ShareThisBy JOHN LINDSAY
Monday, November 20, 2006
To really understand how big Saturday's Michigan-Ohio State showdown is, all one has to do is focus on what really aren't the storylines this week after an amazing weekend of games.
Consider:
_ Undefeated Rutgers (9-0) is sixth in this week's BCS standings with an outside shot at the BCS national title game. Ponder that for a moment.
_ No. 14 Wake Forest not only wins nine games for the first time ever but also shuts out Florida State, 30-0, the first time FSU had ever been blanked at Doak Campbell Stadium under Bobby Bowden. We're speechless on that one as well.
_ For one week, the vaunted SEC turns into a strange version of the NFC West with parity run amok. Reeling Georgia goes into Auburn and stuns the No. 5 Tigers, 37-15, while No. 6 Arkansas tramples overmatched Tennessee, 31-14, only the Hogs' second win over the Vols since 1993 as the nine-game winning streak is UA's longest since 1988. Meanwhile, Florida needs two blocked kicks in the final three minutes to hold off game ex-Gators coach Steve Spurrier and South Carolina, 17-16. Did we also mention that 6-4 Kentucky is in second place in the SEC East?
_ Beware the Ides of November in the Desert. Arizona rallies past No. 8 Cal, 24-20, moving to 4-0 vs. ranked teams during turkey month under coach Mike Stoops, who by comparison has only four other wins over non-ranked Division I teams in three years with the Wildcats.
_ Kansas State, which was held to a total of 34 points in earlier losses to Louisville, Baylor and Nebraska, erupts for a 45-42 ambush of No. 4 Texas, ending the Longhorns' hopes of defending their national title. And how about all six of the Wildcats' touchdowns being either scored or thrown by a pair of freshmen, QB Josh Freeman and RB Leon Patton?
But none of that much matters compared to the Maize and Blue meeting the Scarlet and Gray Saturday at the Horseshoe. For the first time in arguably college football's greatest rivalry that dates back to 1897, the Buckeyes and Wolverines come in both undefeated and ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the nation. Not even the twin legends Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler could deliver this sort of a mega-tilt, the closest being the 10-10 tie between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 4 Michigan in 1973 in Ann Arbor.
That one still stings UM backers who bitterly recall Ohio State winning a controversial secret vote among Big Ten athletic directors to go to the Rose Bowl while the Wolverines (10-0-1) stayed home despite a No. 6 ranking. It was nothing new as Ohio State sat home four years earlier after the top-ranked Buckeyes were stunned by Michigan, 24-12.
And just maybe the bizarre excitement of this past weekend might come about again Saturday in Columbus. Remember big games often don't play out the way the experts think they will, especially when Michigan and Ohio State are involved.
If this game was played perhaps six years ago, prior to Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel's arrival, the pick would have been easy _ Michigan. After all, from 1985-2000 the Wolverines rolled up an astonishing 12-3-1 mark over OSU, including upsets of top-12 ranked Buckeyes teams in 1995, '96 and 2000, the final one being the last straw for former OSU coach John Cooper.
However, somehow Tressel quickly changed the dynamic of the rivalry, starting with his debut, a startling 26-20 upset of No. 11 Michigan in 2001 that denied the Wolverines the Big Ten title. The next thing you knew, the 'Bucks had run off 19 straight wins to claim the 2002 national title and might even have defended their crown the following year if not for a 35-21 loss at No. 5 Michigan on Nov. 22, 2003 _ the only blemish on Tressel's record in five games vs. the Wolverines.
Yet it's important to remember exactly what Tressel will be trying to do Saturday _ namely beat Michigan for a third straight year, something OSU has accomplished exactly once (four straight wins from 1960-63) in the last 68 years. But that's not to say the pressure is on OSU and Tressel Saturday. The monkey is clearly more on the back of Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, whose five losses to OSU are only one short of what the Wolverines endured in the series from 1976-97.
So here's our call. Though Ohio State is favored by 6-1/2 points, the fashionable pick among the talking heads is Michigan's front seven on defense being too good for Ohio State QB Troy Smith while Wolverines RB Mike Hart will find enough holes in the Bucks' defense to set up Michigan QB Chad Henne's play-action passing, preferably downfield to WR Mario Manningham.
We're not buying it, mostly because of Smith's stellar numbers in the last two wins over Michigan (a combined 40-of-60 passing for 541 yards with 3 TD passes vs. no ints. to go along with 182 yards rushing with 2 TDs). But the big, bad Wolverines' defense will rattle him?
As Damon Wayans used to say as "Homey The Clown'' on the hilarious 1990s sketch show "In Living Color,'' "I don't think so. Homey don't play that game.''
Look for an unlikely hero for Ohio State, maybe someone like freshman backup RB Chris Wells, sophomore cornerback Malcolm Jenkins or kicker Aaron Petrey, to make the difference.
Just call us Buckeye believers. Ohio State, 24-16.
UPSET PICK: Rutgers' rally improved us to 4-8. Aiming for our most wins since 2001, let's try Alabama, a 3-point underdog, to bounce reeling No. 15 Auburn in Saturday's Iron Bowl in Tuscaloosa.
LINDSAY'S LOSER: Hats off to Stanford for avoiding the first winless season since 1947 with a baffling 20-3 win at Washington. But this week's real star is the one and only Steve Spurrier of South Carolina _ who earned a reprimand from SEC commissioner Mike Slive for this nugget on the league's officiating:
"In the SEC, I know how these guys are. They go out and have a beer with their buddies and they say, 'Man, you stuck it to them last week, you really got Spurrier and them Gamecocks, didn't you? Everybody says that doesn't happen. But I think it does happen ...''
In true old ball coach fashion, Spurrier accepted his rebuke saying "I deserved it. I'm glad I got it. And I'm not talking about the refereeing anymore this year."
