LGHL It is now officially Beat M*ch*g*n Week! Get prepped for an especially heated edition of The Game

[Matt Tamanini]

It is now officially Beat M*ch*g*n Week! Get prepped for an especially heated edition of The Game
Matt Tamanini via our friends at Land-Grant Holy Land
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here

There is no hate like Ohio State-ichigan hate.

Now that the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes have wrapped up their 38-15 victory over the No. 5 Indiana Hoosiers, the calendar officially has flipped from Week 13 of the college football season to Beat M*ch*g*n Week! It is time to purge all of the blue from your wardrobe, put red Xs over every visible M on your social media profiles, and remove the world Michigan from your vocabulary.

While this year’s installment of The Game won’t bring with it the same stakes as we have seen the last two years, since Michigan is a shell of its former self this season, there is still much on the line for both teams. Looking at the good guys, while I don’t know if Ryan Day needs the win to save his job, considering he could still technically win a national title without a win next Saturday, losing for a fourth-straight year to the Winged Helmet Wingnuts certainly isn’t going to endear him to any Buckeye fans (or boosters).

For the Weasels, depending on what happens to them this afternoon, The Game could determine whether or not they become bowl eligible this season, which would be a hilarious outcome following a (tainted) national championship a year ago.

---

Be Prepared​

• Game Time: Saturday, Nov. 30 at 12 noon ET
• Broadcast Details: FOX | Broadcast crew: Gus Johnson, Joel Klatt, Jenny Taft
• FanDuel has installed the Buckeyes as 23.5-point favorites. That is the largest betting margin in the rivalry since 2020 when OSU was a 31.5-point favorite... which I’m sure had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Jim Harbaugh canceled The Game citing “COVID concerns.” I mean, we all know that Jimbo isn’t afraid to cheat to save his job, so — at least for rivalry week — I feel comfortable calling him a liar.
• The Buckeyes are -4000 on the moneyline and the over/under total has been set at 44.5 point.
• We will be bringing you two or three different podcast episodes every single day in the lead-up to the game, so make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts or whoever you get your podcasts.
• This list is a couple of years old, so I have added some since, but here is a collection of nicknames for TTUN that you can use without having to call them by the name of their state. We’ve also got some decent ones for their former coach too.

---

What’s at Stake?​

• Heading into The Game, Ohio State is 10-1 on the season with its only loss coming by one point on the road against the No. 1 Oregon Ducks. While the Skunk Bears (5-5) play Northwestern (4-6) this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. ET, the defending national champions are still struggling to achieve bowl eligibility. Should the Wildcats pull off the upset in the Big House, the Pompous Princes would need to beat Ohio State to make the six-win plateau that would assure them of a post-season game.
• With the Buckeyes’ victory over Indiana, Ohio State is guaranteed a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game should they beat the Corn and Blue next week. A win in The Game would also essentially guarantee them a spot in the College Football Playoff. The only question would be whether it would be as the Big Ten champion — with a first-round bye — or as an at-large selection. If they do earn an at-large berth, then their seeding will determine whether they host a first-round matchup in Ohio Stadium in late December or not.
• The FanDuel SportsBook currently has the Buckeyes as the betting favorite to win the national championship at +320. Oregon is in second place at +440, followed by Georgia (+480), Texas (+550), and Alabama (+800). Penn State (+1800) is currently in seventh place, and Indiana entered the day in ninth at +2500, but that will obviously change following their loss in the Horseshoe this afternoon.

---

Here are some quick facts to get you ready for the 2024 edition of The Game:​

• Though the Weasels own an all-time record in the rivalry of 61-51-6, since Woody Hayes took over the Buckeye program in 1951, they are 30-40-2. Furthermore, since Jim Tressel became the OSU coach in 2001, they are 5-17 in the series.
• OSU is 51-50-4 against TTUN in Big Ten Conference games.
• M*ch*g*n is 3-5 against Ohio State since Jim Harbaugh was named the Maize and Blue head coach.
• Ryan Day already has as many wins in his first four games as a head coach in the rivalry as Jim Harbaugh had in his first six.
• In general, I think vacating games is silly; we all watched the contests and know what actually happened on the field, so pretending like the outcome was anything else for the record books is just dumb. However, if the NCAA decides to vacate any or all of the Mitten Men’s wins over their three seasons of blatant cheating, I will be willing to change my stance. While I don’t believe that their sign-stealing operations alone changed the outcome of any game in the rivalry, I acknowledge that the butterfly effect of winning games earlier in the seasons could have allowed players to avoid injuries or get more rest that — had they not been cheating — could have had some sort of substantive impact on The Game. So, if the NCAA eventually vacates those games, I will happily adjust those records listed above and there’s nothing that those whiney, self-important Michigan Men can do about it!
• Wolverines are members of the weasel family... which checks out.
• While everyone loves Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, the actual comic book version of the character is a short, stumpy 5-foot-3 asshole who nobody likes. Sure, he’s ferocious, but he constantly tries to steal another man’s girlfriend and is an absolutely awful father to nearly all of his more than 15 children. In fact, at different times in the comics, he has killed every single one of his biological children except for Erista, the son of Gahck, the tribal chief of the Tribe of Fire in the Savage Land

---

Looking Ahead​

• The current forecast shows a high of 31° F next Saturday afternoon under partly cloudy skies in Columbus. There is a 7% chance of precipitation with winds coming from the west at 12 mph.
• We already know that FOX’s “Big Noon Kickoff” will be back on campus outside of RPAC for the second straight week, and while ESPN’s “College GameDay” is unlikely to return, the Big Ten Network’s “BTN Tailgate” might very well be on hand as well — wait, do they still do that show?

---

We will be covering the rivalry game all week here at Land-Grant Holy Land, so make us your home for all of your Corn and Blue hate from now until next Saturday.

Continue reading...