Published: Wednesday, 11/5/2014 Most hated foe on annual schedule still Wolverines for Buckeyes, Spartans BY DAVID BRIGGSBLADE SPORTS WRITER COLUMBUS — Just to be safe, Ohio State linebacker Joshua Perry calls them “The Team Up North State.” But truth be told, green is permitted inside the Buckeyes’ football complex this week, as is the dreaded “M” word. The other one. “Michigan State?” defensive tackle Michael Bennett said. Yeah, it’s Michigan State.” Ohio State’s visit to No. 7 Michigan State on Saturday night is an immense, high-stakes game — the latest in the Big Ten’s most captivating recent series — but not The Game. For as much as the two football programs do not care about the other, they save their true distaste for someone else. In this Midwestern hate triangle, that is Michigan. “I grew up in the Ten Year War, and there’s a saying around here that you can lose every game you play except for The Team Up North,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said. “We all know that’s not true. But I love to have our players have a very clear understanding of rivalry games and the pageantry of it. “We have one rival here.” And that is not changing. What has changed is which Michigan school has joined Ohio State in the league’s Big Two. It is a strange twist that defies a half-century of history. Michigan State spent most of those years only as a pest, rising occasionally to stun Ohio State, as it did against top-ranked Buckeyes teams in 1974 and 1998. But before Saturday, the Spartans in their post-Duffy Daugherty heyday were the eternal underdog. …
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