If I have taken away anything remotely positive in the last four years since Ohio State's last win against Michigan — and that's a pretty big "if" — it's learning that The Game is a kind of temporal black hole, sucking in everything that surrounds it and sending everyone involved back to approximately 1961.
No matter what's actually going on in a given season, no matter how chaotic college football gets, come late November it's scarlet versus blue and not a whole hell of a lot more complicated than that. Come away with a victory and you feel great. Taste defeat and you're miserable. It's always high stakes, no matter what, because it's always that simple.
That's part of what makes this rivalry so damn fun, but it also means that everything that's swirling around these two teams ends up being adjudicated on the field.
Michigan may or may not have responded to the NCAA's Notice of Allegations, which the NCAA may or may not have granted them extension to do so, and the proposed penalties may or may not be substantial in any way, and we might not find out what they actually are until late next month, or January, or... whenever the NCAA feels like it.
Which is all to say that I think feverishly following everything related to sign stealing and alleged computer crimes is fun, but ultimately it collapses into the same football singularity it has since the late 1800's: in all things, the team that wins is cool and good, and the team that loses sucks and is lame. There will be no karmic reckoning, no higher power balancing the scales of history by instituting a bowl ban or vacating wins or whatever. No one really cares about any of that after the fact, and anyway if you win you're right and if you lose you're wrong. That's it. The end.
So as it turns out, the way to make the Wolverines pay for sign stealing is not all that complicated: kick their asses.
SHOULDA PLAYED AT WRIGLEY
That seemed slightly less daunting last week than it does this week, if only because the Wolverines absolutely pantsed Northwestern in Ann Arbor, 50-6.
Pretty much everything went right for Michigan. Both Donovan Edwards and Kalel Mullings were highly effective on the ground, running for a combined 157 yards on just 22 carries. Davis Warren wasn't great (it took him 35 passing attempts to get to just under 200 yards, and he threw a very silly interception), but he also spread the ball around to his receivers in a way that no Michigan quarterback, including himself, has been able to do all season.
A big part of that is because tight end Colston Loveland got hurt right before halftime and was held out for the rest of the game. Sherrone Moore is being optimistically cagey about his status for Saturday, which of course means he's totally fine and will infuriate me for most of the afternoon.
On the other side of the ball, I'm not super stoked to report that Michigan had six sacks and allowed the Wildcats just 128 yards of offense. If there's something that gives me pause about the 2024 edition of The Game, it is the matchup between Ohio State's re-re-vamped offensive line and the souls of three extremely territorial hippopotamus brothers who were reincarnated into Mason Graham, Josaiah Stewart, and Kenneth Grant.
THE GAME
It's been since The Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Nineteen that Ohio State beat Michigan, and in the late November of 2024 it really doesn't matter to me whether that's been by hook or by crook. I don't have the patience to go over the minutiae of the losses or the reasons behind the losses or the prophesied punishments resulting from an investigation into the reasons behind the losses. I just want Ohio State to win.
Last year I did not think that was going to happen, and I was right. I point this out not to toot my own horn (why the hell would I do that about a Buckeye loss?), but to note that I'm an extreme pessimist, which is bad in every single possible way but one: I rarely get taken by surprise. So when I say that I think the Buckeyes win this year, just know that it comes after worrying about every way I can think of for them to blow it.
And they'd better win, right? They're close to three touchdown favorites and have a stacked roster filled with seniors and NFL talent. Michigan has been terrible for most of 2024 and didn't even figure out a starting quarterback until halfway through the season. A lot of people, including myself, have been trying to speak hanging a hundred on them into existence.
But honestly, at this point in the season? Screw it, get in and out with a 28-16 win, beat Oregon in the Big Ten championship, and have fun in the playoff while Michigan loses to Southnorthern Wyoming A&M in the Belk Bowl or whatever the current equivalent of the Belk Bowl is.
Just remember: only trust your fists. The NCAA will never help you. The Threat Level is SEVERE and blinking.
