20 Best Moments from America’s Best Rivalry

There’s a reason Ohio State vs. Michigan is called “The Game.”

It is the greatest rivalry in college football. Numerous polls have deemed it so including one from the end of last century from ESPN and Fox’s list of the 20 greatest global rivalries, one per sport. That’s not opinion, folks. It’s science.

About the only things the two schools agree on is that Saturday’s game (noon ET kickoff, Ohio Stadium, Fox TV) is the 115th in the series and that Michigan leads the series on the field 58-50-6 — or 58-49-6, not counting OSU’s vacated victory in 2010.

Since Michigan first faced Ohio State in 1897, the rivalry’s intensity has been off the charts. It pits neighbor against neighbor — for two states which nearly had a militia war in the 1830s over where the border between them should be drawn — and it has settled the Big Ten champion about as often as not, especially over the past 50 years.

So with Saturday’s meeting looming, let’s look back at the 20 greatest moments in the history of The Game, with 10 from Michigan and 10 from Ohio State.

10 best Michigan moments

10. Biggest rout ever, 1902

Albert Hernstein scored five touchdowns for the host Wolverines, who inflicted the worst defeat on Ohio State not just in series history but in Buckeyes program history by 86-0. Little is certain in life but I’d say that record is going to stand forever. This wasn’t even Michigan biggest romp of 1902; coach Fielding Yost’s “Point a Minute” team drilled Michigan State 119-0 and Iowa 107-0.

9. Ramping things up, 1964

Michigan hadn’t won a Big Ten title since 1950 (more on that year later) when the teams met to settle league honors in Columbus. Two Ohioans — quarterback Bob Timberlake and halfback Jim Detwiler — connected on a short pass for the game’s lone touchdown. No. 6 Michigan went to the Rose Bowl with a 10-0 victory over the No. 7 Buckeyes.

8. The guarantee, 1986

Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh guaranteed victory — just as his running back, Karan Higdon, did this week — when he was the team’s quarterback. Harbaugh, now UM’s coach, and the No. 6 Wolverines delivered 32 years ago in Columbus with a 26-24 victory. Matt Frantz missed a 45-yard field goal which would have given the No. 7 Buckeyes the lead with 1:06 remaining.

7. Hello, Heisman, 1991

No. 4 Michigan dominated 31-3 against No. 18 OSU in Ann Arbor. We could cite some stats but there’s really only one play anybody remembers: Desmond Howard returning a punt 93 yards for a touchdown. ABC broadcaster Keith Jackson exclaimed, “Hello, Heisman” and a second later Howard, as if on cue, struck a Heisman Trophy pose in the end zone:

6. Spoiler alert, 1996

The Wolverines entered this one ranked 21st, coming off of back-to-back B1G losses. OSU was ranked No. 2, had already clinched a Rose Bowl berth and was angling for a piece of the national championship. The host Buckeyes led 9-0 at halftime before Brian Griese came off the bench and led the Wolverines to an improbable 13-9 comeback victory.

5. Dedication derailed, 1922

Michigan lost three in a row to OSU coming into the 1922 game, which was not the first game at Ohio Stadium but was the the formal dedication game for the new facility. The visiting Wolverines ruined the occasion for about 70,000 fans, beating the Buckeyes 19-0. The Horseshoe was also known as The House that Harley built (more on him later).

4. On pace for national title, 1997

When the teams met in Ann Arbor, the fourth-ranked Buckeyes had a perfect chance to wreck No. 1 Michigan’s national title hopes much as the Wolverines had done to them often in recent years. No such luck. UM led 20-0 behind a sterling performance from soon-to-be Heisman winner Charles Woodson and withstood a Buckeyes rally to win 20-14. UM wound up splitting the national title with Nebraska.

3. The Snow Bowl, 1950

The Wolverines did not gain a first down or complete a single pass in Columbus. Yet they beat the No. 8 Buckeyes 9-3. This legendary game was played in a blizzard (yeah, the name is literal) and the teams combined to punt 45 times. Sometimes they punted on first down, just to force a snowy mistake. That strategy worked for Michigan, which blocked a punt and recovered it for the game’s lone touchdown.

2. Biakabutuka goes wild, 1995

This was the first of three consecutive years in which the Wolverines dashed their rival’s national title ambitions as No. 12 Michigan beat No. 2 OSU 31-23 in Ann Arbor. This is also memorable for one name: Tim Biakabutuka. The senior rushed for 314 yards, the second-best single-game performance in Wolverines history and the most in The Game for either program.

1. The upset, and ‘War’ begins, 1969

Defending national champion OSU had been ranked No. 1 all season. Some rated the Buckeyes as the best team of all time. But the No. 12 Wolverines had a new coach in Bo Schembechler, who had played for and been an assistant coach under Woody Hayes. In his first game as UM coach against Hayes, Schembechler’s charges won 24-12 in Ann Arbor for what is still considered one of the greatest upsets in college football history. This memorably began the “Ten-Year War” between Schembechler and Hayes.

10 best Ohio State moments

10. Drive to national glory, 1954

The Buckeyes were top-ranked while Michigan came into Columbus No. 12 in the AP poll. And the Wolverines made it interesting as the score was tied at 7 going into the fourth quarter. OSU stuffed UM at the goal line then embarked on an epic 99-yard drive, highlighted by Hopalong Cassaday’s 52-yard run, to go ahead 14-7. OSU won 21-7 and was crowned national champion.

9. Bruce’s big debut, 1979

Earle Bruce did the impossible, replacing a legend in Hayes. He then followed impossible with even more impossible by winning his first 10 games. OSU was second in the AP poll, the host Wolverines were 13th. The visiting Buckeyes ran their record to 11-0 with an 18-15 squeaker when Jim Laughlin blocked a fourth-quarter UM punt and Todd Bell ran it in for the winning touchdown.

8. Barely preserved, 2002

No. 2 OSU was heavily favored at home, with a shot at a national title. Sound familiar? It was just the type of scene No. 9 Michigan made a habit of ruining in the previous decade. But this time Will Allen intercepted UM’s last-ditch effort and Buckeyes fans joyously flooded the field after a 14-9 win. OSU went on to win the national title, beating Miami in overtime in an all-time epic.

7. Capstone on ‘The House that Harley Built,’ 1919

Of the first 14 series meetings, the Wolverines won 12 and two were tied. Charles “Chic” Harley changed all of that. OSU’s first All-American — a three-time honoree — led the Buckeyes to a 13-3 victory in Ann Arbor with a 50-yard touchdown run from punt formation. Soon after, excited OSU fans began a funding drive to build Ohio Stadium, dubbed at the time “The House that Harley built.”

6. Try for two denied, 2013

Devin Gardner passed for 451 yards, second-most ever at Michigan, as the unranked Wolverines gained 603 total yards. Visiting Ohio State, ranked third in the BCS, still won 42-41 in the highest-scoring modern edition of The Game. Buckeyes quarterback Braxton Miller threw for two TDs and ran for three. UM got within a point on a TD with 32 seconds left but OSU’s Tyvis Powell picked off the two-point try:

5. Four Roses for OSU, 1975

Archie Griffin’s second Heisman Trophy came even harder than his first in a bruising senior season. Oddly, he had perhaps his worst game against the host Wolverines with just 46 yards, ending his 100-yard streak at 31 games. Instead, fullback Pete Johnson scored all three touchdowns for No. 1 OSU, which beat No. 4 UM 21-14 to become the first Big Ten team to go to the Rose Bowl four years in a row.

4. Because he couldn’t go for three, 1968

Woody Hayes put together an absolute juggernaut in 1968 as his “Super Sophomores” rolled to a national title. Few would remember the No. 2 Buckeyes routing the No. 4 Wolverines 50-14 in Columbus, except that Hayes went for a two-point conversion after OSU’s last TD. Legend has it that, when asked why he went for two with nothing to gain, the old man said, “Because I couldn’t go for three.”

3. When a tie is a win, 1973

This one still makes people mad in Michigan. No. 1 Ohio State and No. 4 Michigan, both unbeaten, met in Ann Arbor with a Rose Bowl trip and national title hopes on the line. The teams tied 10-10 and tied for first in the B1G. An injury to Michigan quarterback Dennis Franklin in the game might have played a factor when the league’s 10 athletic directors voted for OSU to represent the B1G over UM in the Rose Bowl. Schembechler’s bitterness over the vote never abated in the 30-plus years before his death.

2. That call and OT glory, 2016

This one also still makes people mad in Michigan. The Buckeyes were No. 2 in the College Football Playoff rankings and visiting Michigan was third. This was the first game in series history to go overtime. Michigan led 27-24 in the second OT when J.T. Barrett converted on a fourth-down run — or did he? — to set up Curtis Samuel’s winning TD on the next play for OSU’s 30-27 victory. The spot of the ball on Barrett’s run is debated to this day.

https://youtu.be/0vErEcKu2ZQ?t=412

1. Game of the Century, 2006

This game between unbeatens in Columbus had everything. OSU was first, UM second in the BCS and AP rankings, a first in series history. Then Wolverines coaching legend Schembechler died the day before the game, casting a pall over the proceedings. The Buckeyes’ soon-to-be Heisman Trophy winner, Troy Smith, passed for 316 yards and four TDs in a 42-39 victory. OSU clinched a berth in the BCS Championship Game with this most memorable of all the Big Games.