Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I think the portal exacerbated it even more.  Do Michigan fans have any feelings one way or another towards Will Howard?

Michigan basketball had two 7 foot white dudes this year.  I would have hated their punchable faces by the time they were juniors.  Instead they were on campus for like 4 months

Slacker. I hated them after 40 minutes of gameplay. 

The only person with fewer Magic shirts after moving to Florida.

It's been DECADES since the trophy case in Madison has been empty.

Is a team better off losing to some mediocre opponent or to a top level opponent?  You'd think the latter, but if there is to be a loss in there, maybe it's the former, with respect to making the playoff.  The logic might be "they overlooked southwestern state, so ti doesn't really count because they beat Ohio State."

I think this has always been the case to an extent but the playoff has supercharged it.  

It has always been the case because we've always used H2H as the tiebreaker.  The problem with that, as I see it, is that while the H2H winner obviously has a better win, they also have a worse loss.  

Here is an example from the early 1970s during the famed Ten Year War between Woody and Bo:
In 1972 Ohio State and Michigan both went 7-1 in the league with a one-score road loss:

• Ohio State lost 19-12 in East Lansing to a .500 (5-5-1) Michigan State team
• Michigan lost 14-11 in Columbus to a very good (9-2, finished ranked #9 and was ranked #3 heading into the RoseBowl)

So which was the better team?  Almost every tiebreaking scheme that I've ever seen actually used would put Ohio State in the RoseBowl over Michigan because the Buckeyes won the H2H but does that actually make sense?  Michigan's three point road loss to a top-10 team is a LOT more excusable than Ohio State's six point road loss to a mediocre opponent.  


The problem for Michigan there is a lack of quality wins.  The "Little Eight" were more-or-less hot garbage and their only notable OOC win was over a UCLA squad that finished 8-3.  That is ok, but it is NOWHERE close to Ohio State's quality wins:

• Beat Michigan who finished 10-1 and ranked #6
• Beat North Carolina who finished 11-1 and ranked #12

That said, Ohio State got run off the field in Pasadena.  Maybe Michigan would have done better but given Bo's RB record and the fact that USC went 12-0 and won the NC that year it probably wouldn't have mattered.  

We used to talk about a "bad loss" and in the old days a bad loss might effectively eliminate you from NC contention but I think that the concept of a bad loss has effectively died.  If you look, for example, at 2015 Ohio State had a very excusable loss.  They lost by a FG to a playoff-bound MSU team.  Michigan State's loss to a sub-.500 Nebraska squad was MUCH worse but in the final regular season poll MSU was #3 and tOSU was #7.  The bad loss didn't hurt the Spartans nearly as much as tOSU's "good" loss hurt the Buckeyes.  

The magic shirt thing had me wondering.

I know the point is "all things being equal" but all things aren't equal.

For MSU this year, it would obviously be UM, as our biggest rival, and considering the goal this year is probably just make a bowl, flipping a likely loss to a sure win is an obvious choice, among the likely/assured losses.

But if you are just saying the other games are just play it out, and hell, you could save it for CCGs/CFP games, it would be interesting.  Would OSU fans use it on the UM game?  Or assume they can win 2 of Texas, PSU, UM either way, and save it for a CFP game.

A lot of it is based on what has happened recently.  Right now, having not beaten Michigan since before their massive cheating scandal, I'd probably wear it for that but back when Ohio State had won eight straight against non-cheating Michigan they were an afterthought and I'd have saved it for a playoff game.  

As an OSU fan I'd wear it for UM no doubt, the outcome might well determine playoff position or entry anyway.  But that could change as the season progresses.

I probably would but the 12-team playoff makes it a viable question.  

Suppose tOSU gets to The Game undefeated at 11-0.  They did in 2022 and 2023.  Both years Michigan cheated and won.  Ohio State went 1-1 on making the CFP anyway.  So in the 4-team era you wear the shirt for Michigan because nothing beyond that is guaranteed.  

Today, things are different:
If Ohio State gets to The Game undefeated at 11-0 then the game matters for rivalry purposes but Ohio State is pretty clearly in the 12-team playoff regardless of outcome so I'd be tempted to save the shirt for whatever I considered to be Ohio State's toughest challenge in the playoff.  

My magic shirt is wearable one time.  If you don't wear it early, you can change your mind later.

I agree with the above logic paths.

With any luck, you can hang on to it until the final, but if a fan of your opponent did the same, well, ... we have a disturbance in the force.