It’s coming, and no one can wait. The Ohio State-Michigan game will be played on Saturday afternoon and although the game is always the most important of the year to the players, fans, and alumni, it has never been more important on the national scope. The winner goes to the BCS National Championship game. It’s #1 vs. #2. Both teams undefeated. And it seems like all the love is reserved for the Wolverines. Why?
I figure it’s because of the tremendous amount of sports coverage we have today. We have CBS, ABC/ESPN, and Fox Sports nationally covering college football. We also have sports talk shows, both local and national, covering this game. That means there are hundreds of voices talking to us about the game in Columbus this Saturday. The chief way to be heard is to say something provacative, which means to be noticed, you have to call for the upset.
This all started about three or four weeks ago. The "experts" started to jump on the Michigan bandwagon. These talking heads said that Lloyd Carr’s boys were really the best team in the country. The same thing happened two years ago with USC. They were so good for so long that the commentators had to nitpick to find something wrong with them. That season, nobody beat the Trojans and they went on the win the National Championship. They were that good.
Ohio State might be that good this season. I don’t think it will be a walkover game on Saturday, but why is Michigan getting all the love? They’ve beaten Wisconsin and Notre Dame, handing both teams their only loss of the season. However, Notre Dame has been exposed as not being a powerhouse, needing big comebacks to beat mediocre Michigan State and UCLA. The Badgers have had a great season as well, as they will finish 11-1 after smashing Buffalo (not the Bills) this weekend. However, no one is ranking them among the best teams in America this year. Let’s face it, outside of OSU, Michigan, and Wisconsin, The Big Ten is having a down season.
I realize that OSU’s biggest win to date was the defeat of Texas on the road in week #2. The luster of that win was diminished by the Longhorns losing to Kansas State last weekend. But, compare some of the scores in Big Ten play between the two teams. Michigan won by narrow margins for the most part, while the Buckeyes won in blowouts. Take Northwestern since Ohio St. beat them 54-10 last week. UM defeated them by a 17-3 score. Here are the scores against other common opponents–
OSU Michigan
28- 6 Penn State 17-10
38-17 Iowa 20- 6
38- 7 Michigan State 31-13
44- 3 Indiana 34- 3
44- 0 Minnesota 28-14
Where Michigan beat teams, Ohio State dominated them. The experts handicapping this game gain nothing by picking Ohio State to win. There’s no reputation to be made. They are #1, they are favored. That’s why there is a groundswell of support for Michigan. If Ohio State doesn’t play well, they will lose. But if both teams are on the top of their games, Ohio State has proven it’s been the better team for the entire college football season.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 