Looking Back on a Decade of Dominance, Part 2

Still clutch

Last weekend, we began our review of Jim Tressel and the Buckeyes' decade of dominance in The Game by looking at the first five meetings. One day after being introduced as Ohio State's 22nd coach, Tressel took the microphone at halftime of an Ohio State-Michigan basketball game and promised the home crowd that they would be proud of his young people in 310 days in Ann Arbor.

Sure enough, the 6-4 Buckeyes upset the 11th-ranked Wolverines behind clutch defense and a 129 yard, three touchdown effort out of Jonathan Wells. It would be the start of a surreal decade for Ohio State fans as Tressel's teams single-handedly reversed the chokariffic slide that had begun during John Cooper's tenure.

Tressel would go 4-1 in his first five Michigan games, all against the Lloyd Carr. Being who he is, he naturally topped that by going 5-0 over the next five to boost his career record to 9-1 against the Wolverines.

Today, we'll take a look at those games, two of which were against Carr, while the last three came against Rich Rodriguez. Coaches changed, but the results stayed the same. Yes they did.

November 18, 2006: #1 Ohio State 42, #2 Michigan 39

Billed as yet another "Game of the Century", the Buckeyes and Wolverines met as unbeatens for the first time since 1975 and as the top two teams in the polls for the first time in their storied history. After defeating Texas in Austin in week 2, Ohio State consolidated its grip on the #1 ranking and had looked every bit the part on the way to racing out to an 11-0 start. The offense featured Heisman trophy frontrunner Troy Smith, running back Antonio Pittman (and a young Beanie Wells backing him up) and the fastest football player any of us have ever seen, Ted Ginn making plays at wide receiver and in the return game.

The Wolverines, meanwhile, also entered 11-0 and featured Chad Henne, Mike Hart, Mario Manningham, Jake Long and Steve Breaston on offense, with a defense led by Alan Branch, LaMarr Woodley, Shawn Crable and Leon Hall. As if the stakes weren't already high enough, legendary Michigan coach Bo Schembechler passed away the day before the meeting and both teams did their best to honor his memory after a video tribute was played on the stadium scoreboard prior to kickoff.

While most anticipated a defensive battle -- each unit entered ranked within the nation's top 10 -- things turned offensive, and quickly. Hart got things started for the Wolverines, plunging in from one yard out to put Michigan on top 7-0 at the end of their first drive. Smith and the Buckeyes would answer, however, when Roy Hall caught a two yard out for a touchdown to knot things up midway through the first quarter.

The teams would trade punts before the Buckeyes got the ball back at their own 42 just two minutes into the second quarter. After Smith rushed for a six yard gain, Beanie took a 2nd down handoff and put the spin move of all spin moves on Michigan linebacker Prescott Burgess in the backfield before breaking through the line and racing 52 yards for to put OSU up 14-7. The Ohio State defense would force a punt and then, thanks to a big catch and run out of Brian Robiskie, proceeded to drive to the Michigan 39 before facing a 2nd and 1. The Buckeyes rushed to the line in a bunch formation with the speedster Ginn tucked in behind the tight end and after Smith faked a handoff to Wells, he found the streaking Ginn wide open over the top of the Wolverine secondary to put Ohio State up 21-7.

Henne and the Wolverines answered on their next drive when he found Adrian Arrington for a 37 yard touchdown to close the gap to 7. However, the Buckeyes would answer again, this time via a Smith to Anthony Gonzalez eight yard touchdown to move the lead back to 14. Hart scored again to open the third quarter -- part of a 142 yard, three touchdown day -- to cut the lead back to seven and then Branch intercepted Smith at the OSU 25 on the Buckeyes' next possession and we had a ballgame again. Luckily, the Ohio State defense stiffened and held Michigan to a field goal and then the offense struck again when Pittman busted through for a 56 yard touchdown run to put OSU up 35-24 midway through the third quarter.

Hart scored again to open the fourth quarter, cutting the lead to four, but Smith connected with Robiskie for a 13 yard touchdown at the end of an 83 yard drive for Ohio State's final points. Michigan would get a late touchdown pass out of Henne, but it wasn't enough as the good guys won one of the greatest games many of us will ever see.

November 17, 2007: #7 Ohio State 14, #21 Michigan 3

The 2007 meeting was a weird encounter (little did we know how weird things would become) as rumors ahead of the matchup centered on Lloyd Carr's future at Michigan. The Wolverines were upset by FCS Appalachian State in their home opener and were trounced 39-7 in the Big House by Oregon the following week turning a season with such high hopes upside down. They rebounded to win their next eight, but were tripped up by Wisconsin a week before The Game.

The Buckeyes, on the other hand, had moved into the top spot of the BCS rankings after starting the season 10-0, but were themselves upset a week before the game when Juice Williams and the Illini ran wild over them in the Horseshoe. By this point in time, the fanbase was beginning to lose faith in quarterback Todd Boeckman, due to mobility and turnover concerns. Just three weeks earlier, he had looked like John Elway in the 37-17 win over Penn State, but his stock had come crashing back to earth after a mediocre performance against the Badgers and then a catastrophic outing against Illinois.

Weather would play a big factor in the game as drizzle and a wet turf in Ann Arbor limited the effectiveness of an injured Mike Hart and Chad Henne. After missing parts of the previous four weeks, Hart would play, but was held to just 44 yards on 18 carries and more importantly, held out of the endzone after scoring three times in Columbus the previous season. This was especially sweet as Hart boasted the outcome would have been different had the teams had a rematch at the end of the 2006 season. Henne probably fared worse, finishing just 11/34 for 68 yards as he tried to play through a shoulder injury.

Realizing this, Tressel turned to sophomore Beanie Wells and the OSU rushing attack and they responded. Wells finished with 39 carries for 222 yards (both series highs for Ohio State) and two touchdowns and it was all that was needed as the Buckeyes prevailed 14-3.

The game would eventually be Lloyd Carr's final regular season game and the talented Michigan trio of Henne, Hart and Jake Long would end their careers 0-4 against Ohio State.

November 22, 2008: #10 Ohio State 42, Michigan 7

The 2008 season had not been kind to Michigan. Breaking in new coach Rich Rodriguez, the Wolverines started 2-2 including an improbable comeback against then 9th-ranked Wisconsin, but imploded, losing their next five Big Ten games before getting a win at Minnesota ahead of their matchup with the Buckeyes. Down years at Michigan are supposed to be 8-4, not the 3-7 they took into their meeting with the Buckeyes.

Things weren't perfect in Buckeyeland, either, however. Running back Beanie Wells was injured in the opener against Youngstown State and then after escaping Ohio in week two, things got ugly when Ohio State was hammered 35-3 by Mark Sanchez and USC in the season's third game. Freshman Terrelle Pryor was inserted as the starting quarterback in place of 5th-year senior Todd Boeckman, creating a division on the team, but Tressel's crew strung together five-straight wins before losing to Penn State. They rebounded again against Northwestern and Illinois to setup their matchup with the Wolverines.

Though Michigan had been exposed as a pretty awful team in Rodriguez's first season, the Wolverine faithful had hope as first year coaches had abnormal success against the Buckeyes, most notably Bo's upset in the 1969 tilt. The string of new coaches having success was to die off as Ohio State absolutely hammered Michigan, posting their most lopsided win 40 years.

A reinvigorated Wells led the charge, finishing with another monster day (15 carries for 134 yards and a touchdown) against the heathens from up north. Pryor was efficient when he had to be, completing just 5/13 for 120 yards and two touchdowns, none bigger than the 53 yard bomb to Brian Hartline to put OSU up 14-0 early in the 2nd quarter. Boom Herron, adding to the legacy  of young OSU running backs abusing Michigan, chipped in with two touchdowns and the game even had a heartwarming moment as Todd Boeckman came on late to complete an 18 yard touchdown strike to Hartline for the game's final points.

November 21, 2009: #9 Ohio State 21, Michigan 10

Despite a 4-0 start, year two of the Rodriguez experiment in Ann Arbor delivered many of the same results as the Wolverines once again limped into The Game, this time sporting a 5-6 record. By now the rivalry was starting to lose a bit of its luster -- in fact, the most talked about storyline heading into this meeting was the new Nike Pro Combat "throwback" uniforms being worn by the Buckeyes.

Unlike the previous two outings, the Wolverines were able to move the ball on the Ohio State defense, piling up 309 yards of offense, just nine behind the 318 the Buckeyes would finish with. But thanks to five turnovers (four of which were interceptions) out of freshman quarterback Tate Forcier, this one was never really in doubt.

Cameron Heyward started things off by recovering a Forcier fumble in the Michigan endzone to put the Buckeyes up 7-0 five minutes into the opening quarter. Michigan answered in the second quarter on a 46 yard field goal by Jason Olesnavage, but OSU responded two minutes later with a 29 yard touchdown run from Brandon Saine. In the third quarter, Michigan would pulled to within four after Forcier connected with Vincent Smith on an 18 yard touchdown, but Kurt Coleman and Devon Torrence each recorded fourth quarter picks deep in Ohio State territory, removing any doubt.

In the end, Wolverine fans said their thanks for being an Adidas school and thus not having to wear promotional uniforms, but the result was largely the same as Tressel earned his sixth-straight win against Michigan, moving to 8-1 in the series.

November 27, 2010: #8 Ohio State 37, Michigan 7

Ah, the most recent game played between the two teams. As this game took place less than a month ago, I won't spend too much time rehashing it, but you do need to know that the win was Tressel's 7th-straight in the rivalry and moved his mark to 9-1 in the series, completely negating the despair and heartbreak of the Cooper era.

Also: Denard Robinson was put out of the game (though he did some damage with his feet early) and Boom was ripped off when Dane Sanzenbacher was whistled for a phantom holding call on what should have been a 99 yard touchdown run early in the third quarter. He had to settle for tying the school record with a gain of 89.

9-1 has been a lot of fun and we've seen our share of amazing performances whether it's Maurice Clarett playing injured to put the Buckeyes into the Fiesta Bowl against Miami, Ted Ginn returning kicks or catching sneak bombs, Troy Smith setting total yardage records, Beanie Wells rewriting the record books or Boom making a run at some records of his own, we truly are witnessing the type of sustained success that will likely never be repeated again in this rich and storied rivalry.

Better enjoy it while we can.