Unpopular Opinion: Is winning a national title more important than beating Michigan?
Cincinnati1968 via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here


COLUMBUS, OHIO - NOVEMBER 30: Davison Igbinosun #1 of the Ohio State Buckeyes grabs a Michigan flag following his team’s defeat against the Michigan Wolverines at Ohio Stadium on November 30, 2024 in Columbus, Ohio. | Photo by Jason Mowry/Getty Images

Ohio State is the defending national champion despite losing to its rival in the regular season.

From now until preseason camp starts in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles around a different theme every week. This week is all about unpopular opinions. You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all our “Unpopular Opinion” articles here.

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Ryan Day once said that the Ohio State Football program always has one eye on what That Team Up North is doing. If that’s not a clear indicator of how serious the rivalry is between Ohio State and Michigan then I don’t know what is.

We hear head coaches all the time talk about how they’re solely focused on their team’s next opponent, so to hear Day say that they always have one eye on what Michigan is doing is not only different, but also succinct, honest and noteworthy.

In the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, there is a clock that counts down to the next game against Michigan. As soon as that game against the Wolverines ends, the clock resets and begins counting down to the next edition of “The Game.”

The on-field melee after Ohio State lost to Michigan 13-10 in Ohio Stadium this past November showed just how much it means to the Buckeyes players to beat the Wolverines. Frustration was very evident amongst the players. Fans took to social media to voice their frustrations and anger.

What could have been a disappointing ending to the season instead lit a fire within the Buckeyes, as they ultimately won four straight College Football Playoff games to win the National Championship. It got me thinking about what’s more important: beating Michigan or winning the national championship?

Rivalries are a huge part of what makes college football so beloved in America. There is no rivalry in the sport that best exemplifies this than Ohio State and Michigan. Everywhere that there is a letter “M” on Ohio State’s campus gets a big red “x” put through it the week leading up to “The Game.” There’s a greater sense of intensity and urgency the week leading up “The Game” than there is leading up to any other game during the season.

In Kirk Herbstreit’s autobiography “Out of the Pocket,” he described that the Buckeyes game against Michigan was taken very seriously in his house growing up. It wasn’t a game for fun, even for the Herbstreits as fans.

But now in the 12-team College Football Playoff era, a loss to Michigan is not the end of the world. It felt like that in 2021 and 2023 when losses to the Wolverines ended any chance the Buckeyes had to get into the Playoff, and it was almost that way in 2022. But that was when just four teams made the Playoff.

After Ohio State’s loss to Michigan last November, they still had the College Football Playoff in front of them. Fans, though, were still angry even the day of the First Round game against Tennessee. But as Ohio State crushed the Volunteers and started advancing further in the Playoff, fans started getting excited about the possibility of the Buckeyes just maybe winning the National Championship.

The feeling of losing to Michigan back in November had also started to dissipate. Perhaps Buckeyes fans were realizing that winning a national championship is what, ultimately, really mattered and more so than beating Michigan.

Here’s the thing: Beating your rival is always a great feeling. But unless that comes in the National Championship, it shouldn’t be the ultimate goal for a season. The ultimate goal, especially at a school like Ohio State, should be to win the national championship.

I’m not taking away any ounce of importance of Ohio State beating Michiagn. It still means everything to the program and Buckeyes fans to beat The Team Up North. But it’s not the only thing, especially in the 12-team CFP era.

Tradition is gradually dissipating as the new landscape of college football continues to evolve. While “The Game” still holds immense significance to Buckeyes fans, the Buckeyes should always have a shot to win three or four Playoff games to win a national championship regardless of what happens against The Team Up North.

Beating Michigan is still a huge goal every season, but there’s now, almost, a guaranteed second chance and shot at a bigger, ultimate prize if the Buckeyes get upset by the Wolverines. That’s what happened this past season, and it’s made me question what’s more important for the Buckeyes.

Is beating The Team Up North more important than winning the national championship?

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Georgia Bulldogs beat out Ohio State Buckeyes for versatile and local four-star recruit - A to Z Sports
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Georgia Bulldogs beat out Ohio State Buckeyes for versatile and local four-star recruit A to Z Sports

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You’re Nuts: What is your most unpopular opinion on college athletics?
Brett Ludwiczak via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here


Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Your (almost) daily dose of good-natured, Ohio State banter.

From now until preseason camp starts in August, Land-Grant Holy Land will be writing articles around a different theme every week. This week is all about unpopular opinions. You can catch up on all of the Theme Week content here and all our “Unpopular Opinion” articles here.

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We all have some opinions that make people raise an eyebrow. It could be about sports, entertainment, or politics. Since you came to an Ohio State sports website, luckily you won’t have to deal with any opinions on politics. Instead, we are going to reveal our most unpopular opinions on college athletics. When we say unpopular, we don’t mean hurtful; more so, we mean opinions that are a bit unconventional.

When it comes to college athletics, there are plenty of areas to dive into. NIL, the Transfer Portal, how many teams should be included in the College Football Playoff/NCAA Tournament, and rules of the game and how they are interpreted are just the tip of the iceberg of areas that grind the gears of some people. Today, we don’t really need solutions to your unpopular opinions, since in many cases those fixes can be very complicated, we just want to know some things about college athletics that may be popular with others that have gotten under your skin.

Today’s question: What is your most unpopular opinion on college athletics?​

We’d love to hear your choices. Either respond to us on Twitter at @Landgrant33 or leave your choice in the comments.​

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Brett’s answer: The Transfer Portal​

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that I don’t think college athletes should be able to transfer. Having to wait a year to play after transferring was a bit ridiculous, especially when college coaches could move to another coaching position and not have to wait to coach. I don’t think that the transfer portal is currently utilized is what those in charge had in mind when they made it easier for student-athletes to transfer. Now you are seeing some college athletes transfer three or four times during their college career. At the very most, I think college athletes should be able to transfer twice during their college careers.

Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

I have no issues with what Will Howard did. He spent a lot of time at Kansas State and then came to Ohio State to close out his college career. I can’t say the same about Dillon Gabriel. After starting his career at UCF, he transferred to Oklahoma, followed by a spot at Oregon for the final season of his college career. It just seems odd to me that a college athlete can play for three different schools. I understand that he had a redshirt season due to an injury and a COVID year, but even with those, it’s hard to believe that things were so bad at times that he needed to transfer twice during his college career.

Things feel even worse when it comes to basketball. Usually, in the fall before the college basketball season begins, I need to take a crash course to remember who is playing where now. Then, just as soon as fans are getting used to having a player on their team, they have moved on to greener pastures. After transferring out of Auburn following the season, Chad Baker-Mazara is now playing for his fifth team, with four of them being at the Division I level.

That just seems crazy to me. As soon as you become comfortable with players, coaches, and a school, players are hitting the portal. At Ohio State, Aaron Bradshaw and Sean Stewart transferred to Columbus following their freshman season, and now both are elsewhere after spending one year with the Buckeyes.

I guess this is just how the world is these days. Our attention spans have become so short that it’s easy to see why college athletes are so quick to jump to a new school. Ohio State’s 2024 football season was so special because you had a bunch of players who were Buckeyes their whole college careers, finally getting to the top of the mountain after a number of close calls.

As the years go on, it feels like we’ll see less of that just because college athletes are constantly on the move these days, and there are no signs of it slowing down anytime soon.

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Matt’s answer: College football should adopt relegation​

On the Land-Grant Podcast Network this week, I spoke to The Athletic’s Editor in Chief for college football, Stewart Mandel. He ran me through some of the ridiculous proposals that the SEC and Big Ten commissioners are seemingly pushing for the next round of College Football Playoff tweaks.

While nothing has been decided, and Mandel notes that the seemingly disastrous proposals could just be a negotiating tactic (and a much more sane plan does appear to be gaining traction), but it got me thinking.


If the CFP were to go with a more robust automatic bid process, similar to what happens in the UEFA Champions League, where participants are determined solely by their finish in their respective home country leagues. In that case, college football should also adopt one of the aspects that makes European soccer so exciting: relegation.

Say, the B1G and SEC’s plan to expand the playoff to 14 teams goes through and the two power conferences get four autobids apiece, then two each for the ACC and Big 12, and the Group of 5 would get one. That would mean that conference rankings would determine the vast majority of playoff spots, rendering non-conference play irrelovent.

So, if the goal is to pick the best teams based on how they play in their league, then we should do everything possible to make sure that the play in those leagues is at the highest possible level.

For example, the Purdue Boilermakers finished 0-9 last season in B1G play. Due to that, they should be relegated to Big 12. They still have a chance at two AQ spots in the playoffs, but not the four afforded the Big Ten. Conversely, SMU went 8-0 in the ACC, so they would be bumped up to the SEC for this season, giving them an even better shot at a playoff berth, despite the stiffer competition.

This would also work at the lower levels. Army was 8-0 in the AAC last season, so the Black Knights would become members of the ACC for this season, and the 0-9 Oklahoma State Cowboys would be relegated out of the Big 12 and into Comferemce USA.

If the goal — as it would seem to be by this playoff berth proposal — is to emphasize conference performance, then the entire college football system should do everything in its power to keep those conferences competitive and interesting. Suddenly, the end of the season is important for the teams at the bottom of the barrel.

The 2024 version of Mississippi State would have been relegated out of the SEC thanks to its 0-8 conference record, but would the coaching staff and players approached the last month of the season differently if they knew relegation was on the table?

Sure, there would be things that would need to be worked out, including a team like Florida State who went 1-7 in the ACC last season; once the ‘Noles realize that their season is essentially done, would they tank to get bumped down into a conference with an easier path to a playoff berth? Not if you institute the rule that a team who gets relegated can’t go to the playoff the following year!

Regardless of what future playoff system the college football powers that be come up with, the entire landscape of the sport will be different, and they need to embrace more forward-thinking, innovative ways to keep the sport compelling to fans. I don’t know if relegation would work or not, but what I definitely don’t want is for the beautiful, chaotic sport that college football is to become another cold, cookie-cutter version of pro sports in America.

So, if that means we’ve got to kick some teams out of conferences every year, I’m all for it.

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