OSU Michigan not playing final game in 2012?

[TartanPride]

Say Whattt!!??

[NYBuckeye96]

http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/ar ... right-move

Uprooting Ohio State-Michigan the right move
BY JON SPENCER • CENTRALOHIO.COM • AUGUST 29, 2010

The "Ten-Year War." You've probably heard of it. Woody Hayes vs. Bo Schembechler. Teacher vs. pupil. White hats vs. winged helmets. Bigger than Yankees vs. Red Sox, Celtics vs. Lakers, Leno vs. Letterman.

It's the decade that defines the hallowed Ohio State-Michigan rivalry. Seven times in that span, both football teams were ranked in the top 10 when they clashed in the regular season finale. Five times they were both in the top 5. Seven times one or both were undefeated.

Michigan athletic director David Brandon played for Bo in the midst of that border war. He uses it as a referendum on why these archrivals should be cast in separate divisions when an expanded Big Ten begins staging a league championship next season.

He wants it to be like the good old days when OSU vs. Michigan was the de facto title game. (Translation: Like it was before current Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez brought "crummy" into the conversation.)

"I do believe that one of the things people have lost track of in all of the noise is that if Michigan and Ohio State are in the same division, Michigan and Ohio State will never again play for the Big Ten championship -- we will never again play for the Rose Bowl," Brandon said.

I think there's a lot of people that just haven't focused on that, and they need to understand that.

"And I have to tell you as a guy who was part of the program and who understands the magnitude of that game, to know that from this point forward we will never play Ohio State for a trip to the Rose Bowl again, never play them for the Big Ten championship again, that doesn't sound good for me."

The fear for many is not that Brandon's separatist's view will become reality, but that the traditional finale between Ohio State and Michigan will be moved to avoid the potential of The Game and The Sequel running into each other on consecutive Saturdays.

As far as I'm concerned, it can't be moved fast enough.

I don't care if the Buckeyes and Wolverines are in the same division or opposite divisions or whether they play once or twice a year. Either way, their regularly scheduled game needs a transplant, a new date.

Call me a heretic, but preserving the sanctity of the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry, right down to when it's played, isn't the No. 1 goal here. Sorry, it's not.

The main priority is winning a league championship and, ultimately, positioning yourself to play for a national championship.

Only the suicidal would want to play an emotional rivalry game -- arguably the biggest rivalry game in college football -- seven days before the Big Ten stages its new marquee game.

True, a bunch of season-ending rivalry games haven't kept the SEC and its title game survivor from winning the national championship four years in a row. But in that league, it's pick your poison. There are few soft touches to begin with. And if everyone is playing their rivalry game at the same time, the playing field is level.

In the Big Ten, there aren't any rivalry games to match Ohio State-Michigan.

Hypothetically, if I'm Jim Tressel, do I like my odds in next year's inaugural championship game against Nebraska, when my Buckeyes are coming off an emotional trip to Ann Arbor and Nebraska is coming off a humdrum victory at home against Illinois?

Not as much.

Maybe that's why Tressel didn't put up much of a fuss at Big Ten Media Days this summer when reporters brought up moving the Michigan game. Maybe he saw the folly in trying to get his team to an emotional peak twice in seven days.

There's a reason the Buckeyes are playing Ohio University the week after hosting the Miami Hurricanes. There's a reason they played Toledo after USC and San Diego State after Texas.

Why make life harder on yourself?

If I read one more columnist or message board poster pleading for the Big Ten to leave Ohio State-Michigan where it is, I'm going to have my wife strangle me with one of Tressel's sweater vests.

Two Hollywood screenwriters, one a Michigan fan and the other an Ohio State fan, have created a Facebook group, "Don't Mess with the Ohio State-Michigan Game!" It's an online fan petition to maintain the rivalry on the schedule in late November where it's been since 1935.

Why don't they get it?

I get the romantic notion of the game always being played with a November chill in the air, I get the season-long build up to the game and the chance to cap a memorable season or play the role of spoiler. But at the risk of sabotaging Ohio State or Michigan's (way in the future) chance at real glory, of winning a league championship?

That's ludicrous.

Like the Michigan AD, I'll use the "Ten-Year War" to make my argument. Woody's boys went 4-5-1 against Michigan in that stretch. They were 0-4 in the Rose Bowl after their four wins. In three of those bowl games they were the higher ranked team. Michigan went 0-5 in Pasadena after their five wins.

Taking nothing away from some great Pac-8 opponents, the emotional investment in the rivalry had to have played some role in their post-season misery. If they couldn't recharge their batteries in six weeks, how are they going to do it in seven days?

Until I get a satisfactory answer, spare me the bahooey about Ohio State-Michigan in late November being sacrosanct.

Nobody's threatening to move the Washington Monument to Montana. It's a football game.

Make it the Big Ten opener instead of the closer, a perfect kickoff to league play. Tressel's predecessor, John Cooper, would have loved that idea. His 2-10-1 mark against Michigan might have looked a lot different given his 36-5 record in September.

Then again, two games a year against the Wolverines? That would have been Coop's worst nightmare.

[NYBuckeye96]

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sp ... ml?sid=101

The Mailbox: Want to move The Game? Get ready to duck
SUNDAY, AUGUST 29, 2010 03:10 AM

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

If you were reading the tea leaves the past couple of weeks, you would have to surmise that the Ohio State-Michigan game was destined to become an October staple, written in the same permanent ink as Columbus Day and Halloween.

The idea looked to be so firmly planted in the express lane that, just 10 days ago, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith was telling reporters that he hadn't heard from many fans complaining about the possible move of The Game to The Middle Of The Season.

Perceived or not, such dormant feelings among the populace have surfaced to the point that Smith was moved to make a video Friday explaining the scheduling process and more or less asking for the angry e-mails to desist: "I don't need any more," he said.

Will it matter in the long run that the fans - including those who follow this spiel - are making their feelings known? I don't think so; I think a move off the final week is as inevitable as it is unfortunate. But it's interesting to see how the trial balloons are flying now that they're taking on buckshot.

With that, readers, you have the floor.

Ray: With progress comes conflict, and with conflict there is a price to be paid. Adding Nebraska, creating two divisions and a lucrative championship game, is indeed progressive in nature. Unfortunately, there is bound to be conflict and compromise intertwined with these changes.

But when does the price for this progress become too high? That's easy. The price becomes too high when a sacred tradition and event becomes compromised.

If the Big Ten thinks for one minute it is being forward-thinking and shrewd by, for all intents, ending the importance of this special event and time-honored tradition, it is sorely mistaken. Not only would it be marring this rivalry, it would be rendering itself heartless, cold and unfeeling, all in the name of a few more bucks.

I know in this day and age of massive social networking, reality TV and absurdly lucrative marketing opportunities in sports and business, not much is sacred, including good taste, privacy and one's dignity. But can't the powers that be in the Big Ten be the ones to say, "Hey, this game is sacred; it is worth more than the possibility of a larger number at the bottom of a spread sheet" and preserve this great event's rightful place at the end of each team's regular season?

- Mike Devine, Dublin

Ray: What's the upside to placing Ohio State and Michigan in different divisions? I hate the idea because, as long as the losing team won all of their other conference games, the regular-season matchup would be literally meaningless; they would still go to the Big Ten championship game and have the same chance at a conference title regardless of the loss to their rival.

If there were some overwhelming positive to rendering the league's signature game meaningless, I might understand, but I can't think of a single positive that comes out of ruining college football's marquee rivalry.

- Josh Lehman, via e-mail

Editor: Since OSU and the Big Ten are in the business of selling out traditions, and changing the Ohio State-Michigan game in its current format outdates many traditions, it means all bets are off:

Can we replace Script Ohio at halftime with Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber? How about Block O being replaced by a Nike swoosh? Buckeye leaves since 1968? Maybe dollar-sign stickers to replace those?

Some of my suggestions have to work. If those fail, how about black uniforms and helmets? All bets are off.

- Stacy Martin, Westerville

Ray: Pretty much anything you see out of the athletic department of Ohio State says three things: The People, The Tradition, The Excellence. Sure, it's a marketing slogan, but that second one is funny, isn't it? The Tradition.

I thought a century-old tradition kind of meant something. But I guess not. Maybe Ohio State may want to change its marketing slogan. It doesn't really make sense after the upcoming announcement.

- Bryson Daniels, New Albany

Editor: Ohio State and Michigan playing in the last game of the regular season is the Big Ten brand. I know the conference and university leaders like to make decisions based upon best business practices. As such, the Big Ten should not sell or dilute or try to fix a brand that isn't broken. It brings to mind Coca-Cola changing to New Coke and Classic Coke - it just didn't work.

The OSU-Michigan rivalry has been voted the biggest rivalry in sports partly because of its last-game status. Hundreds of thousands of Ohio State and Michigan football fans have enjoyed 75 years of this tradition and do not want to see it sold on the altar of flawed analytical expediency.

- Ralph DeMarco, via e-mail

Editor: If they move The Game, then Gordon Gee and Gene Smith will be remembered as the people that killed the rivalry. Their obituaries will say they "will best be remembered for destroying the greatest college rivalry in the history of college sport."

I wouldn't want that as my headline.

- Caprice Dittmar, Zanesville

Editor: Why not play The Game as the first game of the conference season to give it new meaning? It would guarantee the Buckeyes and Wolverines didn't play two weeks in a row, if split into separate divisions. If it won't be the last game of the schedule, then making it the first would still make it significant.

I just can't imagine The Game being a random game on a random fall afternoon subject to whatever the schedule machine spits out each year.

- Joshua R. Gallagher, Gahanna

Editor: As a Michigan alumnus and lifelong fan, one date is the first one marked on my calendar every year. It is a time to celebrate with friends and family, to look forward to whatever surprises the day holds, and to mark the passing of time - the ending of one season and a transition into winter and the long wait for the next.

Sure, bowl games (and, in the near future, a conference championship game) may often await, but those are uncertainties that are fluid. The regular-season finale between Ohio State and Michigan, however, is a bedrock of tradition that fans have relied upon to stay the same, amid the ever-changing tides of modern collegiate athletics. And there is no reason why that should have to change.

Let's remember these words, borrowed from HBO's brilliant production, Michigan vs. Ohio State: The Rivalry: "One of the things that makes the Michigan-Ohio State game so great and separates it from other sports rivalries is not only does it happen once a year, but it happens at the same time every year.

"You feel you are a part of something that stretches from before you existed and will be here long after you are gone the way it was with our grandparents, the way it was with our parents, the way it is with us, the way it's going to be with our children and grandchildren. The cold, dark, forbidding sky of that late November day in Ann Arbor or Columbus it does set the tone for the whole winter with either being the victor or having been humiliated by your rival."

Go Blue, (and just this once) Go Bucks.

- Tristan M. Pruss, via e-mail

[NYBuckeye96]

I think both of those articles make the case for and against the move. The bottom line is that SOMETHING is going to change in the Ohio State/Michigan rivalry......

Should the time honored tradition of playing in the final week of the regular season be preserved?

Should the time honored tradition of playing for the Big Ten Championship and a birth in the Rose Bowl be preserved?

We can have one or the other, but we can't have both, because I don't see the Big Ten under any circumstances having Ohio State vs. Michigan in the last game of the season and then turn around and play again the following week in the Big Ten Championship Game.

There has also been talk that games against teams in the other division would not count in league standings, and would only count to break a tie if two teams finished tied atop the division standings. If that happens, that means if Ohio State and Michigan are in opposite divisions, the game won't even count in league standings.

I also liked the comment in the first article about how hard it would be to play two emotional games in back to back weeks.

Ohio State schedules the weak games in between the hard games: Miami Hurricanes one week - Ohio Bobcats the next. USC one week - Toledo the next. Texas one week - San Diego State the next.

Would playing Michigan in an emotional game the final week of the season handicap Ohio State in a Big Ten Championship Game the following week in an emotional game against Nebraska?

There are pros and cons to both sides of this.

[dazed&confused]

Sacred Cows yield tasty steaks! Seperate divisions, play in October and hopefully again in December on a Saturday night before a National audience.

[X8XOHIOLEGENDX7X]

RUIN a tradition is what this would do.

[1987chieftains]

and a few weeks after words the world in going to be extinced.

[seofan_via_dublin]

The Buckeye and UM faithful spoke, and the conference listened.

Thank God for all the people that wouldn't let this rivalry be touched.

[dazed&confused]

but the possibility of back-to-back OSU-Michigan games does not appeal to me. If they met in October, then the wound would fester on the loser and the rematch would be sweeter. Having said that, I don't think a rematch would happen that often. Michigan will have their hands full with Nebraska in their division. OSU should run their division on a more regular basis.

[seofan_via_dublin]

A rematch will hardly ever happen, and the chance to kick their butts twice in a year appeals to me very much.

Hey Michigan, we just cleaned your clock, now bend over, cause next week we're doing it again!!!

Plus, if by some chance Michigan does get to the title game, it will lessen the amount of time it will take to
draw the all-time series to a draw, then those "fatherless children" will have nothing!!!

[1959IRISHA]

First Meeting Michigan, 36–0 (1897)
Last Meeting Ohio State, 21–10 (2009)
Next Meeting November 27, 2010
Number of Meetings 106
All-Time Series Michigan leads, 57–43–6
Largest victory Michigan, 86–0 (1902)
Current Streak Ohio State, 6
Longest Mich Win Streak 9 (1901–1909)
Longest OSU Win Streak 6 (2004–2009)
Trophy: None

[seofan_via_dublin]

First Meeting Michigan, 36–0 (1897)
Last Meeting Ohio State, 21–10 (2009)
Next Meeting November 27, 2010
Number of Meetings 106
All-Time Series Michigan leads, 57–43–6
Largest victory Michigan, 86–0 (1902)
Current Streak Ohio State, 6
Longest Mich Win Streak 9 (1901–1909)
Longest OSU Win Streak 6 (2004–2009)
Trophy: None

record since 1919: 43-43-3