Michigan football's matchup with Ohio State in 'The Game' has never been bigger
They were undefeated a year ago when they met in Columbus, Ohio, and still, this one feels different. Bigger. Deeper. More meaningful. More fraught.
Whoever loses will be knocked out of the Big Ten title chase, yes. But then so much more is at stake than the conference championship this time around.
For starters, the loser last year knew it would still have a chance at the College Football Playoff. And that’s what happened: Ohio State lost and then almost beat Georgia in the national semifinal.
Then there are the bragging rights — no small thing — along with the right to say the season isn’t finished, both literally and figuratively. In any other year, all of this would be plenty of spoils for the victor in today’s Michigan-Ohio State game.
Now add the cheating scandal. And the obvious dislike between Jim Harbaugh and Ryan Day. And the pressure Day is feeling because he hasn’t beaten Michigan football since 2019 — he is famously 0-2 over the past two seasons.
The Wolverines want to beat the Buckeyes because they’re the Buckeyes and because they want to play for a national title. They also want to beat the Buckeyes to stick it in the eye of those who question how they’ve beaten the Buckeyes the last two seasons.
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The Buckeyes want to beat the Wolverines because they detest “That School Up North,” but also because they want to get back to the College Football Playoff, as well, and it will be harder to do that this year as a one-loss team in the Big Ten.
They also want to beat the Wolverines because they haven’t in a few years, and because they are desperate to restore order to their universe, and because they’re tired of answering questions about why they suddenly can’t beat Michigan.
So, again, you’ve got to go back a long way to find a game in this rivalry with so much on the line, real, imagined, tangible, intangible, heck, even existential.
Despite all this, despite recent history and the microwaved acrimony and the this-is-the-most-important game-in-the-rivalry-ever vibes, it’s still not that hard to take "The Game" for granted, especially when you go to "The Game" every year, and even more when you’ve been going to The Game on and off for the better part of two decades.
But then a longtime friend shows up with no ties to either school, a friend that dates back to high school, a friend you’ve seen once in almost 40 years, a friend who grew up with you in Texas and somehow, randomly, got attached to Michigan’s football team.
It was 1980, Troy Hart was telling me on Friday afternoon. Or maybe 1981. He was a freshman in high school as best as he could remember. The date didn’t matter quite so much as the time, and the fact that a lot of it had passed.
In any case, a neighbor — in rural Texas that could mean someone many miles away — invited my friend over to his house to watch the U-M/OSU game. He didn’t know a thing about either school. He saw the winged helmets, the irascible coach, the maize and blue, the intensity.
He was hooked. He has loved the Wolverines since, decorating part of his football-themed basement with Michigan paraphernalia.
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Last year, he reached out and told me he’d bought a ticket to "The Game." That he’d always wanted to go to one. That he’d fallen in love with the Wolverines from 1,000 miles — and several worlds — away. That it had to be in Ann Arbor, a place he’d never seen, the home of his beloved team.
That seeing a game there, especially "The Game," was on his bucket list.
I told him I wasn’t sure how much time I’d have because of the holiday, family time, work, and that I knew I’d be covering "The Game." I was happy to be a guide for a minute but knew I couldn’t overcommit. Besides, I didn’t know him. Not as an adult. Not really.
Yet I knew his spirit as a kid.
We were tight in high school. I moved to Texas from Ilinois the beginning of my junior year and in those days the differences between regions were much starker. Moving across country could feel like moving across worlds.
I’d never seen cowboy hats or Wranglers or salt on the dance floor at prom. I’d never eaten brisket or listened to Willie Nelson. The boys wore short hair, and the girls wore blue eye shadow.
Surface differences, yes, but the entire vibe of the place just outside Ft. Worth felt new, and as a teen who just wanted to walk down the halls of a high school unnoticed, the surface went deep.
Until I met Troy, who took me in, laid out the cultural topography, showed me the two-step, the proper way to sport cowboy boots (I never mastered that one), and that in Texas, at least back then, it was always best to be yourself.
He was kind and non-judgmental and wove a good yarn and when he reached out last year to tell me how a Texan who ended up a Wolverine decided it was long past time to cross Michigan Stadium off his bucket list, I told him to come on up, as any former Texan would do.
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So, there we were, 41 or 42 years later, driving down Main Street toward Michigan Stadium late Friday morning. I’d picked him up from his hotel room to give him a tour of the city and the campus and, of course, the stadium.
As we whipped past the golf course, the scoreboard began poking through the leafless trees, until finally the top ring of the subterranean venue took over the horizon.
Troy chuckled, a little boy’s chuckle. He felt like he was 10, he said, and that it was Christmas morning. Then he stuck his arms out and motioned downward, like a bow.
For decades, I’ve driven past Michigan Stadium and hardly noticed it. Running errands, say, or heading across town to hit a favorite dining spot. When a local joint is iconic outside its locality, it can become invisible for those who see it on the daily.
Sometimes, it takes an outsider to jolt the perspective again, or someone who has pined for an up-close view of the green turf during "The Game."
Troy, of course, is both. And his presence here this weekend reminded me to stop and take a closer look at the things we pass every day. And that when a human being’s spirit is gentle and open as a high schooler, chances are it’ll remain the same all these years later.
Rivalry week is so often about reconnecting. Another reason this time of year in this sport means so much.
So, yes, "The Game" is a football game. It is also so much more.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
Next up: Buckeyes
Matchup: No. 3 Michigan (11-0, 8-0 Big Ten) vs. No. 2 Ohio State (11-0, 8-0).
Kickoff: Noon Saturday; Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor.
TV/radio: Fox; WXYT-FM (97.1), WTKA-AM (1050).
Line: Wolverines by 3½.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football's rivalry with Ohio State wows even those outside it
