There was, once, a time when The Game's outcome was not predetermined.
In those heady days of the Year Of Our Lord Two Thousand and Four, the Michigan Wolverines had a track record of being both somehow good and successful against Ohio State. It sounds like a ridiculous and absurd hypothetical at this point, but it's true: more often than not, Michigan beat Ohio State on the field by scoring more points. In the sport of football.
Maybe that's why their 37-21 loss to the Buckeyes in 2004 caused the Wolverines so much psychic distress; coming into The Game, Michigan was 9-1 and ranked seventh in the country, as well as being double-digit favorites against a 6-4 Ohio State team made up of chicken wire and Troy Smith bombs to Ted Ginn. But they lost! And while one explanation for that loss could be general Wolverine overconfidence, institutional stagnation, and a ridiculous Buckeye gameplan that decided the fullback should have twice as many carries as the starting running back, the Michigan faithful looked elsewhere:
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The intense rivalry between Ohio State and Michigan has gone to the dogs — bomb-sniffing ones. Michigan coach Lloyd Carr is upset that Ohio State subjected the Wolverines' players and coaches to searches by drug and bomb-sniffing dogs upon their arrival at Ohio Stadium on Saturday.
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"If it's going to be the greatest rivalry in college athletics, which so many of us believe it is, then I don't think it is too much to say, 'Let's have great respect for each other. Let's treat each other like we would want to be treated,'" Carr said. "I guarantee you that the athletic director at Ohio State doesn't want his son treated the way that they treated our players."
This slight delay and inconvenience immediately entered the lore that surrounds The Game, not in the least because of how it was the first real sign that Michigan would grasp at any available straw to maintain relevance, and also that they would complain ineffectually about everything else along the way.
This is important for two reasons: first, it worked. I am absolutely convinced that Carr's anger was genuine because his team was actually, literally, extremely bothered at being subjected to the same security measures every other team at Ohio Stadium was in 2004, and that caused them to lose the game. One team had wunderkinds Mike Hart and Chad Henne, and like I said, the other gave Brandon Joe 14 carries for some reason.
The second reason why it's important is that it is very funny.
College football has a long, long history of goofy ass psyops designed to either gas up the home team or depress their opponents before a contest. Iowa's Hayden Fry and his pink locker room has been annoying all non-color blind members of opposing football teams for decades. Urban Meyer famously blasted his team with fake quotes from ESPN leading up to the 2006 National Championship game. Broadcaster Bob Ufer thinks that Woody Hayes and Earle Bruce shut off the water to Michigan football's hotel prior to their matchups, and while that's pretty silly, I kind of hope that actually did happen.
But this is 2021. Gone are the days of such primitive subterfuge. In this more refined age, psychological football warfare is still practiced, but now it is done through scheduling:
Ohio State's Sept. 11 home opener will be a noon game on Fox, the network announced on Thursday.
Fox Sports announced that it would broadcast Ohio State/Oregon on Thursday, and a Fox Sports spokesperson confirmed to Eleven Warriors that the game will kick off at noon.
The obvious implication here is that Ohio State, working with their Fox Sports conspirators, scheduled what is ostensibly a 9 a.m. start for their Pacific time zone-based opponents in an effort to beat them via a lack of sleepytime. Which is genius! And really, it's a gift to Ducks fans, because if Oregon loses to Ohio State they've got an excuse ready to go (this is called "hedging at life," and I've become an expert at it over the years).
My hope is that Ryan Day and the Buckeyes continue this fine tradition for all future marquee opponents. Ohio State has games against Notre Dame, Texas, Alabama, and Georgia (among others) in the coming seasons, and I think that there are ways to defeat all of these teams before they set a single foot within the confines of The Shoe. Texas, for example, seems to absolutely lose their freaking minds at the "horns down" gesture. My guess is that while Nick Saban wouldn't care, a large contingent of the Crimson Tide would have a conniption about houndstooth patterned toilet paper. Maybe we could spend a week talking about how bulldogs are inbred wheezing machines at some point.
And look, if your rejoinder to this is "Johnny, that's stupid. Football games are won and lost by players and coaches. This is all petty crap that only fans care about," then I would usually agree! But this missive is being written a scant few months after Ohio State beat the holy hell out of Clemson in a vengeance game which the Buckeyes were so obsessively focused on that Tigers sites were openly asking if they were doing okay.
Players and coaches are people too, and people both love and are influenced by all the ridiculously silly and petty crap that goes into the mind games surrounding football. Should this devolve into actual physical confrontation or abuse? Of course not. That's wrong, and it's not fun or entertaining.
But Ryan Day aggressively clearing his throat in a joint press conference with Brian Kelly every time Kelly tries to talk? A biplane toting a horns down banner over the skies of Austin for a week? OSU Twitter distorting Bear Bryant interviews so it sounds like he's a 12 year old going through puberty?
Yes. More of that, please.
