USC was a little flat in the first half too. USC was able to shake it off. Michigan wasn't.
Yep it's about what the halftime adjustments were....
And that's something that Lloyd Carr hasn't ever really accomplished in his tenure at Michigan. His bowl record is atrocious and his record against Ohio State is quickly getting there....
By the end of the first half, it seemed like the game was going to break strongly one way or another the second half. A halftime adjustment giving Michigan's QB a little more time and there'd be a lot of big plays. A failure to do so, and there'd be interceptions. USC was struggling on offense too, but it was inching along with short plays, and dying drives...not sitting on the knives edge. And when they abandoned the running game, they quit wasting downs, which when they were able to string a few short plays together, they were able to stretch the field a bit.