This Saturday the biggest rivalry in college football, maybe all of sports takes place. Thee Ohio Sate buckeyes will take on the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor Michigan. The game was ranked by ESPN in 2000 as the greatest North American sports rivalry.
The inaugural meeting between the two schools began in 1897 in Ann Arbor and ended in a Michigan win of 34-0. That Michigan victory started a long ling of wins over the Buckeyes, with Michigan winning or tying every match from 1897 to 1912 and thereby compiling a 12-0-2 record before the contest was postponed for several years.
Ohio State became a member of the Big Ten Conference in 1912. In 1917, Michigan rejoined the conference after a ten year absence. In 1918, the teams played their first conference match up, with Michigan prevailing 14–0 and lodging its eleventh shutout over the Buckeyes. In 1919, the Buckeyes (led by legendary halfback Chic Harley) won their first game in the series, defeating the Wolverines 13–3. The Buckeyes won the following two contests as well, to bring the series record to 13–3–2.
The Horse Shoe was built in 1922 and the first of many historic games in Ohio Stadium took place on October 21, 1922, the day the stadium was dedicated in Columbus. In front of a record 71,000 fans, the Wolverines posted another shutout of the home team Buckeyes, 19–0. According to lore, there was a wager on the outcome of this game, and yellow flowers on a blue background still exist today in the upper part of the stadium's rotunda. Michigan won the next five games before OSU picked up the final two victories of the decade. At the end of the 1920s, the series stood at 19-5-2 in favor of Michigan.
In 1950, a game that is still considered one of the most famous games in the storied series took place. Known as the “Snow Bowl” Eighth-ranked Ohio State, coached by Wes Fesler, was scheduled to host the game on November 25 in Columbus amidst one of the worst blizzards on Ohio record. The Buckeyes, who led the Big Ten, were granted the option to cancel the game against Michigan, which would have, by default, given the Buckeyes the Big Ten title outright and won them a trip to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. Ohio State refused, and the game was set to be played. Amid howling snow and wind, in what was probably the most literal example of a "field position" game, the teams exchanged 45 punts, often on first down, in hopes that the other team would fumble the ball near or into their own end zone.
Ohio State's Vic Janowicz, who would claim the Heisman Trophy that year, punted 21 times for 685 yards and also kicked a field goal in the first quarter for the Buckeyes' only points. Michigan capitalized on two blocked punts, booting one out of the back of the end zone for a safety and recovering another one in the end zone for a touchdown just before halftime. Despite failing to gain a single first down or complete a single forward pass, Michigan gained a 9–3 victory, securing the Big Ten title and a Rose Bowl berth. Heavy criticism of Fesler's play calling led to his resignation and the hiring of Woody Hayes as his successor.
Between 1951 and 1968 under Hayes, the Buckeyes won 12 of 18 contests, including a 1957 victory in Michigan Stadium, the first game in the series attended by over 100,000 fans. In the 1968 game, Ohio State won 50–14, outscoring its foe 29–0 in second half and attempting an unsuccessful two-point conversion attempt on its final touchdown. When asked why he went for two points with an already insurmountable 50–14 lead, Woody Hayes is rumored to have said, "Because I couldn't go for three." The victory gave top-ranked Ohio State the Big Ten title for the first time in seven years en route to an AP national championship. The Buckeyes had also narrowed the series margin to 37–24–4.
Wolverines coach Bump Elliott resigned after the 1968 loss and Michigan hired Miami of Ohio head coach Bo Schembechler, who had previous been an assistant at Ohio State under Hayes, to revitalize its football program. On November 22, 1969, Hayes led his top-ranked Buckeyes into Michigan Stadium to face Schembechler's Wolverines in the first matchup between two coaches who would come to define the rivalry between the two programs.
In 1973, both teams entered undefeated, with the winner guaranteed a trip to the Rose Bowl. The rivals played to a 10–10 tie in Ann Arbor on November 24, and the athletic directors of the other Big Ten institutions were forced to vote on the Big Ten representative for the bowl game. In a secret ballot, Ohio State won the vote, to the outrage of Michigan athletic officials and fans. It was rumored that Michigan State University voted for Ohio State, although a more likely reason the Buckeyes won the secret ballot was the injury suffered by Michigan starting quarterback Denny Franklin in the UM-OSU game. It was unclear if Franklin would be ready to play in the Rose Bowl, and the Big Ten ADs may have felt Ohio State would therefore have a better chance to win the bowl game. Schembechler argued that Michigan was robbed of its on-field achievements, and for months afterward, Ohio State newspapers were flooded with angry Wolverine letters and threats of lawsuits.
During the "Ten-Year War," Ohio State and Michigan shared the Big Ten title six times. Between 1976 and 1978, Michigan won the game each year, and Ohio State failed to score a touchdown in each of those contests. Woody Hayes was fired at the end of the 1978 season after punching an opposing player during the Gator Bowl, which ended the "War." The 1978 game was won by Michigan, 14–3, giving Schembechler a record of 5–4–1 against Hayes. At the end of the Hayes tenure, the series stood at 42–28–5.
Earle Bruce took over for Hayes and led the Buckeyes to a 5–4 record against Schembechler's Wolverines between 1979 and 1987, perhaps the most balanced stretch of the storied rivalry, during which neither team won more than two consecutive games. In 1987, Bruce was fired in the week before the Michigan game due to a poor season record, but was allowed to coach anyway, and the inspired Buckeyes won an upset over the heavily favored Wolverines. After the game, Bo Schembechler told Bruce, "I always mind losing to Ohio State but I didn't mind so much today." After 1987, the series stood at 46–33–5 in favor of UM.
The 13 games during John Cooper's tenure as Buckeye coach were dominated by Michigan, as the Wolverines went 10-2-1 during the stretch. The most notorious matchups of the era took place in 1993, 1995, and 1996, in which Ohio State entered the game each year undefeated. The Buckeyes had a 9-0-1 record heading into the 1993 game and were looking to claim an outright Big Ten title against a Michigan team that had already lost four times. The Buckeyes lost 28-0 later Cooper would tell reporters “If you'd told me we would come up here and get beat 28-0, I'd have probably stayed home.”
At the end of the 2000 season, Cooper was fired. While he consistently fielded strong teams, his 2-10-1 record against Michigan, including his failure to ever win in Ann Arbor, was, along with disciplinary problems and a losing record in bowl games, a major contributor to his dismissal. Michigan students held a "John Cooper Day" celebration in Ann Arbor on February 10, 2001 in mock celebration of Cooper's record in the rivalry.
Enter Jim Tressel, the now Buckeyes Head Coach took over the team in 2001, and unlike Cooper,Tressel put a special emphasis on the rivalry. In his introductory speech at halftime of a January basketball game, against Michigan, he said "I can assure you that you will be proud of our young people, in the classroom, in the community, and most especially in 310 days in Ann Arbor, Michigan on the football field." In his first year, Tressel registered the Buckeyes' first defeat of the Wolverines in Ann Arbor in 14 years, by a 26–20 score. Led by senior running back Jonathan Wells,the Buckeyes raced to a 23-0 halftime lead. With Wells out,Michigan mounted a second half comeback that fell just short. The next year, Tressel achieved what Cooper could not: Beating Michigan in consecutive years with a 14–9 victory.
Since becoming Ohio State's 22nd head football coach, his team has played for three National Championships (winning one in 2002), achieving the first 14–0 season record in major college football since Penn went 15–0 in 1897. Most importantly he has only lost to Michigan once He has an overall record of 92–21, including six Big Ten Conference championships, a 4–4 bowl record (3–3 in BCS bowl games) and a 7–1 record against archrival Michigan. Tressel's 7 wins against Michigan place him second in school history to Woody Hayes' 16, and alone in Ohio State football history in winning 7 of his first 8 meetings with the Wolverines, as well as being the only Ohio State head coach to win 5 consecutive games against Michigan
What more can be said about arguably two of the most recognizable and famous colleges in the country and one of the greatest college football teams: GO BUKEYES!!
