It’s almost laughable that in his six years at Ohio State, coach Ryan Day is 1-3 against Michigan and 38-0 against the rest of the Big Ten.
The Big Ten now has what, a thousand teams in it? And they all exist as chum for Ohio State leading up to the regular season-ending meat-fest against Michigan.
For fellow shark Michigan, it’s the same. No other Big Ten game matters. Yes, there are occasional nips from Penn State and Michigan State through the years. But do the Buckeyes or Wolverines fear Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota, Rutgers, Nebraska, Maryland and so on?
No, they do not.
Yet even though 11-1 Ohio State beat the other Big Ten teams this year by the average score of 26-7, all that matters is Michigan. And the 30-24 loss Saturday in Ann Arbor has Buckeye fans grumbling that Day can’t win the big ones, that he’s overmatched, that he doesn’t understand the despicable nature of the blue-and-maize up north.
Up there resides the man the Buckeye Nation despises most, coach Jim Harbaugh. Whether Harbaugh’s a genius, a charlatan, a brilliant tactician, a cheater, a great recruiter, a wonderful but misunderstood human being, depends on your perspective.
And for Ohio State there’s only one view — he’s an impediment to glory.
The Buckeyes may yet make the 2023 College Football Playoff. But the loss to Michigan hurts. In the Power Five, there are four undefeated teams and four one-loss teams heading into conference-title games. Weird stuff could happen.
For instance, if 10-2 Iowa were to somehow upset 12-0 Michigan (almost impossible but it could happen), Ohio State wouldn’t be so special anymore.
An aside here. I was with new Ohio State coach John Cooper some years ago — he’d been hired to replace “9-3 Earle Bruce” — and I jokingly told him I saw a wolverine in the wooded lot where Cooper was going to build his house. “A wolverine?’’ he said in alarm, looking around.
It was a groundhog. A cheap gag, true. Cooper chuckled about it later.
But the fact is in Bruce’s nine years at Ohio State he won 81 games, the best record in the Big Ten during that time. Then he was fired. Cooper himself would be fired after 13 years. He still has the second-most wins in Ohio State history, after only Woody Hayes, but he went 2-10-1 against Michigan.
So Ryan Day knows what he’s up against, great record or not.
At Michigan, Harbaugh has gone 26-1 in the Big Ten his last three seasons. The pressure on him now is to win the national championship. And not have his team put on probation for whatever the alleged sign-stealing scandal finally reveals. And the pressure is on Michigan to keep him. Keep him, if he’s clean, that is.
Rumors, naturally, have Harbaugh becoming the Bears’ next coach, after Matt Eberflus is fired.
Maybe. Who knows? The world of coaching is a carousel run by speed freaks.
Which leads us to Northwestern and its startlingly successful, accidental coach, David Braun. Starting the year as the Wildcats’ new defensive coordinator, straight from lower-echelon North Dakota State, Braun, 38, suddenly became thede facto head coach after Pat Fitzgerald was fired before the first game over his alleged knowledge of team hazing.
Northwestern is now 7-5, ready to play in a bowl game, and who would have thought it?
In Fitzgerald’s last two seasons the Wildcats went 4-20, with one Big Ten win each year. And yet, Fitzgerald was in no danger of getting fired — until the hazing accusations.
Northwestern doesn’t have any do-or-die conditions for its coaches like Ohio State or Michigan, no hated rival that must be slain. Illinois? That’s a giggle. Two teams that putter along?
Nobody ever mentions competing for the national championship at Northwestern. Just be relevant and scandal-free.
Consider: Northwestern has lost 32 consecutive games to Ohio State. The last win was a 14-10 nail-biter in 1971. The hero was Greg Strunk who returned a kickoff for a 93-yard touchdown, leading Woody Hayes to kick one of his players in rage.
I guess if there’s a point here, it’s know where you are, coaches.
Gary Barnett could have stayed at Northwestern as long as he wanted. So could have Randy Walker, who died suddenly in 2006. Fitzgerald could have coached until retirement.
But Barnett wanted more and tripped off to Colorado. Fitzgerald simply forgot to mind the store. Walker, R.I.P.
David high-flying Braun?
Be careful, friend.
