What last season’s loss to Michigan means for Ohio State
JACOB BENGE | THE LANTERN SPORTS EDITOR
Every year, a clock in the Woody
Hayes Athletic Center counts down
toward kickoff between Ohio State
and Michigan.
Since 2012, “The Game” clock had
ticked toward when Ohio State would
eventually defeat Michigan, prevail-
ing in eight-straight matchups.
Last season, it didn’t end in victory.
“When you live this year-round, it
hurts,” head coach Ryan Day said.
When No. 5 Michigan upset No. 2
Ohio State 42-27 on Nov. 27, 2021, it
ended the Buckeyes’ streaks of four-
straight Big Ten Championships and
back-to-back College Football Playoff
appearances.
Despite an 11-2 record and Rose
Bowl victory, last season wasn’t
deemed a success by Day and Ohio
State’s standards.
“Maybe at some places, 11-2 with a
Rose Bowl victory is a good year —
it isn’t at Ohio State,” Day said. “Our
three goals are: beat the team up
north, win the Big Ten Champion-
ship, win the national championship.
That’s the goal. Those three didn’t
happen last year.”
The Buckeyes heard others ques-
tion their youth and inexperience,
as they replaced 13 starters from its
2020 team that advanced to the CFP
National Championship.
Ohio State hired former Oklahoma
State defensive coordinator Jim
Knowles to the same position, mak-
ing a change toward its defense that
allowed nearly 373 yards and 23
points per game in 2021.
Knowles notably has changed the
Buckeye defense to consistently fea-
ture four defensive linemen, two
linebackers and five defensive backs.
He’s also added a wrinkle he brought
with him from previous coaching
stops in the “Jack” position, which is
a hybrid linebacker that can line up
front in run defense and drop back
into coverage.
Day said he hoped Ohio State’s
coaching change could see them
playing top-10 defense, and Knowles
upped the ante by saying in the pre-
season that he expects a “top-five de-
fense.” Knowles said the Buckeyes are
progressively adding to their defense
with new concepts and plays, saying
they’re “ahead of schedule” as the
month of November is underway.
“Everything is about habits that be-
come a lifestyle, so we want to stop
every team on every possession of
every game,” Knowles said. “The way
we play has got to be an every day,
every game thing where you expect
to stop, when you compete to stop
them, on that series because when
the time comes that you need it that’s
all you’ll know.”
The Buckeyes heard criticism over
the offseason. They heard about how
they lacked toughness in the loss to
Michigan, and they heard about it
from their rivals.
Former Michigan offensive coordi-
nator Josh Gattis said on the “Inside
Michigan Football” radio show Nov.
29, 2021, the Wolverines knew they
could “out-tough” Ohio State, and it
led to victory.
“They’re a good team. They’re a
finesse team — they’re not a tough
team,” Gattis said. “And so we knew
that going into the game that we can
out-physical them, we can out-tough
them, and that was going to be the
key to the game.”
But the Buckeyes aren’t listening
to what others are saying about them
this season.
Third-year quarterback C.J. Stroud
said the Buckeyes “don’t really listen”
to external expectations, and Day
said “We’ve always said it’s about us.”
Winning the next game week in and
week out is Ohio State’s top priority,
and Day said the Buckeyes must avoid
looking past their next opponent.
“Our goals are still our goals,” Day
said. “If we don’t maximize every sin-
gle minute of the day this week, then
it doesn’t matter.”
Second-year wide receiver Mar-
vin Harrison Jr. said Ohio State’s
“competitive stamina” motto has
shown itself this season, such as the
fourth-quarter comeback at then-
No. 13 Penn State and in unfavorable
weather at Northwestern.
Harrison said the Buckeyes must
do what’s necessary to “put ourselves
in the best position” because Ohio
State “can’t lose any upcoming
games.”
“We can’t look too forward to the
game at the end of the month, so
each day we try to take it day by day,
get better,” Harrison said. “Lot to
work on even though we have suc-
cess and the wins, things like that.
There’s still always issues.”
Day said toughness isn’t some-
thing that appears overnight but
has been something of which Ohio
State has taken note.
“I think you can see that our guys
have played physical. That’s some-
thing that we’ve taken a lot of pride
in this year,” Day said. “I think if
you’ve seen some of the teams we
played and talked to the teams we
played, you’ve recognized how
hard, how tough we’ve played.”
Last season, Ohio State and Mich-
igan met for the first time in a new
chapter of the rivalry after the
COVID-19 pandemic forced cancel-
lation of “The Game” in 2020.
This season? All the chips are in.
“I think where all the chips fall,
they’re going to fall, and hopefully
we’re hoisting the big trophy at the
end,” third-year offensive lineman
Luke Wypler said. “The tough team
is going to win any given Saturday,
so for us, it’s just that’s the measure.
It’s how tough can you be week in
and week out?”
Michigan has the chance to reassert its place in the rivalry. It just needs to win
SPENCER RAINES | MICHIGAN DAILY SPORTS EDITOR
There’s something that the Wol-
verines won’t tell you. There’s a
yearning that’s tucked away in the in-
ner recesses of the program.
Deep down, Michigan wants to be
like Ohio State.
Of course, the Wolverines will nev-
er say it, but it’s been like this for
years now. They’ve seen their arch-ri-
val contend on a national stage sea-
son after season, hapless as the Buck-
eyes roll over them time after time
on their way to countless accolades.
Michigan wants the success that its
rival enjoys, and for the better part of
two decades, that lust has been seem-
ingly unsatisfiable.
Then 2021 happened.
After breaking through the barrier
against its greatest rival in emphatic
fashion, Michigan has an opportuni-
ty to reestablish itself as a true com-
petitor in the rivalry — proving that
last year was not an anomaly, but the
start of a new era.
Immediately
after
that
game,
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh em-
phatically proclaimed that it was the
latter.
“It feels like the beginning, every-
thing about the team,” Harbaugh said
back on Nov. 27, 2021, following his
first win over Ohio State. “Every day,
every week, every month. This has
always felt like the beginning.”
That’s only the case, though, if the
Wolverines keep it up.
Last year was the perfect storm,
both literally and figuratively. Snow-
flakes whistled through the air, set-
ting the stage for Michigan’s biggest
win of the millennium.
Then-senior running back Has-
san Haskins had five touchdowns
and
then-senior
defensive
end
Aidan Hutchinson had three sacks.
And while weather and individual
brilliance weren’t the sole reasons
the Wolverines won, they certainly
helped.
Which poses the question: How do
they reach that apex again?
After last year’s game, then-junior
quarterback Cade McNamara, having
led Michigan to victory, made a dec-
laration:
“Long term, we’ve set the expecta-
tion now,” he said. “It’s been so long
since we beat Ohio State, but we did
that today. For the guys coming back,
now we’ve got to do that every single
year. We know what it took.”
McNamara won’t be the quarter-
back when The Game comes around
this year, but that doesn’t mean his
point is moot. The foundations of
a precedent have been set and the
Wolverines can make good on what
McNamara declared. But in order to
do that, they’ll have to break years of
anguish.
An anguish that is, at this point,
generational.
As someone who grew up in Ypsi-
lanti, MI, just 15 minutes down I-94
east of Ann
Arbor, I have witnessed firsthand-
Michigan’s annual end of season loss
on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
I, along with many of the players
on the Michigan football team, was
not alive the last time that the Wol-
verines beat Ohio State in Columbus
in 2000. That year also marked the
last time that
Michigan beat the Buckeyes twice in
a row — 1999 and 2000.
This season, the Wolverines have
the chance to break both of those
droughts. If they do, they will cement
themselves as one of the favorites to
win the national title. They can bring
the rivalry’s on-field product — and
the stakes surrounding the matchup
— up to the standard that so many
have wanted for years.
Last November, as Michigan fans
rushed the field and then onto the
snowy streets of Ann Arbor, it was
clear that, despite what many said,
the rivalry never left. The inevitabili-
ty and almost mythological stature of
Ohio State just clouded that fact, but
The Game is still here, and it’s still
elevated above every other game on
the schedule.
But it’s also still the barbed-wire
fence that separates the Wolverines
from the rest of college football’s
elite.
There’s a blueprint for taking that
barrier down, but it’s precariously
perched upon a ledge that’s just bare-
ly in reach. If they revert back to the
precedent set by recent history, all of
that progress will evaporate in just 60
minutes.
It’s for that reason that this year’s
contest means so much more for
Michigan than almost any other
game.
There’s a gateway for the Wolver-
ines to reach college football’s prom-
ised land, a path to all of their goals
that they have so unabashedly worn
on their sleeve:
“Our goals would be to beat Ohio
State and Michigan State in the same
year, win the Big Ten Championship,
and win the National Championship,”
Harbaugh told reporters at Big Ten
Media Days on July 26. “Those are
our four goals.”
They already beat the Spartans.
The only true obstacle that’s left in
the way of a second consecutive col-
lege football playoff is Ohio State.
Who would have it any other way?
This year just feels different than
others, at least that I can recall. It
doesn’t feel like a David versus Goli-
ath story, as it was last year or count-
less ones before. Michigan’s chances
at victory are once again tangible.
If I was a betting man, I’d still prob-
ably pick the Buckeyes to win — it’s
hard to predict that something is go-
ing to happen when you’ve quite lit-
erally never been alive to see it. But
Michigan does have a shot at fully
reasserting itself back into the rivalry
on the field, and that was barely be-
lievable in itself until recently.
With a win, the Wolverines can fi-
nally satiate their decades-long hun-
ger. They’ll finally be like the Buck-
eyes.
They just need to do something that
recent history tells us is nearly im-
possible.
MACKENZIE SHANKLIN/Lantern File Photo
KATE HUA/Daily