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The most interesting thing I heard at Ohio State was Ryan Day’s explanation for changing a long-standing tradition this year.
That would be having the Buckeyes and the Ohio State University Marching Band get together for a little fun during the week before the Michigan game.
This year Day opted to do that during the team’s second open week in the schedule (last week), something that was shared on social media by official team accounts (so not like it was a secret or anything).
That got the attention of people who are tuned into traditions and the rivalry, so Day was asked about it Tuesday as the team begins preparations for 2-5 Purdue.
“Just trying to make the last week of the regular season as normal as possible. That was it. And certainly we appreciate the band and everything they do. And so it's just an effort to make sure we can keep things as consistent as we possibly can because that's really what the focus is.”
Later veteran Buckeye beat member Doug Lesmerisis asked if there is a balance between making The Game something special or overhyping it:
“Well, if we have too many things in a week that are different, then it gets you out of your routine. So we try to have certain things that don't change. And that's it, because the opponent's gonna change, the scheme's gonna change, the location's gonna change, the weather's gonna. I mean, there's a lot of things that change on a week-to-week basis…
“And so what we can do as coaches is keep it as consistent, so the focus is on those things, not on, okay, why is this new, what's different? All the things that come with a week. And so that's really what we try to do all the time.”
He also talked about how they liked the travel routine for the playoff games last year, and he feels that it helps to have Ohio State things on the walls at the hotel and a familiar face to greet the players on the road.
“I think for a young player, just puts them in their routine and allows them to focus on what matters. So we try to do that every year: The things that are going well, we try to get better. The things that don't work, we try to get them fixed. And then evaluate them again.”
OK, there are some justifiable stances there, but overall that is… misguided in my opinion.
(I know Mrs. Barber at Cedarville High School taught us not to write, “In my opinion,” or “I think” because that is implied in academic writing, but sometimes in the media it’s necessary to differentiate between opinion and fact.)
Maybe it doesn’t matter, but the last 35 years (at least) of The Game have been shaped by how much teams care about it.
The Game is different.
Maybe the Buckeyes are destined to win or lose anyway, but making it a normal week has been a losing strategy as far as I can tell no matter which side of the rivalry was trying to do that starting with John Cooper in the early 1990s.
His early teams weren’t good enough to beat Michigan (though the first nearly did), but by the time he had a squad that could, the Wolverines seemed to be in his head.
Then he tightened up and took it too seriously and continued to lose most of time, even when he had clearly superior teams.
Then what?
Well, if you’re reading this you are likely aware Jim Tressel righted the rivalry for the folks living south of the Ohio-Michigan border by putting a bullseye on that game from the first time he was introduced at a basketball game in the winter of 2001.
Tressel treated the game like something special, a holiday that comes once a year but is on the mind the other 51 weeks, too — not at the forefront but just hovering behind the scenes. Not out in the open where it becomes a distraction, but just visible enough to be respected and prepared for.
His teams then showed up ready to go and pulled upsets in 2001 and ’04 to take regain control of the rivalry.
Urban Meyer picked up some of Tressel’s traditions like the Maize and Blue period of practice and added his own he had used for rivalry weeks at his previous schools, including playing an LL Cool J song incessantly to remind everyone of the task at hand.
Tressel and Meyer were a combined 16-1 against Michigan (and Luke Fickell’s one team nearly pulled an upset despite being clearly outmanned in 2011) so it’s hard to argue with the results.
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Now, was that level of dominance solely a result of paying the rivalry just the right amount of mind — not too little or too much?
No. Michigan bringing some bad teams into The Game against both Tressel and Meyer padded their record a bit, but again — Cooper lost multiple games when he was a heavy favorite, so it’s not like the best team always wins on the last Saturday in November.
And truth be told, some of Meyer’s teams didn’t play great against Michigan. The 2012, ’13 and ’14 games were all closer than they should have been based on the rosters, but the Buckeyes still won so that’s all that ended up mattering.
Perhaps the single-minded approach to The Game was a factor in the 2015 Buckeyes putting the putrid performance against Michigan State the previous week behind them and pummeling a 10-win Wolverines squad. Maybe it helped a lot when they upset Michigan in 2018, too, and maybe it helped the ship remain steady even when J.T. Barrett got hurt in 2017.
(The Buckeyes really were outplayed in 2016 but hung around thanks to the defense and pulled it out in overtime.)
Whatever the case, the record is the record.
On the flip side, Michigan folks often downplayed the rivalry, at least by the time I was listening to interview from their side. “Every game is a big game.” “Yeah we want to beat them but we also have rivalries with Notre Dame and Michigan State,” etc.
Maybe those teams just weren’t good enough to beat Ohio State, but I still found it striking the different ways each side talked about The Game in the mid-to-late ‘00s.
When did the rivalry flip in favor of the Wolverines? Well right about the time they installed their own countdown clocks and started doing Ohio State practice periods and their head coach said they were gonna beat the Buckeyes or die trying.
(That is also when their elaborate sign-stealing operation got going, but we’ll leave that discussion for another day.)
Again, it’s anyone’s guess how much any of that matters, but the record is the record.
And Ohio State has not played well in any of the four losses in the last four years.
Last year that could be applied in any number of ways, and in ’23 it showed up just in how Michigan seemed to manufacture its own luck as Ohio State chased the game from early on.
Both teams always have a puncher’s chance in this game, and this year will be no different. As we sit here today, Michigan still has a shot to make the Big Ten Championship game despite having lost at USC.
Day earned lots of leeway with the run to the national championship last season, but I don’t think I’d be in a hurry to spend as much as he would by losing to the Wolverines with a superior team again.
It’s a brave new world of college football, but some things still never change. And that’s that bragging rights still matter, at least in these states and at least in this game.
To wit, I even talked to an Ohio State fan early in the season who said he wasn’t sure if the Buckeyes could repeat as national champions, “But I don’t really care. I just want them to beat Michigan.”
Is that crazy? Maybe a little, but I nodded in agreement.
Not every week can be normal no matter how much a coach might want it to be.
I think Day is overthinking this one.
What do you think? Is “normalizing” Michigan week a good idea? Does it matter? How would you handle it? Always feel free to email me back or share in the comments!
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