Few rivalries bring out the intensity that Michigan-Ohio State does, especially on the football field. The Buckeyes and the Wolverines have been playing for over a century, famously so at Noon Eastern time in the final week of the regular season. There have been few occasions where the two rivals have met outside that timeslot. The only notable time it ever happened was in 2006 when both teams were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the country. But that was just a primetime game, which commenced in the season’s final week.
That makes what Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day said recently so interesting.
Day spoke to reporters at Big Ten Media Days about the potential need to move the game. Moving it would consequently come with conference expansion quickly approaching as UCLA and USC are braced to enter the Big Ten in 2024.
MLive.com wrote that Day said:
“I’m glad we still have the rivalry game,” Day, who is set to enter his fifth year as head coach at Ohio State, said. “I do think we should consider when we play it, just because you may end up playing them on back-to-back weeks.”
Under the Big Ten’s modified schedule beginning in 2024, that very scenario would have played out last year — when Michigan and Ohio State, both unbeaten and ranked in the top-5 of polls nationally, played in Columbus during the final week of the regular season
Michigan won the game, 45-23, clinched the Big Ten’s East Division title and earned a berth into the league title game against Purdue. If the conference was simply taking the two schools with the best records, a rematch would have taken place in Indianapolis.
“Which would be awkward,” Day continued. “We need to consider tradition — but I think it’s worth a conversation when it’s significant to how the season plays out.”
Well, let’s have that conversation.
Michigan-Ohio State is one of the biggest rivalries in sports. Not just college sports but all sports, professional included. Both schools and their fanbases pride themselves on over a century of rich tradition. There’s the 10-Year War, Desmond Howard’s “Hello Heisman” return, then Charles Woodson remixing it six years later. There’s Anthony Gonzalez, who pulled off “The Catch” and the 2006 epic. And recently, Michigan’s back-to-back victories over Ohio State have reinspired and reinvigorated the entire program.
All of this to say… Seriously? This feels so unnecessary. It’s entirely possible that Michigan and Ohio State could play in back-to-back weeks in the Big Ten Championship. Both teams are among the best in the conference, almost perennially at this point. But it also begs an important question: Who really cares? Let them play back-to-back weeks. It’s Michigan and Ohio State; the fans will find a way to get fired up for it, no matter what. Michigan fans would relish the thought of beating Ohio State twice, and Buckeyes fans would absolutely take great pleasure in seeing their team kick the Wolverines’ butts two weeks in a row too. You’d be foolish to think otherwise, and the players likely would take great pride in it as well.
Not to mention: What happens if they don’t? The ACC brought the University of Miami from the Big East in 2005. After they did this, the conference put the Hurricanes in a different division from its longtime rival: the Florida State Seminoles. The ‘Canes and the ‘Noles still haven’t met in the ACC Championship Game. You could run the risk of moving the game, upsetting a lot of people, and then come to find out that you moved it for no reason, too, if one of the teams were to lose again on the way to the Big Ten title game.
There’s also a feeling of finality with Michigan and Ohio State every year. No matter the obstacles in the season, the two sides, their fans especially, will get jazzed up for the anticipated encounter on Thanksgiving weekend every year. Moving the game away from that spot would take away a significant bite from The Game. No matter how each team is doing, both fanbases live for the potential humiliation of the other to end the year. Because then, all winter, spring, and summer long, that’s what their last impression is. And the game could either leave you feeling on a high or give you a sour taste in your mouth all winter.
It’s been built off the back of being at the end of the season for over a century. Whether their Big Ten peers care to agree or disagree, it is the conference’s cornerstone rivalry. Nothing in the conference supersedes the Michigan and Ohio State matchup. It’s also difficult to envision any other potential rivalry matchups that would earn similar viewership on Fox compared to the annual Michigan-Ohio State matchup, too. Thus, punting it away from the final week feels incredibly self-defeating for the conference, even while expansion looms. Traditionalism is at the heart of college sports. This particular request would undo a whole lot of it.
If you asked them their thoughts on this, you would probably find Michigan and Ohio State fans finally agreeing on something.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022