Odds are Buckeye Nation arrived at this first sentence by virtue of the headline above, and said nation is wondering exactly to what address they should send the rotten tomatoes they wish to lob my direction.

But here me out on this one, kind friends …

Ohio State should be thanking Michigan right now.

Ducks thrown chair

Feel better getting that out of your system?

Yes, we are fully aware that thanking your arch-rival for anything other than their participation in a 99-0 beatdown is sacrilege of the highest order. You don’t see Pepsi taking out ads thanking Coca-Cola for the one-sided thrashing handed down in the Cola Wars, do you? Did the New York Yankees pen love letters to the Boston Red Sox after the Sox finally broke the 86-year-old Curse of the Bambino in 2004?

Of course not, 2x. So why should Buckeyes from Ashtabula to Elizabethtown start suddenly revering the existence of the 13th letter of the alphabet – the one that gets banned throughout the state in the week leading up to The Game?

Here’s the answer, whether you like it or not: Without Michigan in 2023 and 2024, Ohio State wouldn’t be on the cusp of a national championship.

Ducks another thrown chair

You’ll probably want that chair back to sit down and absorb the truth grenade from which I just pulled the pin. Without the Wolverines, it is entirely likely that the Buckeyes don’t roll through the College Football Playoff and have a Monday night date with Notre Dame to decide who claims the Big Enchilada. The Buckeyes are 8.5-point favorites, per DraftKings, to follow Michigan’s 2023 natty with 1 of their own.

Hold my hand as I walk through this with you. If, instead of Ohio State playing like Youngstown High School against Michigan on Nov. 30 in the Shoe, the Buckeyes come out and take care of business against That Team Up North … an entirely different chain of events is set into motion.

Winning against Michigan would have meant Ohio State returning to the Big Ten title game for a rematch against Oregon – on neutral artificial turf in Indianapolis. And I’ll even offer that Ohio State, buoyed by beating its arch-rival, smacks around Oregon the way it ended up doing in the Rose Bowl.

Then what?

It is Ohio State, not Oregon, that gets the bye week into a quarterfinal home game, likely against … Oregon.

Yikes. Beating a team twice in a row would be a huge challenge, and the Buckeyes would well be ripe for a fall. Out of the Playoff. Out of national championship contention. Sure, everyone would get their Gold Pants … but if you could only have 1, wouldn’t you want a national championship ring?

Instead, we know what actually happened – Ohio State rallied from within after the embarrassing Michigan loss, eager to make a point that they are a better football team than they showed Nov. 30 and that Ryan Day is a better head coach. Smacking down Tennessee in the Playoff first round put the full wind of momentum in the Buckeyes’ sails, which begat the 41-21 thumping of Oregon in Pasadena and was also enough for tOSU to down Texas in the Cotton Bowl.

And it isn’t just this year’s Michigan football team you should be thanking. In reality, if it wasn’t for last season’s Michigan squad, Ryan Day and Co. wouldn’t have gotten frothed up enough in the offseason to assemble the reported $20 million NIL roster to compete.

Nothing motivates you more than your rival enjoying success, and boy did Michigan enjoy its 2023 success all over Ohio State’s front lawn. The same thing happened to Auburn in 2010, a year after Alabama broke through under Nick Saban for the first of its 6-title reign. Florida winning it all in 2006 pushed Saban-led LSU to glory in 2007, which boomeranged back again to Florida in 2008. And LSU beating Alabama later in the Joe Burrow-fueled 2019 season pushed the Crimson Tide back to the pinnacle in 2020.

This motivational trend isn’t exclusive property of college football. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird alternated winning NBA titles for 3 consecutive seasons from 1980-82 — and then 4 more consecutive seasons from 1984-87. It’s not lost on anybody that bitter rivals UNC, Duke and NC State — programs that share the same 919 area code — push one another to excellence. Three times, one of those programs has followed a rival’s NCAA Tournament title by winning its own. Kentucky and Louisville did the same thing, alternating as national champs in 2012 and 2013.

The motivation in each instance was real, nearly feral and subconscious in nature – just as it is with each and every Buckeye fan anytime Michigan manages to cross the proverbial street without tripping on their proverbial shoelaces. And when you factor in the 2023 Wolverines title run with those same Wolverines planting a flag at midfield after winning as a 3-touchdown underdog, well, that’s how walls get run through.

So take a deep breath, Buckeye Nation, and offer a silent thank you northbound toward Ann Arbor. Because without your arch-rival’s success, it is likely you’re watching Monday’s national championship game on television instead of playing for it all in Atlanta.