COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Buckeyes have two more days of practice before their annual grudge match against the Team Up North.
Ohio State (11-0, 7-0,) enters the game with the nation’s longest win streak at 23 games, but The Game is always a season-maker. Or breaker.
Head coach Urban Meyer grew up in Ohio amid the rivalry, but says it didn’t really hit home until he arrived on campus as a graduate assistant coach.
“I was a 21 year old graduate assistant, and I look up on those twin towers by the stadium, and it says ‘Muck Fichigan’ and sheets hanging off. I said ‘that is really cool right there.’ And they switched the M and the F, and someone made them take it down. So that was in 1986, so there is some old student now that is laughing their tail off saying, ‘yeah, that was my room’,” he told reporters on Monday.
This is the 110th meeting between the Buckeyes and the Wolverines. Michigan leads the all-time series with a 58-44-6 record but Ohio State has officially won nine of the last 11 meetings. The 2010 OSU victory was vacated because of the memorabilia-for-tattoos scandal that led to the firing of then-coach Jim Tressel.
Ohio is currently ranked No. 3 in the BCS standings but is unlikely to advance to the national championship games unless either No. 1 Alabama or No. 2 Florida State lose. Each has a rivalry game this weekend, as well, against Auburn and Florida.
The Buckeyes have clinched the Big Ten Leaders Division title for the second straight season and this time will be allowed to play in the Big Ten Championship Game they were denied last year because of NCAA sanctions.
They will face Legends Division champion Michigan State Dec. 7 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.