The Game

The more things change, the more they stay the same. What a hackneyed cliché. However, it continues to ring true for the Big Ten. The conference champion will again be decided by the winner of The Game. Ohio State has won 30 Big Ten championships and Michigan has won 42. In the last thirty years Ohio State and Michigan have combined for at least a share of 26 Big Ten titles. Two things will separate Saturday’s game from the others. Both teams lost the week before The Game for only the second time and this could be Lloyd Carr’s last appearance against the Buckeyes.

Why are most Ohio State fans down this week? Because the Buckeyes lost to Illinois? Had someone told you in July that Ohio State would only have one loss and be ranked seventh in the country going into the Michigan game would you have believed them? Yet, that is where the team is and most fans have turned into a gang of gloom and doom. The Nancy nay sayers are braced for the upcoming loss to Michigan and the consolation prize of the Citrus or Outback Bowl.

I'd like to try and penetrate some rays of positivity down on the destitute Buckeye Nation. This isn't the first time a Jim Tressel coached team lost the week before playing Michigan. It's the third time. In 2001 Ohio State lost at home to Illinois (22-34) and defeated the Wolverines in the Big House 26-20. In 2004 Tressel and the Buckeyes lost at Purdue (17-24) and were able to beat Michigan 37-21 in Columbus. That was the first game of Troy Smith's trilogy against the Maize and Blue. This season, like 2001, the Buckeyes lost to the Illini at home and Tressel will have them ready to win again in Ann Arbor.

As a fan you should be excited about the opportunity Ohio State has. With a victory it will only be the third time in Ohio State’s history that the Buckeyes defeated Michigan four straight games. Francis A. Schmidt (1934-1937), Woody (1960-1963) and soon to be added to that short list, Jim Tressel.

As a fan you should be excited that Ohio State has an opportunity to go back to the Rose Bowl. Ohio State has not played in the Rose Bowl since the 1996 season. For some of you it may not match a “national championship”, but wouldn’t a win over Michigan and a Rose Bowl victory be a nice ending to a season in which Ohio State was supposed to finish fourth…in the Big Ten?

Ohio State 24, Michigan 16