Ohio State and Michigan are about to play a top-5 matchup for, I believe, the 12th time. I saw somewhere that this was the most times any two teams had met as top-5 opponents.
The stakes for games like these are, of course, enormous which is why THE GAME is what it is and why The Rivalry is what it is but lost in all of this is the fact that, realistically, this will likely be the last time that a regular season tOSU/M game has stakes this high and also that a few years or a few decades ago the stakes would have been even higher.
What this game IS for, the stakes:
- The bragging rights in an annual border-state rivalry where LOTS of fans on both sides interact frequently with fans of the other team. This is what makes regional rivalries more bitter. If my Buckeyes lose to Bama I rarely have to hear about it from a Bama fan because other than @rolltidefan and a few others on here and a couple of local bandwagon fans, I don't really interact with many Bama fans. I have to interact with Michigan fans all the time. It sucks when my team lost the most recent game.
- The B1G-E Championship. This is nice, of course, but it isn't the actual league title and while that is probably on the line as well, the winner still has to line up next week at a neutral site, and play a game for it.
- A spot in the CFP. The loser has a chance but it is only a chance. The winner is in (even if they lose the B1GCG).
Now consider the comparison of the 2006 game which was the last time these two met as undefeated and untied teams:
- The bragging rights in an annual border-state rivalry where LOTS of fans on both sides interact frequently with fans of the other team. This is what makes regional rivalries more bitter. If my Buckeyes lose to Bama I rarely have to hear about it from a Bama fan because other than @rolltidefan and a few others on here and a couple of local bandwagon fans, I don't really interact with many Bama fans. I have to interact with Michigan fans all the time. It sucks when my team lost the most recent game.
- There was no divisional Championship to win but if there had been this game would have won it.
- The League Championship. There was no additional game. The Buckeyes won in 2006 and walked off the field wearing "Big Ten Champions" hats because they were done.
- A spot in the NC game. This was MUCH bigger than #3 for the 2022 game because there was no semi-final. By beating Michigan in 2006 the Buckeyes got all the way to the NC Game. This year's winner will still need to play in the B1GCG then play a CFP semi-final to get to the NC Game.
Then go back yet another step. Back in 1969, under first-year Head Coach Bo Schembechler, the Wolverines pulled off one of the greatest upsets in College Football History. I need to set the stage:
- First off, tOSU was the defending NC and had been #1 all year long in 1969. Their 1968 NC team was composed mostly of sophomores in an era when freshman couldn't play and nobody left early for the NFL so after the Buckeyes won the NC with mostly sophomores in 1968 they were widely expected to win three in a row by winning two more with those same players in 1969 and 1970.
- Ohio State won the 1968 game 50-14. This wasn't the infamous "I couldn't go for three" game, that was a 50-20 win in Ann Arbor in 1961 but the 1968 game was a blowout and Ohio State brought back basically the same team for another round in 1969, there was every reason to expect AT LEAST another win.
- Purdue and Michigan State were actually seen as Ohio State's major in-conference hurdles rather than Michigan. The Boilermakers had been #1 until tOSU knocked them off in 1968 and were #10 when tOSU beat them in 1969 the week before THE GAME. Michigan State was "only" ranked #19 when the Buckeyes beat them in 1969 but they had been a better team over the past decade or so than Michigan. In 1967 they had a rather famous tie with ND. Also, the Spartans beat the Wolverines in 1969.
- Most people forget this but Michigan simply wasn't very good for most of the twenty years before Bo's arrival. They had beaten the Buckeyes in the "Snow Bowl" in Ohio Stadium in 1950 to claim a league title but between then and Bo's arrival in 1969 the Wolverines only won one league title (1964) in 18 years. Remember that this was in an era when co-championships counted. From 1951-1968 the Wolverines were:
- .278, 4-12-2 against MSU
- .286, 2-5 against PU
- .333, 6-12 against tOSU
- .556, 10-8 against MN
- .571, 4-3 against UW
- .611, 11-7 against IL
- .636, 7-4 against IU
- .727, 7-2-2 against IA
- .750, 12-4 against NU
My point is that in 1969 nobody expected Michigan to knock off the Buckeyes. In retrospect it isn't all that surprising. We think of Michigan and Ohio State and Bo and Woody and just expect a heavy-weight fight. Leading into 1969 Michigan simply hadn't been in that category since shortly after WWII so people didn't see them that way. Also, looking back it is easy to see that Schembechler's team had improved dramatically. They started out 3-2 but in the four games prior to tOSU they had outscored their opponents roughly 45-6 on average.
Looking back Michigan is OBVIOUSLY the big challenge but at the time Ohio State was coming off of a win in a top-10 match-up with Purdue. It is hard, today, to wrap our heads around the idea that THE GAME could be more-or-less anti-climactic but to the 1969 Buckeyes, it was. The higher-ranked opponent was Purdue, beating Michigan was just supposed to be a coronation after the big win over Purdue.
Now consider the stakes for the Buckeyes for the 1969 game against Michigan. It was for the NC. Literally. At that time the league had a Rose Bowl only rule and a "no repeat" rule. The Buckeyes went to the Rose Bowl after the 1968 season so they ere ineligible by the no repeat rule in 1969 and they were #1 heading into the Michigan game so all they had to do was win and they would have been the 1969 NC's. Today that would be the equivalent of four games:
- THE GAME
- The B1GCG
- The CFP Semi-Final
- The CFP CG
Now lets look forward:
Within a few years the league is likely to adopt a divisonless CG and the CFP is likely to expand to 12 teams. That would take a lot of the stakes away from this game:
- If we had a divisionless CG, both teams would already have clinched spots so they'd already KNOW that they would be playing each other next week for the league title. This game would be for bragging rights . . . for a week.
- If we had a 12-team CFP both teams would already have effectively clinched spots. The loser is going to finish 11-1 so not only would they be guaranteed to get an at-large spot, they'd almost certainly get the first at-large spot.