Michigan-Ohio State tradition has playoff implications again

Last week when OSU played Michigan State, a mixed martial arts fight played continuously on the large video board hanging high above the Buckeyes’ indoor practice field at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.

Now in his second year as MI coach, Harbaugh will bring his Wolverines, No. 3 in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings, into Ohio Stadium for the first time as a player or coach since November 22, 1986.

Two words provoke intense emotions: Border Battle. Bragging rights are a big deal, particularly in Ohio. As its schedule sits now, the Spartans would play a game for 12 consecutive weeks starting on September 9. At the end of the day, Michigan State has always been a thorn in the side for Ohio State and coach Meyer, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the Spartans presented the Buckeyes quite a challenge, even in a down year.

Both had been kicking around this earth for a little less than five years when the teams met in 1970 to decide who would be the Big Ten champion. Ohio State needed a late defensive effort to beat a struggling Michigan State team. “Our eyes are forward”.

The Nittany Lions have suffered some heavy injuries at linebacker and along the offensive line, but they’ve managed to continue on a seven-game winning streak through October and November while developing quality depth.

This is how college football in November is supposed to be played as 13abc presents the 113th meeting between the Wolverines and Buckeyes happens Saturday at Noon.

“It’s going to be intense”.

The redshirt freshman from Dayton has been one of the surprises of Ohio State’s season, recording 7.5 tackles for loss as a reserve defensive tackle.

MI and Ohio State kick off at noon in Columbus in a game that will directly impact Penn State. “We’ll beat Ohio State and we’ll be in Pasadena on January 1st”.

You figure Ohio State will be able to run it against MI.

It doesn’t take long the week of an Ohio State-Michigan game to hear someone call it “the greatest rivalry in all of sports”.

Asked about the postseason possibilities, Meyer dodged the question in his only media availability of the week. O’Korn transferred to MI a year ago after starting 16 games at Houston over his freshman and sophomore seasons.

But this year is different – the two teams are different – and the scenery is different. Plus, Michigan played in a blizzard last week and won. “And I’m ready to lead them”. Ohio State won that game 42-39. Ohio State is a three-touchdown favorite to get back on track against Northwestern, which hasn’t visited Columbus since 2007 and has lost 29 of the last 30 games between the teams.

At Ohio Stadium, 50,503 showed up to see one of the sloppiest football games in history.

Coaching: Even – How do you choose between Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh? What’s great about Conley is that even with that reputation, at certain points teams will try to test him and he comes up with a big play almost every time. 1 and 2 in the country. Prior to that, MI owned OSU; the Wolverines took won twelve of their meetings between 1985 and 2000.

Nine of those games have been between top-five ranked matchups between the historic rivals, just like this Saturday will be. Both defenses are dominant and the two offenses are balanced. “Big Ten has a lot of physical ball carriers, so they’re going to fight for those extra yards”.

It’s finally here! The Game is only a few days away and as you run around your house to cover every M in sight and take everything blue out of your wardrobe, there’s plenty of reasons to justify your excitement.

“There are positives out there”, Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said.

For the first time in the conference’s history, neither Stanford nor OR will play for the Pac-12 championship.

It must be pointed out that the run game is working. Maybe it’s the status of quarterback Wilton Speight, who Harbaugh predictably didn’t divulge much information about.

The quarterback situation adds some intrigue to a game that needs no more hype.