New coach same result
— corey brown (@phillybrown10) November 28, 2015
This is not a tweet that could've been written a decade ago. Not just because Twitter wasn't really A Thing, but also because it would've been very, very incorrect.
It may be hard for a certain generation of people who've grown up thinking that the words "Star Wars Trilogy" refers to a crappy CGI space adventure starring an animated Jamaican rabbit, but at one point Michigan was actually doing really well in this rivalry. It's true! As a 30 year old man my childhood was filled with tears and regret at the end of every November, as opposed to the constant smug smirks and nods that makes up the majority of my life these days.
As has been noted elsewhere, Urban Meyer is the first Ohio State head coach to start 4-0 against the Wolverines since Francis "I'm a complete boss" Schmidt. That's a pretty cool and good way to start against your mortal rival, but what about Michigan's head coaches? How have they fared against the Buckeyes in their first crack at them?
Not the best move these days.
Turns out, pretty well! Fielding Yost shut out the Buckeyes and won by three touchdowns in his first game against them way back in 1901, Bo Schembechler famously upset Woody Hayes in 1969, and Lloyd Carr took out John Cooper and his number two ranked squad in 1995. Hell, Brady Hoke even got lucky enough to catch Ohio State in 2011 for his lone win against the Buckeyes.
So this first game success is perhaps not a huge shock given the advantage that Michigan holds in the matchup overall (or not so much of an advantage, maybe; if you discount wins that the Wolverines accumulated from before women were allowed to vote, this series becomes a lot more even), but prior to today, of the 18 head coaches that Michigan has had in their long and storied history, only two had lost their first game against Ohio State.
And now you can add Jim Harbaugh to the list, which previously had only included Harvey Kipke and Rich Rodriguez. Kipke was defeated by Sam Willaman's 1929 club by a score of 7-0. This was about a week and a half before the stock market crashed and helped kick off the Great Depression, which is of course where we get the expression "pulling a Kipke." Rich Rod, you may remember, got absolutely annihilated by 35 points in 2008 as a particularly salty Jim Tressel proved forever that the read option would never work in the Big Ten. Harbaugh just lost by 29, which puts it among some of the worst losses that Michigan has ever sustained against the Buckeyes.
And while we know that Harbaugh is a very good coach who has improved the Wolverines leaps and bounds from where they were last year, here's to many, many more.
