ANN ARBOR, Michigan -- There's a big game here Saturday. In fact, lots of folks call it The Game.
There are also lots of folks who don't think it will even be a game as No. 3 Ohio State goes for 12-0 against 7-4 Michigan, which was once 5-0 and has one regulation win since Oct 19. The line at Las Vegas sportsbooks has Ohio State favored by more than two touchdowns.
But will Michigan be dangerous in a rivalry game with essentially nothing to lose? Will Ohio State get caught looking ahead to next week's Big Ten Championship Game? Or will the Buckeyes just be too much, as each team's results from the last month of the season would indicate?
Below are three reasons to believe Michigan will show up with its A-game and at least keep it close...and three reasons to believe Ohio State will flex its muscle and pull away.
1. Because it's a rivalry game, and because history says that means records and prior results don't matter.
Ohio State hasn't won by more than 11 points in Ann Arbor since 1961. This week, Michigan coach Brady Hoke showed his team clips of the 1969 game, when Ohio State was unbeaten and seemed invincible and lost to Michigan. Turnovers can be the great equalizer, and for as bad as Michigan's offense has been Devin Gardner has thrown just one interception in November. The Wolverines should benefit from being the underdog -- even though Hoke said he never believes his team is an underdog -- and the longer Michigan hangs around and plays with emotion, the more pressure could theoretically weigh on Ohio State.
Michigan can empty the playbook, play loose and hope a fast start can keep the crowd in it and get a team struggling to sustain confidence to believe.
1a. Because it's a really big rivalry game, and this Ohio State team will be focused and understand the stakes.
Urban Meyer loves rivalry games. That's clear not just from his words but from his track record. Ohio State is still two wins away from having a chance to be where it really wants to be, but this is still a really big game -- one that comes with lots of hype, lots of emotion and an extra day of preparation for the Buckeyes compared to a regular work week.
About that 1969 game, well, there are players in this year's game whose parents weren't born then. So...
2. Ohio State has been feasting on helpless teams like Purdue, Illinois and Indiana. Michigan is much better than those teams, right?
In theory, yes. And probably on the field, too. It can be argued that Ohio State has one truly impressive win all year, vs. Wisconsin way back in late September, and that in having to come to Ann Arbor to play an inspired Michigan team with so much at stake the Buckeyes won't find much that comes easy. Michigan has played in close games in November but has only closed one of them, and Ohio State hasn't been in a close game since the first week of October.
2a. That's a flimsy argument. Ohio State crushes teams because it has Braxton Miller, Carlos Hyde, a dominating offensive line and stuffs the run defensively.
Check, check, check and check. How can the Wolverines realistically expect to keep up when Michigan has the nation's No. 96 offense and a rushing offense that's had negative yards in two of its last four games and has a total of 130 rushing yards in those four November games. Ohio State has the nation's sixth-best rushing defense and hopes to put too much pressure on Gardner, literally and figuratively, to expect Gardner to be able to make enough big plays to win it.
The Buckeyes look like a much better team than they were in late September and early October, and that's the sign of a really good team. Until some defense steps up and stops the Buckeyes Hyde/Miller combo, we won't believe any team in the Big Ten really can do it.
3. If Ohio State has one weakness, it might be pass defense. Gardner averages better than 14 yards per completion and has a true No. 1 receiver in Jeremy Gallon, and if the pass offense can make plays down the field, both the Ohio State defensive back seven and the Ohio State offense will face pressure both haven't faced much.
It sounds good on maize and blue paper, doesn't it?
3a. Even if Michigan creates big plays, it has to keep making them. No one has held Ohio State under 31 points.
Michigan hasn't scored more than 21 in regulation since it played Indiana, one of the nation's worst defenses.
Ohio State's likely All-American linebacker Ryan Shazier joked this week that Michigan had been tackled for a loss 1,000 times this season, and it sure must seem that way for a Wolverines offense that's been stuck in the mud since October and has had to use five different starting offensive line combinations.
It's actually 102 times that a Michigan ball carrier has been tackled in the backfield, but it must feel like 1,000. And what could feel like 100 more could be coming Saturday.
In a strange college football twist, these things actually are going to be decided on the field. Come Saturday afternoon, we'll get some real answers.
