Rivalry

Anyone who knows anything about college football knows that the greatest football rivalry of all time is the University of Michigan and Ohio State. This is not an arguable point. Today, they played again for the last game of the season (which they have been doing since 1935). As a Michigan fan, I know (and have witnessed) that the last few years have probably been the roughest in U of M history. It's been painful to watch the past few years as we switched coaches and tried to match the right players with the right coaches. This year however, we were set to come back.

Going into the game today, Michigan was 7-2 and Ohio State was 6-5. Not only was our record clearly better but we were clearly the better team. However, as most people know, this oftentimes makes no difference when it comes to huge rivalry games. The rivalry itself voids out all preconceived notions of who will win based on the performance of each team for the entire season. So going into the game, it's still anybody's game.

This game was stressful to watch. Michigan let Ohio State score. Michigan let it get too close for comfort. I was beginning to think that they were doing this to keep the fans on the edge of their seats for dramatic effect. We should be winning, and winning by a lot. In the end, Michigan pulled out a win, 40-34. Phew. Even better? We broke a 7 year losing streak against Ohio State. Hail to the Victors!

What I learned: The Rivalry has been the last game of each teams' seasons every year since 1935 (with the exception of 1942, 1986 and 1998) and Michigan had lost the last 7 games against Ohio State. I guess I didn't realize it had been that long because I didn't want to think about it being that long. Good thing we turned that around today!