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What happens now that The Game has been cancelled?

Well, I wasn’t really prepared to write this article. Even more so, I wasn’t prepared or even expecting to write this on Wednesday. I had put a very little amount of thought into what I wanted to write in this space in the event that the unthinkable happened. Well, the unthinkable has happened. The Game has been cancelled. For the first time since 1917, The Game will not be played. Michigan cancelled on Tuesday a little after 1:00 citing an increase in Covid cases on the team. This is where things get weird, at least to me. On Monday the news broke that the Wolverines were preparing to practice on and have scheduled meetings with the press. There was a lot of optimism out of Ann Arbor that The Game would be played. Then a whirlwind of bad and then worse news broke. First was that all scheduled press conferences would be cancelled(including Jim Harbaughs, which should have been a really bad sign), and then around the time the Buckeyes were having their media meetings the news broke that Michigan’s Athletic Director said that The Game was being cancelled as Michigan would be unable to field a team this week(there's a joke in there somewhere, but I’m not going to make it out of respect to the fact that we very well could be talking about the health of players and staff members, who are people just like us). We don’t have a verified number of positive tests in the Wolverines program, but I’ve seen rumors floating around on twitter that it’s approximately 45 players, which is over half of the 75 man roster. Other things I’ve seen are that Michigan would only have one eligible Quarterback to play(ok, I’m gonna make this joke), which is the same number of eligible Quarterbacks Michigan has had all year since Dylan Mcaffery bolted for different pastures(sorry Joe Milton and whoever else is in the QB position not named Cade Mcnamera). I don’t entirely know what to believe. I do know that 45 players is more than the amount of players Ohio State had out(23) this past weekend when they played Michigan State. And I do not believe that Michigan is trying to dodge playing Ohio State in order to keep them out of the postseason. The potential negative outcomes that could occur if the Wolverines cancel the game solely to dodge playing Ohio State and it were to get out via a disgruntled player or staff member that gets fired this offseason far outweighs the potential positives. With that being said, I want to take a look at what comes next for both teams now that The Game has been cancelled. 

What’s next for Ohio State

We’re gonna start off with what comes next for Ohio State because it’s a bit more complicated for them than it is for Michigan(more on that later). As I wrote yesterday, Ohio State pretty much needed The Game to be played this week. I also said that the importance of The Game depended on where the College Football Playoff(CFP) committee ranked Ohio State this week. Well the rankings came out last night, and Ohio State is still(I have absolutely no clue how) ranked 4th. It keeps them in playoff contention. It helps that Texas A&M isn’t playing a game this week either, so what it may come down to is what the CFP committee thinks after Conference Championship week. Some of these problems would be alleviated if the Buckeyes can find a game to play this week and then they play in the Big 10 Championship game. If they don’t that makes things a lot more interesting. So, the first thing the Buckeyes should focus on doing, is trying to find someone to play on Saturday. The biggest problem is that they are limited to Big 10 opponents. Which means there is no chance in hell they will be playing Texas A&M. Or Coastal Carolina. Or BYU. Or literally anyone else that isn’t in the Big 10. The biggest reason that finding a team to play this Saturday is important is because I highly doubt the Big 10 will change the rule. Kevin Warren seems like he wants to die on this hill. And so does Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith(more on my dislike for both in a later article). Gene Smith is the AD of the flagship program in the Big 10, but he is more worried about kissing up to the Big 10 commissioner than he is about helping out his program. Just like he has been for years. But that’s enough of that. So if Ohio State can’t play this weekend, things are most likely going to be pretty bleak. The Buckeyes will then have a bowl game, or if they are very lucky and the CFP committee is feeling the spirit of the holiday season, Ohio State will be playing in the CFP against Alabama(most likely because that means Ohio State would be the 4 seed) or Notre Dame(less likely because that means Ohio State would be the 3 seed). And if it’s not the College Football Playoff, Ryan Day and the rest of the Buckeyes coaching staff will very quickly have to shift gears to trying to keep the Junior class of players like Justin Fields, Chris Olave, Tommy Togiai, and others that way they can have one more run at a National Championship next year, under hopefully more normal circumstances. If they can’t keep the Junior Class players who are looking at leaving for the NFL, then they have to start prepping the next wave of starters in order to be in Playoff and National Championship contention next year. 

What’s next for Michigan

Things aren’t clear cut or simple for the Michigan Wolverines either. Things are just a little less complicated. They won’t be going to a bowl game. They went 2-4 this season, and after cancelling the final two games of their season, the taste that is left in their mouth will be a bad one, as the Michigan Wolverines lost 27-17 to the Penn State Nittany Lions, giving Penn State their first win of their 2020 campaign, and Michigan never looked like they had a chance of beating Penn State. Combine that with the three overtimes needed to beat Rutgers, the blowout losses against Wisconsin(who had only played one other game up to that point) and Indiana, and the loss to Michigan State despite being a 24 point favorite, this season has only had one bright spot for Michigan, and that was Week 1 against a Minnesota team that turns out to not be that great. So the first question that needs to be answered is about the Head Coach, Jim Harbaugh. On Sunday I said that I believe the only way Harbaugh would get shown the door is if The Game was played and Michigan got the doors blown off of them for a third straight year. I still believe that, and with The Game being cancelled, I think he is safe. In fact, I have heard/read some rumors that Harbaugh has been offered a contract extension, he just has to say yes. Now those just might be rumors, and I do think that the powers that be at Michigan still may have a discussion about Harbaugh, but again, I do ultimately believe that the struggles this season will get chalked up to being because of Covid. However, if Harbaugh gets fired or chooses to leave on his own accord, that means Michigan will have to find someone to replace him. And I don’t really know who they will hire to do that. I don’t think the top Head Coaching candidates will leave their current jobs to go to Michigan. If Harbaugh stays, which is the most likely scenario, he will have to reevaluate his coaching staff, and I do believe that some of them will get fired. I think Don Brown will be one of the first up for the chopping block, as his defense has gotten torn to shreds by Ohio State two years in a row, and aside from one game this year, has not looked good at all. As for the rest of the staff, I don’t know who would be replaced, as I just don’t know enough about the program. But I do believe that not too many members of Michigan's coaching staff have a lot of job security. 

Well, that’s it for today’s Hate Week article. I don’t really have much else to say other than I am disappointed. Yeah, it may be in the best interest of player safety, but it still sucks for the athletes. Saturday was supposed to be Senior Day for the Buckeyes, and it’s distinctly possible they won’t be able to play one last game in The Horseshoe. And it’s not great for the Wolverines seniors either, as their last memory of college football will be of losing to Penn State and then having two games cancelled because of Covid. I’ll be back tomorrow to look at other aspects of this year’s iteration the other ramifications of The Game being cancelled, because it’s Hate Week ladies and gentlemen. 

                                      The Game Has Been Cancelled 

                ALERT LEVEL WHATEVER THE WORST ALERT LEVEL IS                       CALL SOMEONE WHO CAN SAVE US ALL, WE ARE ALL IN DANGER                                                                NOW

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Why Ohio State Needs This Game to be played More than Michigan

It’s Day 3 of Hate Week, and the past two days I have been looking at The Game in two odd ways. One of those was why Michigan should and shouldn’t play, and why The Game may not seem like a rivalry anymore to an outsider. The first one was odd because until this year, I have never questioned if The Game would happen, or even think about one team cancelling The Game. Just to make my position known, I think Michigan should play the game if they are able to safely, and I also believe that the Wolverines would do their best to play The Game as long as it can be done safely. I doubt that they would cancel the game just to dodge Ohio State or cancel the game to prevent Ohio State from making postseason play, because I do believe the potential negative fallout from just cancelling The Game and then being found out that the Michigan Wolverines cancelled just to prevent Ohio State making the postseason is way to great and far outweighs the potential positives from not playing if they can. The second one was odd because I have always thought of the Ohio State-Michigan game as a rivalry, no matter how things have looked for the Wolverines in the past years. Today, I’m going to look at The Game as a fan of Ohio State, which should be pretty easy considering I am an Ohio State fan. Today we are going to examine the reasons why Ohio State needs this The Game played more than Michigan does.

Reason 1: To make the Big 10 Championship Game with no doubt or rules changes

This one is pretty obvious. If The Game is cancelled and Ohio State can’t find a team to play, they don’t meet the requirement to go to the Big 10 Championship Game. And personally, I don’t think the Big 10 is going to change the requirements, no matter what Barry Alveraz says. After the Illinois game was cancelled, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith said that a change in requirements to make the Big 10 Championship has been discussed. And if Ohio State’s AD(whom I will not voice any of my opinions on in this article) hasn’t brought it up, or at least tried to bring it up, then I don’t think it will happen. At this point, Barry Alveraz has brought it up way too late to help his team(Wisconsin), and I think it’s beyond way too late to help Ohio State, no matter what Ohio State’s record may be.

Reason 2: To make the College Football Playoff

This is another pretty obvious one. It’s even more obvious after last week when the committee said they seriously talked about putting 1-loss Texas A&M in the Number 4 spot over Ohio State. It’ll be interesting to see where the committee puts Ohio State tonight, and what they say about them and that placement. If that gap is widened or they jump into the Number 3 spot(where they should be, but that’s a conversation for later)that’s good. If they stay in the Number 4 spot and the committee says that the gap between Ohio State and Texas A&M is still close because of the amount of games that Ohio State hasn’t played(because let's face it, that’s what it’s coming down to since A&M has only played three teams with a winning record, and came very close to losing to the worst team out of those three, not to mention that they only beat Vanderbilt by 5), that’s bad, because the SEC West hasn’t been good this year, and Ohio State can soundly beat everyone A&M has played this year except Alabama and Florida. Those two would be coin tosses because like Ohio State, Alabama and Florida have both looked bad at points(just like ND and Clemson as well, hell just like almost everyone else). 

Reason 3: This is a culmination of the entire season

The Game has become a major part of Ohio State’s identity since Jim Tressel became the Head Coach, and that only got magnified under Urban Meyer, and it’s probably taken just as seriously(if not more)under Ryan Day as it was Urban Meyer. The Game is a culmination of everything done in the spring, summer, and fall camps in the preseason, and all of the work done during the regular season. Sure, there is the bowl game, which could possibly be a College Football Playoff Semi-Final which could lead to the National Championship Game, but it just doesn’t feel the same. Beating Michigan is the primary objective, and then everything else comes second. Everyone at Ohio State, everyone who has ever been affiliated with Ohio State in some way, and everyone who is a fan of Ohio State, wants to beat Michigan. Nothing else is more important. The Michigan Wolverines are Public Enemy Number 1. Then comes everyone else. If The Game was cancelled, everything that has happened up to this point just seems almost pointless. Is that to say Ohio State NEEDS the Michigan Wolverines? Not really, Ohio State could eventually find someone to fill in that void at the end of the season if the Michigan Wolverines football program were to just disappear into the void and become no more. It just wouldn’t feel the same though. Thankfully, I don’t think they’ll be going anywhere soon, even if they don’t play this year, The Game will be played for many years to come. 

And that’s it for today’s article. This was probably the easiest of the three to write, just because I was able to finally sit back, and take a look at this year’s iteration of the The Game from the standpoint of an Ohio State fan. Sure, it was a little bit different, and there was no bias against Michigan, or me going on about how awful the Wolverines are this year. Hell, I didn’t even talk about how I like to watch Ohio State beat Michigan in the article until just now, because I don’t really think that is a valid enough reason to be used for this article. I’ll be back tomorrow to look at other aspects of this year’s iteration  of The Game, because it’s Hate Week ladies and gentlemen. 

                                   T-Minus 96 Hours until The Game

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Why it may seem like this series isn’t a ‘Rivalry’ anymore(to an outsider

This article is gonna be a fun one for me to write. I was talking with a friend the other day(who is a neutral party in terms of this game as a Michigan State fan) and he said “‘The Ohio State-Michigan game is quickly not becoming a rivalry anymore. It’s becoming something closer to Ohio State- Michigan State because it’s starting to get to be a game of ‘Beating Ohio State would be nice, but it probably won’t happen.’” And that phrasing and sentiment got me thinking. I asked him why he thought that, and he replied with ‘The Michigan players don’t care about the game anymore because the coaching staff doesn’t actually care. The coaching staff is more worried about letting the boosters and other alumni donors do what they want instead of saying no. And when the staff lets the boosters in the locker room they(the boosters) go up to the players and tell them how great they are and how nobody in the country can beat them. Because of that they don’t put in nearly as much work and when the coaching staff is mediocre in the first place this puts them at a serious disadvantage.’ This was an interesting sentiment from a man who spent considerable time around a major college football program(not Michigan) as a player and a team staff member. Naturally, this thought and sentiment from someone who reached a place in the game of football that I could never(for various reasons, including that I definitely was not good enough to be a Division 1 college football player) made me want to sit down and take a deeper look at this. So here we are, on the second day of Hate Week, taking a look at why some people might think that rivalry between Ohio State and Michigan that gives us The Game every year isn’t a rivalry anymore.

Reason 1: Ohio State’s record against Michigan the past 20 years

The first reason that I’m going to look at is how Michigan has fared against Ohio State since the year 2000. Well, if there are any Michigan fans reading this, you may want to look away. Since the year 2000 Michigan has won 3 games against Ohio State. Those wins came in the years 2000, 2003, and 2011. Since 2000 Ohio State has beaten Michigan seven times in a row(2004-2010), and eight times in a row(2012-2019). Michigan does have the longest winning streak in the history of the 116(117 after Saturday) game series at nine wins in a row. But that happened back in 1901-1909. Ohio State very much has the chance to tie that this Saturday considering they are currently a 30 point favorite if the game is played. The beginning of this century has not been good to the Michigan Wolverines. In fact, it’s been beyond bad for them. Combine that with the fact that Michigan has had four different coaches in that time span, I can see why an outsider to The Game would believe it’s not really a rivalry anymore.

Reason 2: Most of the recent games haven’t been close

This is another reason for Michigan fans to look away. Most of the games since Michigan’s last win(2011) haven’t really been that close. Yeah, 2012 was a 26-21 win for Ohio State. 2013 was a 42-41 shootout in which Michigan lost on a failed 2 point conversion attempt. And then there was the 2016 Double Overtime thriller that saw Ohio State win after JT Barrett converted on a 4th and 1 and then Curtis Samuel scampered 15 yards to paydirt to win the game. Outside of those three games, Ohio State has won every matchup by two scores or more. Yeah, the Buckeyes won by 9 in 2017, but then you look at 2014(42-28), 2015(42-13), 2018(62-39), and 2019(56-27), it’s not been pretty at all. And to make the 2018 loss even worse for Michigan, that was supposed to be their ‘Revenge Tour’, whatever the hell that means. They sure didn’t get any revenge against Ohio State for beating them in 2017 or any of the previous years. A secondary reason to Reason 2 is that the last year Michigan beat Ohio State was the year Ohio State went 6-7 and Michigan was only able to beat them by six. Again, this probably doesn’t help Michigan’s case.

Reason 3: The Talent Gap

Over the past years a talent gap has formed between Ohio State and Michigan. Ok, more like a talent gap has formed between Ohio State and the entire Big 10, but we aren’t talking about the whole Big 10, we’re just talking Ohio State-Michigan. Since 2010 Ohio State has had 73 players drafted to the NFL with 18 players being taken in the 1st round. Michigan has had 47 players drafted to the NFL in that span with only 7 players being taken in the 1st round. Wow, that’s a big discrepancy. And honestly, I don’t know how to explain that discrepancy. I knew Ohio State had a lot of players drafted in the past 10 years, and I knew that Ohio State had more players drafted in the past 10 years that Michigan had, but I didn’t know the difference was that much. That’s a rough look. Yeah, Michigan had some really bad coaches in those 10 years, and they had some really bad seasons in those 10 years to go along with those coaches, so that can explain the discrepancy of players drafted, but that’s all I got here. There definitely has been a talent gap forming in the Big 10. And some of that even has to do with recruiting and player development by the coaching staffs of both teams, which leads us into our next reason.

Reason 4: The Coaching Skill Gap

Well, if I’m not careful, this part of the article could go on for several paragraphs. In fact I could probably write an entire article on this reason alone. Since 2001, Michigan has had Lloyd Carr(he became the Head Coach at Michigan in 1995), Rich Rodriguez, Brady Hoke, Jim Harbaugh(current head coach) all walk through their doors as the head coach. In that time Ohio State has had Jim Tressel, Luke Fickell(interim after Tressel resigned), Urban Meyer, and Ryan Day(current head coach). So there has been a lot more long term stability at Ohio State in the terms of who the Head Coach was. After Lloyd Carr retired, Rich Rodriguez was only there for 3 years and went 15-22 at Michigan and was fired having the lowest winning percentage of any Michigan Head Coach. Brady Hoke came in and well, it wasn’t great. Sure he beat Ohio State in 2011, but as we established, that was Ohio State’s worst year in a while. Brady Hoke was fired after going 31-20 as Michigan Head Coach but having progressively worse seasons. At least he gave us the gem of ‘I do like hotdogs’ after responding to a tweet about him for a segment done by College Gameday. And currently, Jim Harbaugh is on the hotseat, one so hot that many people assume he’s pretty much already out the door. He has a 49-22 record at Michigan but has yet to beat Ohio State, has only won one bowl game, which happened his first year as the Wolverines Head Coach, and has had regressing seasons. Lloyd Carr was the last really good Head Coach that Michigan had, and since he retired, they’ve had a stream of bad to mediocre or average at best Head Coaches. Now switching over to Ohio State, after Tressel resigned, Luke Fickell was there as the interim Head Coach for a year, and it wasn’t great. Then came Urban Meyer, who only lost 4 games at Ohio State and won a National Championship as the Buckeyes Head Coach. After Urban Meyer retired, his handpicked successor, Ryan Day came and he’s only lost 1 game as Ohio State’s Head Coach. Ohio State has seemingly had better coaches and coordinators, which has led to better recruiting and player development, which probably speaks to the player talent gap that has formed between not just Ohio State and Michigan, but Ohio State and the Big 10. Without good, you won’t go far and beat or even be able to compete with the teams that have great coaching.

Reason 5: Michigan just doesn’t care as much

This is one that I’ve had some neutral fans/outsiders to The Game and even a few Michigan fans tell me the past couple years. I don’t know if I buy it, but I’m gonna mention it here anyway just to wrap up this article. I guess we’ll have a better idea on the validity of this after the outcome is decided on Saturday. If The Game is played and Ohio State blows the door off of Michigan again, then maybe there is a bit of credence to this. Michigan is a 30 point underdog, and if Ohio State covers the spread, or even wins by just 20-29, then yeah, maybe I’ll believe this is true even though Michigan just isn’t good this year. If Ohio State wins by 20+ that may just mean that they won’t even be playing for pride at that point. Which would be pretty rough, and a very hard pill to swallow for Michigan fans everywhere. 

And there it is, an analysis of why some people might think the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry is just a yearly game played between two teams in the same division, not a rivalry. Personally, I disagree with those people. It very much is a rivalry, and I know some Michigan fans who would agree with me. But to each their own. I’ll be back tomorrow to look at other aspects of this year’s iteration  of The Game, because it’s Hate Week ladies and gentlemen. 

                                T-Minus 120 Hours until The Game

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Race to the Bottom(or Tanking for the #1 Pick in the 2021 NFL Draft)

Well, I didn’t expect to be writing an article about the NFL this week for two reasons. The first, and primary reason is because I gave up on the Cincinnati Bengals 2020 season after they drafted Joe Burrow but made no improvements anywhere else. I figured that Burrow wouldn’t be able to finish his rookie season, and unfortunately, I was right. I will say I was surprised that he was able to make it to Week 11 without a season ending injury, but then that all came to an end when the Bengals played the Washington Redskins. The other reason I didn’t expect to be writing about the NFL this week is because the games this week didn’t seem overly compelling. Boy, I was wrong. There was the game between the Giants and Seahawks, that the Giants ended up winning to stay atop the very, very bad NFC East. And there is still some room for excitement considering there is still the Sunday Night Game, Monday Night Game, and the game between the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys that got moved from Thursday to Tuesday to be played. But the games that I found compelling were the games played by the teams fighting for the Number 1 Pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. The very awful New York Jets played host to the Las Vegas Raiders, the almost as awful Jacksonville Jaguars played the Minnesota Vikings, and the least awful of the three Cincinnati Bengals travelled down to South Beach to play the Miami Dolphins who were winners of 6 of their last 7 games going into Sunday. All three teams lost, because well, bad teams just find a way to lose games. But all three games got me thinking about the fight for the Number 1 Pick, so let's take a deeper dive into the Race to the Bottom for all three teams.

New York Jets(0-12)

The New York Jets had a lead against the Las Vegas Raiders with 13 seconds left in the game, and then they lost in what could be the second most Jets way possible- no, not another butt-fumble(thankfully), but on busted coverage after a blitz was called. For whatever reason, the New York Jets decided to blitz, leaving only three players back in coverage, and one of them got flat-footed and then beat by Henry Ruggs III for a 46 touchdown leaving only 5 seconds left on the clock. The Jets just find ways to lose games. Today it was the obvious play that pretty much everyone will see and hear about, but less obvious was the giveaways, something they surprisingly haven’t had that much of an issue with. Oops. With today’s game behind them, let’s move on to the rest of their season, and most importantly, will they win a game. Personally, I think they will, solely because in Week 17 they play the New England Patriots, who most likely won’t have anything to play for at that point, meanwhile the Jets will be playing for pride and being able to say that they didn’t go 0-16. Will it be enough to secure them the Number 1 Overall Pick in the 2021 Draft? Hard to say, because at that point it would come down to strength of schedule, and then other tiebreakers afterwards, eventually ending in a coin flip if needed. 

Jacksonville Jaguars(1-11)

The Jaguars had a 16-6 lead over the Vikings in the 3rd quarter, and then they found a way to lose. The Vikings scored 18 points in regulation and then 3 more in Overtime to win the game. The Jags had four turnovers and a safety today. The most costly turnover was in overtime when Mike Glennnon threw a very egregious interception that set the Vikings up on the Jacksonville 46 yard line. From there the Vikings marched down to the Jaguars 5 to set up a 23 yard Dan Bailey Field Goal for the win. With today’s game out of the way for the Jaguars, they have a difficult 4 games remaining(Titans, @Ravens, Bears, @Colts), all of which they will most likely lose, which could potentially set-up a tiebreaker scenario with the Jets(assuming the New York Jets do win a game). Unless the Jaguars somehow manage to win two games, the Cincinnati Bengals won’t be a threat to pass them in Draft Order since the Bengals beat the Jaguars in Week 4. 

Cincinnati Bengals(2-9-1)

The Joe Burrow-less Cincinnati Bengals had a lead against the Miami Dolphins until 11:35 remaining in the 3rd Quarter. Sure, the lead was only 7-0, 7-3, and 7-6 until the Dolphins scored a touchdown courtesy a touchdown pass from rookie quarterback Tua Tagavolia to third year Tight End Mike Gesicki. After that, the Dolphins never looked back, eventually winning the game 19-7. I’m glad this game wasn’t on tv, because well, it didn’t look like it was a good game at all. The Bengals were the only team out of the bottom three to not either be tied or have the lead in their game in the 4th quarter. Moving forward, the Bengals most likely won’t win another game this year(Cowboys, Steelers, @Texans, Ravens). The most winnable out of those final four games is next week’s game against the Andy Dalton lead Dallas Cowboys. If Joe Burrow was the Quarterback next week against the Cowboys, I would be more inclined to say that the Bengals would win. But he’s not, thus that leads me to believe the Bengals will lose in what could very well be the worst NFL Game this year. And with the win over the Jaguars in Week 4 and somehow beating the Titans a few weeks ago, they seem to be a lock for the 3rd pick in the draft unless something crazy happens with the two teams ahead of them in terms of draft order. Has a Bengals fan, I’m ok with that. I feel like if they were any higher in the draft, they would feel pressured to take Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields should they both declare for the draft after the college season is over(if they were both smart and valued their careers they would stay in school one more year). And to be honest, I don’t have enough faith in the Bengals front office to do the smart thing and take Oregon Offensive Lineman Penei Sewell if Lawrence or Fields were still on the board.

Ending Records

New York Jets(1-15), Jacksonville Jaguars(1-15), Cincinnati Bengals(2-13-1)

And that’s a look at this year's Race to the Bottom, also known as tanking to get the Number 1 Overall Pick in NFL Draft. I highly doubt I’ll do another one of these this year, but I don’t know yet. If anything interesting happens with these three abysmal teams that might change things, I’ll write another one of these. Until then, if you’re a fan of one of these teams(like me), my condolences. If you aren’t a fan of any of these teams or a fan of a team these teams will be playing in the coming weeks, I would highly advise against watching them play, because it's just awful to watch.

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The Reason Why Michigan Should(and Shouldn’t) play The Game against Ohio State

Well, here we are again. That glorious time of the year that Ohio State fans(such as myself) look forward to. We’ve made through the football season, which this year is nothing short of a miracle considering that Ohio State has had two games cancelled and the team they will be playing against has just had their first game of the season cancelled. That team of course, is the Michigan Wolverines, or as I sometimes call them, The Fighting Jim Harbaughs. Which means its Hate Week. For the next five(5) days, I will be posting an article breaking down various storylines from this year's potential matchup(assuming the game isn’t cancelled because of Covid). Article 1, The Reason Why the Michigan Wolverines Should(and Shouldn’t) play The Game against The Ohio State Buckeyes. 

Disclaimer: In the scenarios I will be looking at I am not taking into account the chance that Michigan could possibly beat Ohio State. I’m not doing this because I am an Ohio State fan, it’s more so because Michigan is a heavy underdog at the point of writing this article. 

Disclaimer 2: In these scenarios I am also assuming that the Michigan Wolverine’s Covid situation is better than it was this past week.

                                   WHY MICHIGAN SHOULD PLAY 

This is the easier part of this post to write. One of those reasons is because I want to see this game played, not just because I think Ohio State will blow the doors off of Michigan, but it will give us some sort of normalcy in a very, very strange year of college football. The Game has been played every year of my life, and in fact, has been played every year since 1918, which means The Game was played during the Spanish Flu pandemic, World War 2, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War and didn’t get cancelled. To not have it be played would just feel, well, wrong. Now, for the reasons that aren’t tied to emotions. This game is a win-lose scenario for the Michigan Wolverines, if they do play Ohio State, they may lose a 9th year in a row, and it most likely won’t be pretty, which will not help the Wolverines from a recruiting standpoint. It’s just not a good look to recruits when you lose against the team you consider your biggest rival 9 years straight, and it even worse when you take into fact that out of the previous eight, Michigan lost five of those games by two scores or more. But, let's look at something a bit bigger than recruiting-The Jim Harbaugh Era at Michigan. Should The Game be played and Michigan loses, that would make Jim Harbaugh 0-6 against Ohio State. I think the only way that Jim Harbaugh gets fired by the Wolverines is if The Game is played. Otherwise, it’d be really, really easy for the program to look at this season and say ‘Well, with everything that happened due to Covid, we didn’t get to have a true summer/fall training camp to fully prep, we didn’t have any non-conference games to gauge what we had, and we dealt with players leaving or getting injured. Let’s give Jim one more chance, besides is there really a better option out there right now.’ However, if The Game is played, and Michigan does lose, no matter the score, it could be horrendous, which could happen since Ohio State Head Coach Ryan Day said he would ‘Hang 100 on you guys(you guys being the Michigan Wolverines)’ to Harbaugh earlier this year, the pressure from the fanbase and the alumni donors would be way too much to keep Harbaugh around as the Head Coach of the Michigan Wolverines. A friend of mine, who just so happens to cover Michigan Sports including the Michigan Wolverines over on his account Motown Rundown(seriously go check his stuff out), said that ‘Michigan Football has(again) hit rock bottom). And from a non-fan bias, I do agree with that statement. Michigan has been outplayed in every game other than the game against Minnesota. Hell, they only got by Rutgers just because it’s Rutgers, and a missed kick in overtime. Jim Harbaugh has been outcoached in every game this season minus Minnesota. After beating the Golden Gophers soundly in the beginning of the Big 10 season, the Michigan Wolverines fell off a cliff. Actually, they didn’t just fall off a cliff, they fell off Mount Everest and somehow managed to fall all the way down to the bottom of the Marianas Trench going Challenger Deep(the deepest part of the ocean for all of the non-science inclined readers). If The Game is played and Michigan loses, whether it's by a little(unlikely), or by a lot or more than a lot(more likely), Jim Harbaugh loses his job and the Wolverines begin to look for a new coach on December 13th. And if I were a Michigan fan, that is the biggest reason I would want The Game to be played. 

                                WHY MICHIGAN SHOULDN’T PLAY

Now comes the more difficult part of the post to write-Why Michigan shouldn’t play, outside of Covid related reasons. The earlier mentioned reason was recruiting. If The Game isn’t played it won’t hurt Michigan in terms of recruiting nearly as much as it would if The Game was played. It’s a whole hell of a lot easier to say ‘Well we made a choice for player safety, and chose to not play against Ohio State’, than answering the question of ‘What are you gonna do to try to compete with Ohio State’. So that in itself seems like a good reason to not play The Game. Now an even more nefarious reason-if Ohio State and Michigan don’t play and no other games get cancelled because of Covid in the Big 10, Ohio State can’t play in the Big 10 Championship(assuming that the Big 10 doesn’t change the requirements to allow Ohio State to play), and that very well could keep Ohio State out of the College Football Playoffs considering the CFP committee said ‘They took a very long look at whether or not they should keep Ohio State at 4 or move Texas A&M up from 5 to 4.’ And that could be considered a pretty big win for Michigan Wolverines fans considering they would be able to at least say ‘Hey, we kept you out of meaningful Post-Season play’. Now do I believe most Michigan fans are like that? Short answer, No. Actually, it’s very resounding no. But let's take a step back and look at how things have been going for the Wolverines this year, and how the program seems to be in a rut, if not a decline under Harbaugh. If the Ohio State-Michigan game gets cancelled, it’s almost like a victory for the Wolverines, because they FINALLY get to keep Ohio State out of the Big 10 Championship and even bigger, possibly out of the College Football Playoffs. And it could even be a moral victory as well since the Wolverines can say they chose player health and safety over a game. 

To wrap up, a lot of people reading this are probably thinking that I’m full of manure. There are probably some Michigan fans yelling at me through their screens right now, which is understandable. I want The Game to be played, all this article is doing is exploring the options and benefits and downfalls for both teams if The Game is played. We’ll see what happens. At the end of the day we got to see Big 10 football this year and I’m mostly happy with how Ohio State played this year. I’ll be back tomorrow to look at other aspects of this year’s iteration  of The Game, because it’s Hate Week ladies and gentlemen. 

                                  T-Minus 144 Hours until The Game

[anothergenericsportsblog]

THE GOOD, THE BAD, and THE UGLY OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL’S 14TH WEEK

The dust has(mostly) settled on Week 14 of the world of College Football. Sure there are two games to be played today still(Washington State travels to USC) and (Western Kentucky travels to Charlotte), but let’s take a look at The Good, The Bad, and The downright Ugly thing(s) from College Football this past weekend.

THE GOOD 

Coastal Carolina beats BYU 22-17: This game was one of the handful of good games featuring teams in the Top 25. In fact, this game came down to the last play in which Coastal Carolina stopped BYU on the 2-yard line with triple zeros left on the clock.

Payton Thorne as Michigan State’s Quarterback: As much as it I don’t want to include a player who played against the Ohio State Buckeyes in THE GOOD, Payton Thorne looked solid aside from a few throws in his duty post Rocky Lombardi injury against the Buckeyes

THE BAD

The slate of Prime-Time Games: We had Clemson-Virginia Tech as the nightcap on ABC, and Alabama-LSU ending the day of games on CBS. Sure the Alabama-LSU game probably seemed like a good idea back at the beginning of the season, but the game was a blowout, and well Clemson took commanding control of their game against Virginia Tech in the 2nd half of play and won 45-10, blanking the Hokies, who are now on a 4 game losing streak

Rocky Lombardi Pre-injury: As good as Payton Thorne was after Lombardi left the game with what appeared to be a head injury against the Buckeyes, Rocky Lombardi was even worse. Lombardi went 5 for 11 for 33 yards and had a QBR of 7.6. That’s not good. Also there was the Pick-6 in his own endzone, and while that was a great play made by Haskell Garrett, why was he throwing that ball? On the 7 drives he played before leaving the game, the Spartans had 51 yards on 20 plays and only 1 first down

THE UGLY

The fact that games needed to be played on Sunday: As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, there are still games that need to be played today. Sure it’s because of reasons related to Covid, but this isn’t a great look for the NCAA in my opinion. Really, this whole season isn’t a great look for the NCAA in my opinion considering the shitshow it’s been. The NCAA decided it was better to let the conferences set their own individual Covid guidelines and regulations instead of them putting their foot down and setting a nationwide standard. The NCAA wants to get in and flex their muscles and stick their noses in everything else, but the second we’re in a global pandemic, they step away and let the conferences run things how they want to. And it’s not working that great. 

And that’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of College Football’s Week 14. We’ll be back again next Sunday to look at the good, not so good, and the ugly things from Week 15′s College Football games.