The Ohio State Buckeyes finally defeated the Michigan Wolverines for the first time since 2019. And Urban Meyer is still waiting for Dave Portnoy to follow through on a bet from the game.
Portnoy has been a thorn in the side of Ohio State and its fans throughout the entire 2025 season as an antagonizing figure on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff. It even went so far that the school banned Portnoy from the stadium the opening week of the season.
His maize and blue presence on Fox is counteracted by former Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer. And before the OSU-Michigan game a couple weeks ago, the pair made a bet on national television about the game. The loser of the bet would pay $1000 to the winning school’s NIL fund.
Of course, the Buckeyes dominated the Wolverines in Ann Arbor and finally got the Michigan monkey off their back with a 27-9 victory. Except here we are in the middle of December and Urban Meyer says Dave Portnoy hasn’t yet paid up.
“Portnoy still owes me 1,000 bucks, I know that,” Meyer said in the short clip from his Triple Option podcast with Fox Sports colleagues Rob Stone and Mark Ingram.
First of all, given all the smack talk Dave Portnoy has given towards Ohio State over the years, especially in his new role as a national college football personality, he needs to pay off the bet and put his money where his mouth is. That’s a tough look after shaking hands on national television. But second of all, Rob Gronkowski said he was going to be the one to make sure the losing side held up their end of the deal, so where has he been at?
Of course, Portnoy and Michigan have some much larger concerns to deal with after the shocking firing and arrest of Sherrone Moore, so maybe he’s been preoccupied. Perhaps he is reconsidering his pledge to not give any more NIL money to Michigan to keep hold of Bryce Underwood given that those circumstances have rapidly changed in recent days.
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