Our crew of Big Ten reporters will periodically offer takes on burning questions that face the league. We’ll have strong opinions, though not the same view. We’ll let you decide who’s right.
Today’s topic boils down to two games and three teams. Ohio State will finish its regular season with back-to-back meetings with Michigan State and Michigan. Each has intriguing narratives and could impact the Buckeyes’ chances to repeat as national champions. so, which game should fans be more eagerly awaiting?
Take 1: Dan Murphy
Does Michigan State have the best chance of any Big Ten team to beat Ohio State this year? You bet. Will that game decide one half of the conference championship matchup in Indianapolis? Probably. Will it be the game we talk about the most, both before it happens and in the distant future? I doubt it.
It would be hard to find two men in recent memory who have dominated college football headlines more than Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh have in the past six months. Maybe Johnny Manziel and Nick Saban back in 2012, and we all remember the first time they met. Harbaugh and Meyer have the potential to create as much buzz with their first meeting, no matter what happens on the field. They can help to restore one of college football’s best rivalries at a time when so many other classic matchups are slipping away.
Michigan isn’t going to be fighting Ohio State for a spot in the playoffs this November, but keeping the Buckeyes out of the title hunt would be plenty sweet enough for the crowd in Ann Arbor. Harbaugh defied greater odds to beat No. 1 USC in his first year at Stanford, which leads one to hope that this game will at least be competitive and entertaining.
The burnout rate for both of the uber-intense coaches is high. Neither has lasted in one place longer than six years as a head coach, which means the annual clash between these mega-personalities won’t last forever. Fans will know to enjoy it while they can. There won’t be a regular season game with more eyeballs on it anywhere in college football this year, and that includes Ohio State’s meeting with the Spartans a week before.
Continue Reading: Take Two: Bigger game — Ohio State vs. Michigan or Buckeyes vs. Spartans?
