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Any of the top college football cognoscenti would have bought futures in Ohio State over any program in the B1G after the 2017 season.
The Buckeyes were a safer play than Michigan State, a hot and cold operation whose sole purpose is to ruin any budding fun or offensive ingenuity in the conference. Same goes for Penn State, who would enter the 2018 season without the program’s most electric running back and the offensive coordinator with enough nationwide gravitas his schematic quirks warranted an oral history in Sports Illustrated.
Forget about that school up north.
Michigan ended the year with five losses, inadequate play from the quarterback position and the preliminary stages of whispers that a Michigan Man might not be up to the task of leading other Michigan Men to a spot that no other Michigan Man had been since 1997. Even then a Michigan Man had to split the title with a future member of congress.
Man.
Ohio State was the safest play. Maybe the return was minimal, but the Alabama of the Midwest (Relax, have a cream soda. I can also call them the Oklahoma of the Midwest to soothe any nerves.) showed no signs of slowing down. The program remained the preeminent team and the best chance for the B1G to land a team in the college football playoff.
What a difference nine months makes. Ask anyone except Antonio Cromartie.
Michigan and Ohio State are two ships passing in the night, one towards supremacy, the other overwhelmed with nagging uncertainties.
Michigan rubber-stamped the team’s charge to the college football playoff with a convincing win against Penn State. Ohio State struggled with 2-win Nebraska. Excitement for the former, worry for the latter. What’s more puzzling is how the two programs reversed fortunes in a way so out of character for their coaches.
Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh is the steadying force? Urban Meyer of Ohio State the new emblem of uncertainty?
Harbaugh’s quirks, from the state secrets of depth chart information, to his dietary habits (hooray for whole milk, go scratch chicken), and slow yet steady physical transformation into Bo Schembechler inhibit Harbaugh the football coach from getting the praise he deserves. The character traits that make the head coach a complex fictional character overshadow the excellent job he’s done this season with what has become an incredibly well-balanced team.
Though play-by-play and color commentators are contractually required to refer to the Michigan unit as “Don Brown’s Defense,” Harbaugh, along with Brown and the team’s Commission of Offensive Decision Makers brought stability to a program in bad need of it after a five-loss season in 2017. Harbaugh couldn’t find a quarterback through his time at Michigan. He struggled to beat Michigan State. Penn State handed him a brutal loss last year. Wisconsin beat the Wolverines at home last season in one embarrassment after another. The embarrassments seemed to have slowed for the school up north. The redemption tour hits Ann Arbor this week for a home game against Wisconsin.
Progress and stability all wrapped up into one actualized by an eight-game winning streak.
Ah yes, wins. A sure sign of program stability most of the time.
Other times wins do not allow for such confidence. Like when as the head football coach and Knower of All Things in Columbus you hitch your professional reputation to the Spaulding Smails of your coaching staff and created catastrophic controversy around a program that dovetails into shoddier play each consecutive week of the season.
Ohio State looks primed to continue their slow descent into a two or three loss season after an unconvincing win against Nebraska. The defense failed to get its act together after Meyer kept defensive coordinator Greg Schiano in Columbus and not on the road recruiting the Monday following the team’s loss to Purdue. How would the Buckeyes have looked without the extra attention to detail?
We’re in the midst of a dogs and cats living together sort of season in the B1G.
Sell, sell, sell.
Nick is a writer for saturdaytradition.com. Your overuse of GIFs forced him away from Twitter. He removed himself from consideration in the Vanderbilt heading coaching search.