Ohio State vs. Michigan

[BTG]

As a young boy growing up in a small town just south of Dayton, Ohio, the first football game I ever watched was Ohio State versus Texas A&M in the 1987 Cotton Bowl (the Buckeyes won 28-12). I was six years old at the time and knew very little about football. What I did know was that I shared a first name with the OSU punter and future quarterback (Tom Tupa), their star receiver (Chris Carter) was from the town next to mine, and there was something about the combination of scarlet jerseys and metallic sliver (gray) helmets that made me sit and stare at the screen in wonder. I've been hooked ever since.

I am ridiculously superstitious when it comes to the Buckeyes. Last season, my wife moved my Woody Hayes bobble head a quarter of an inch while she was dusting the bookcase and the Buckeyes lost to Texas. A few weeks later, a friend had the audacity to pick up the mini-helmet that rests proudly on my mantle from August to January and the Buckeyes lost to Penn State.

This season, I have informed my wife that if she touches anything with the words Ohio, State, or Buckeyes written on it, I will pack up my belongings and live in the car. Not only that, but I have performed the exact same routine every Saturday just to keep things on the level. That routine is as follows:

I wake up and TiVo ESPN's College Gameday, then make a pot of coffee and take a shower while it's brewing. When I get out of the shower, I put on my pajama pants and 2002 Fiesta Bowl Champions t-shirt, pour the coffee into my 32-ounce Ohio State mug (the one with Brutus on one side & Block O on the other), then sit down on my couch and watch Gameday. Later on in the day (before the game begins), I put on an old pair of jeans along with my black OSU Football t-shirt and scarlet Damon Moore jersey -- none of which have been washed since August -- and sit down to watch some football. Two weeks ago I got home after the kickoff, which means I failed to complete my routine, and Ohio State only won by seven. Um, sorry about that.

Anyway, for the last eight weeks we've had to listen to the media hyping up a possible one versus two match up, but very few people (including me) actually believed it would happen. It would too good to be true. Someone would lose during the season...they had to. After all, in the history of The Game, the two programs had finished the season unbeaten and untied only two times: once in 1970 and again in 1973, and they had never finished the season No. 1 vs. No. 2 in every major poll...until now. At 3:30 PM this Saturday, the game I've waited my entire life for is actually going to take place. It's like Red said at the end of The Shawshank Redemption, "I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or keep a thought in my head."

Yet ten years ago it wouldn't have been like this. Instead of excited, I would have been scared to death. All my fingernails would have been chewed off and I would have done everything short of creating a voodoo doll of Mike Hart and Chad Henne and jabbing them in the chest with railroad spikes. You see, back then the Buckeyes, led by coach John Cooper, simply could not find a way to beat Michigan when it really mattered. In five years, OSU went into the final game of the season ranked in the top five four times.

In 1993, OSU went into Michigan with a 9-0-1 record, but were embarrassed in Ann Arbor by a final score of 28-0. I remember this game taking approximately seven hours from start to finish.

In 1995, Tim Biakabutuka ran for 313 yards against the 10-0 Buckeyes en route to a 31-28 victory. I'm still not convinced this game even took place. Tim Biakabutuka? 313 yards? No way. Not possible.

In 1996, the 10-0 Bucks took a 9-0 lead going into halftime, but on the second play of the third quarter, cornerback Shawn Springs slipped and fell allowing Tai Streets to turn a short catch into a 69 yard touchdown reception -- the lone six pointer in the Wolverines' 13-9 victory. I don't remember anything that happened after this play because I blacked out and hit my head on a table which sent me into a deep coma. When I woke up the Buckeyes were playing Arizona State in the Rose Bowl.

In 1997, the 9-1, and fourth-ranked Buckeyes went into Michigan and fell behind 20-0, before eventually losing 20-14 thanks in large part to the play of (Ohio native) Charles Woodson. Woodson, who went on to win the Heisman Trophy, scored on a punt return and then donned the Heisman pose in the back of the end zone as I repeatedly banged my head against the concrete wall of my dorm room.

I can't even begin to describe how awful it was to watch those games. Just thinking about them now puts me in a foul mood. It actually got to the point where I thought of The Game like a visit to the dentist -- something that was not fun and would most likely cause me pain before it was over, but also something that had to be done.

All that nonsense flew right out the window when a man in a sweater vest arrived in Columbus. Aside from reestablishing the rivalry as the most important contest of the of the year (Cooper had tried to downplay it as "just another game"), Jim Tressel also injected some much-needed confidence to the program and more importantly, the fans, by going into Ann Arbor and handing the Wolverines a defeat in his first year as head coach. This victory ensured that the OSU fans would no longer sit and wait for the other shoe to drop when watching The Game. We now had a coach who knew what he was doing and could devise the right gameplan to defeat our hated rivals...and best of all, every last one of us knew it.

It all culminated during the championship run of 2002. Had Cooper been the coach, it's probable the Buckeyes would have found a way to lose the game. However, with Coach Tressel at the helm, the Bucks came from behind to take the lead, then managed to hold off the determined Wolverines for a 14-9 victory and a spot in the national title game.

It's funny, through all the heartbreaking losses in the '90s (and there were several), I never once shed a tear when Ohio State lost. But when Will Allen intercepted John Navarre's pass in the end zone with no time left back in '02, I wept like a little girl and did not stop for 30 minutes. That game was not simply a victory over the maize and blue, it was an exorcism of all the demons from the '90s.

Since that fateful November day, the Ohio State Michigan game no longer looms like a mountain, but merely a small hill the Buckeyes must climb to reach the pinnacle of college football. More importantly, it's become fun again.

A few nights ago my wife and I were driving home from running a few errands and out of nowhere I broke into a huge grin. Think the Grinch, from How the Grinch Stole Christmas -- the cartoon, not the movie, when he comes up with an idea on how to stop Christmas from coming. When my wife asked me why I was smiling like a lottery winner, I replied, "I'm just thinking about the game on Saturday."

And oh what a game it will be. Go Buckeyes!

[Stripes]

Good read. Nuttin' like OSU/UM. :player:

[crttylr]

M Go Blue is all I have to say!!!!!!!!

[bengalboomer7]

M Go Blue is all I have to say!!!!!!!!

Why doesn't that suprise me