In narrative terms, the momentum of Michigan's 40-34 win over Ohio State was one-sided, to say the least. Here was Michigan, simultaneously vanquishing seven years' worth of angst against its most hated rival and emerging from wilderness under a new chief. Here was Denard Robinson, superstar, delivering the most transcendent performance of his career. It was an arrival at a far-off point in the distance. The day belonged to the Wolverines, and for the moment, so did the future.
For Ohio State, it was the inevitable end to a lost season — a lost year, really, beginning last December — that had predictably defied momentum at every turn. On the brink of collapse in October, the Buckeyes had rallied for three straight wins, two of them over 6-0 Illinois and 6-1 Wisconsin. On the brink of a stunning run at the Big Ten championship in November, they dropped their last three by a combined 15 points. They finished 6-6 overall and a game behind Purdue in the conference standings.
But the story is never quite that one-sided, even after abrupt reversal of seven thoroughly one-sided years. And somewhere in there, buried beneath the loss and the throngs of Maize 'n Blue swarming the field and the sheer exhaustion that accompanies the end of a three-month drama, there was one undeniable murmur of progress: Almost overnight, freshman Braxton Miller has grown from a wide-eyed athlete into a real, live Big Ten quarterback.
That was apparent on Saturday. Barely 48 hours later, Urban Meyer is Ohio State's new head coach, and Miller is the engine of a new offense that will give him every opportunity to turn the murmur into a roar.
It was impossible to watch Miller in Ann Arbor and not marvel at both how far he's come since September, and how far he can go under the man who molded Tim Tebow and Alex Smith into prolific first-round draft picks. Meyer won a national championship with Chris Leak, for heaven's sake, with Troy Smith on the opposite sideline. None of them — even Tebow, a massively hyped but relatively little-used role player as an 18-year-old rhinoceros — were quite as good, quite as early, as Miller at the same point on their career trajectory.
In September, Miller was half of one of the most hapless quarterback duos ever assembled in losses to Miami and Michigan State, a young passer so overwhelmed by legitimate defenses that a 1-for-4, 17-yard afternoon in the win over Illinois was a sign of progress. A week later, he was ad-libbing a Hail Mary to beat the best team on the schedule.
Saturday was Miller's best game on paper by a mile — he accounted for 335 of the Buckeyes' 372 total yards and three of four touchdowns — but it looked even better live. Everyone knew he could run, and he did, turning in his fourth 100-yard game on the ground (before sacks) in the last five. But the arm was a revelation: Miller hit five passes covering at least 20 yards, two of them for touchdowns, and put the ball into spaces he didn't know existed six weeks ago. Prior to the Buckeyes' final, last-gasp drive in the final minute, Miller had hit 13 of 21 passes (both career highs) for 229 yards (also a career high) and a pass efficiency rating of 184.9 (a career high when attempting more than eight passes).
He also missed some open throws, some of which might have turned the game around. And he threw the game-clinching interception as the clock ticked down with less than minute to go. He was, and is, a freshman. But with a freshman, what's there counts more than what isn't, and what was there for Miller when he walked off the biggest stage of his debut season was three more years in front of him as one of the most dangerous players in the Big Ten.
Now, those years will be spent under a coach with a consistent track record for building dominant offenses around dual-threat quarterbacks with Miller's exact skill set. He's not Tim Tebow in short yardage, but based on the runaway success of Meyer's spread-option attack at Bowling Green and Utah before Tebow and Co. went Medieval on the SEC, there hasn't been a scheme in college football in the last decade better suited to Braxton Miller. And as his new coach suggested at tonight's introductory press conference, where he called meeting Miller "the highlight of my day," there won't be many quarterbacks in college football over the next three years better suited to Urban Meyer.
In fact, because of his size, Miller has always been pigeonholed as the heir apparent to Troy Smith — far more so than to Miller's loping, enigmatic predecessor, Terrelle Pryor — due at least as much to his circumstances as to his style. Miller is the future in the same way that Smith was when he was thrust into the starting lineup to salvage a sinking season back in 2004, when an 0-3 start in Big Ten play effectively eliminated any tangible goals. After the switch from pedestrian prototype Justin Zwick, Smith rallied the Buckeyes to four wins in their last five, including a 37-21 upset over Rose Bowl-bound Michigan, and then on to back-to-back BCS bowls in 2005 and 2006. Before this season, Ohio State had landed in a BCS bowl every year since.
With Meyer's arrival and Miller's ongoing maturation, the only obstacle between the Buckeyes and the return of those familiar expectations in 2012 is looming uncertainty over possible NCAA sanctions. The offense will return nine players with significant starting experience next year; the defense will return a dozen. Michigan will come to Columbus. If the NCAA doesn't move to keep the Buckeyes out of the postseason altogether, anything short of a BCS game will be a disappointment. That was life as they knew it at Ohio State for a decade. As of today, it's about to be again, no waiting period required.
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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.