There have been a great many posts on this website about games from long ago in which Michigan prevailed over the Buckeyes.  Perhaps we should start a new category for posts of ancient history.  But the game played yesterday ended up 14-3.  Some likened it to the old school games of Woody and Bo, but with Tressel deciding to have the Buckeyes take a knee instead of going for 8 like Woody would have, I can’t say I agree with that. 

A long time ago when OSU was in the cancerous grip of the Cooper years, I told a Michigan supporter and friend of mine from law school that the pendulum would swing back the other way one day.  He doubted it.  Now he takes solace in the fact that if my prediction can come true for OSU, it can come true for Michigan.  Someday.

ESPN’s College Gameday crew was where it was supposed to be, at The Game.  But as the camera panned around the throngs of people wearing maize and blue, almost everyone of them was screaming and holding up a finger indicating that their team was number one.  I’ll have to do some checking, but it does seem a good bet that Michigan University is the best team in the state of Michigan. 

But being number one in the Big Ten is another matter.  It requires more than a lot of talk from Mike Hart.  The folks on Sportcenter after the contest showed a clip of Hart jumping up and down before the game at midfield and jawing with nearby Buckeyes.  The anchor commented that Hart had to be physically restrained and spot shadowed a coaching assistant pushing him backwards.  Apparently the Buckeye defense watched how the Michigan graduate assistant physically restrained Mr. Hart and then used that as a model for how to physically restrain him during the game.  Hart finished with 42 yards rushing. 

At least Chad Henne was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.  When that guy gets to the pros and gets under a coaching staff that will actually improve his talents, he will be formidable.  He will also be a lot better of a QB when he has receivers who will catch balls that hit them in the chest and don’t hang their heads in the face of recurring failure for other teammates to see.

I’ll do an analysis of the game a bit later.  This column is largely a low-class unsportsmanlike “I told you so” rant.  It’s especially for goblue, who predicted that OSU would lose 4 to 5 games this year after I indicated that this team had a good chance to go undefeated.  Now, I will never fault a Michgan supporter for predicting that the U of M will beat OSU.  I always predicted OSU victories even during the Cooper Era.  But you need to understand college football a bit better in order to avoid picking OSU to lose to the likes of Washington, Wisconsin, and Penn State.  Of course, I must admit that his prediction about the Illinois game was annoyingly accurate.

Oh to be the stadium announcer at the Big House:  “Thanks for coming out folks.  Take those keys you were jingling earlier, go out to your cars, and leave.  And relax folks, it will be a whole 364 days until we will certainly get beat again.”

P.S.  Also from the low class department was the sign unfurled at the end of the game by a few OSU fans which said something to the effect of “Goodbye Coach Carr, thanks for all the memories.”  It wasn’t quite as low class as Desmond Howard striking the Heisman pose in the endzone years back, now celebrated by Michigan fans as an iconic game moment, but it struck the kind of low note that Michigan fans… “deserve” isn’t the word I want, perhaps, “should get used to after their past iconic moments” would be better usage.

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