, they’re athletic, they’re explosive, they can rush the passer, they’re disruptive in a run game. What makes Michigan’s defense what it is is that front four, and then obvi- ously they’ve got (Jabrill) Peppers, a good and dynamic player. They can shut down somebody’s go-to guy.” ON OHIO STATE’S DEFENSE
“My feelings and opinions are slightly different here because I coached all those guys (Ash was Ohio State’s co-defensive coordinator in 2014 and 2015). I think Ohio State is built like Washington. They’ve got a good front, and they’ve got speed in the back seven. The biggest difference between probably Ohio State and those other two teams is just the lack of experience. They’re playing exceptionally good defense, but they’re not the seasoned vets Michigan and Washington have.
“But they still have a lot of players on that team that were a part of the championship run there a couple years ago. Even if they weren’t playing, they witnessed it. They saw what it takes, and I think their team this year is kind of like that 2014 team. ON OHIO STATE AND THE SEASON’S TURNING POINT
“That defining moment that said, ‘All right, hey, we are really good, and we can make a run at this’ — in 2014, we didn’t have that game until we beat Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship. We were winning games, but we weren’t dominating people. Then when we dominated Wisconsin in that Big Ten championship and we got in. Our team was full of confidence that year. …
“Maybe the Nebraska game (a 62-3 victory Nov. 5) was that moment for this year’s team, that game that said, ‘ You know what, this is the time we take off.’ Time will tell. COMPARING THE THREE OFFENSES “They’re all different. Michigan is the pro style of the group, Ohio State’s the spread of the group and Washington’s a combination of both. They’re a little bit more multiple than those other two from that standpoint. With Washington, I think it starts with the quarterback. They have a talented quarterback in Jake Browning, and they’ve got speed on the outside. Their receivers are as fast as anybody out there.
“When you look at Michigan, they’ve got a very seasoned, veteran offensive line. They’ve played a lot of games, started a lot of games, played a lot of games together. They’ve run the ball exceptionally well. They’ve got a quarterback that can distribute the ball.
“Looking at Ohio State, they’re kind of a combination of both. They’ve got speed all over the place, and they’ve got a good veteran quarterback. It goes back to their line. They’ve got some really good, talented offensive linemen. They’re just young, and they’re still learning. They’re still growing. They’re still improving. If they get that to jell, then they’re going to be as good as anybody out there.” ON QUARTERBACK J.T. BARRETT AND OHIO STATE’S INCONSISTENT PASSING GAME “I can tell you this: There’s nobody better than J.T. Barrett as a leader, as a worker, as a playmaker on Saturdays. I don’t think there’s any concern about what J.T. Barrett can do and will do, especially as the stakes get higher.” ON THE STRENGTHS OF OHIO STATE, MICHIGAN AND WASHINGTON AS PLAYOFF CONTENDERS “Ohio State, they’ve been there before. There’s a lot of players that were there before. They saw it happen. They saw what it took. They’re going to go through that same process, so they’ve got the experience of doing it before. That’s the coaching staff, and that’s the players. That’s the No. 1 thing.
“Michigan, what they’ve got going for them is confidence. You watch them, I think they’re playing with a very high level of confidence.
“Washington, they’re still a program that kind of started under the radar at the start of the season, and I would assume they probably are playing with a little chip on their shoulder, out to prove to people that they belong.”