Does Michigan really have a chance?
November 19, 2008
As far as rivalries are concerned, games like the 2006 edition of Ohio State vs. Michigan are a rarity. After all, it took 103 tries for both teams to take the top spot in the rankings, and with the current state of parity amongst the powerhouses of college football, nobody should be surprised if it takes another 103 for it to happen again. Chances are, on any given year, one of the two teams will have either failed to live up to lofty expectations, or even worse, just downright stink.
As is the case this year. Michigan, as all Buckeye fans like myself would gladly point out, lost its eighth game in a season for the first time in the program’s 128 season history last week. And assuming that all fans are reacting to this season similarly to how my buddy from down the hall handled last Saturday (throwing his remote at the wall), then it’s safe to say that not many people on either end of the spectrum are expecting much of a competition come Saturday.
But is the outcome really an inevitability, or are we in for a shock?
Regardless of what your allegiance will be come Saturday afternoon, chances are at some point over the course of your experience with this rivalry you’ve either heard or thought to yourself a phrase along the lines of, “when these two teams step on the field, all the records can be thrown out. It doesn’t matter how bad [your team] is this year, because we always have a chance to beat [the other team]!” and more often than not, that cliché is irritably true. In 2001, the Outback Bowl-bound Buckeyes who were starting their backup quarterback waltzed into Ann Arbor and established Jim Tressel’s forté in his first season (2004 also yielded similar results). In the 1993, 1995, and 1996 seasons, the Buckeyes were a combined 30-0-1 entering the final game of the regular season, whereas Michigan had four losses in each of those seasons. Anybody want to guess who won those games?
While it’s not unheard of for the lesser of the two teams to leave the game with a win, it’s hard to find a game in the history of the rivalry in which an unranked team has beaten a top-10 opponent. As a matter of fact, only five times in the 104-game series has a top ten team lost to an unranked foe, and never in the rivalry’s history has a team with a losing record defeated a top-10 opponent.
So what makes this year any different? Well, if you’re Kirk Herbstreit or Chris Spielman, absolutely nothing. But, there is still some room for concern if you’re a Buckeye fan. First off, Ohio State is starting a freshman quarterback, who despite his vast growth over the course of the season, has never played in the rivalry, and has only played in one big game in his collegiate career, and we all know what happened there. In the days leading up to his debut with the rivalry, Chad Henne — Michigan’s proverbial freshman savior (ha!) — admitted that he had no idea what he was getting himself in to, and he went on to throw two picks en route to one of those five aforementioned top-10 upsets.
And although the reason Jim Tressel will be able to afford a couple of mediocre seasons throughout his career is because he is consistently able to get the most out of his players for one week out of the season, one has to wonder if a diminishing marginal utility will ever begin to form if he keeps on beating Michigan. After all, with each consecutive victory over out hated rivals, could it be possible that an overriding sense of complacency will ever set in with the coaches and veterans on the team? I’m not saying that the team will come out flat on Saturday, I’m just saying that one of these years after beating Michigan so many times, that eventually karma is going to have to set in. Michigan has seen firsthand what can happen when the presumed victor simply goes through the motions while the scrappy underdog plays brings it for a full game, and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see the tide of this rivalry turn in the near future.
In saying all of that, however, I just simply cannot see Ohio State losing come Saturday. In taking observations from a fairly large sample size for a freshman, it is becoming more and more apparent that Terrelle Pryor is not your typical freshman quarterback being thrown into the fray. The kid is destined for greatness, and at Ohio State, greatness comes in beating Michigan. Just ask one of these (guy one) guys (guy two). Also, for Jim Tressel to not have his team ready to beat Michigan, I would have to see it to believe it. From what I’ve taken out of watching Tressel over the years is that every action the man makes over the course of a season is in some way related to the game with Michigan. Finally, this Michigan squad does not appear to have that same ability to come out with a passion for four full quarters and pull the upset on the road. This team simply lacks the talent, organization, leadership to make their mark on the rivalry’s rich history.
Of course, stranger things have happened.
Related Stories
Comments
Got something to say?