Territorial Bloggings

It’s the third weekend in November, which means one thing: the renewal of the best rivalry in college football - Michigan vs. Ohio State!

Funny thing is that my blog traffic bears this out, as I’ve seen an uptick in the amount of traffic. Traffic, it seems, that is being driven by search engines spitting out my Michigan-related posts from the past year (prior to last year’s epic game, Bo’s passing, and my nostalgic look back at Bob Ufer & the 1979 Michigan vs. Indiana game…). That’s pretty cool.

This year’s game lost some luster, what with UofM & tOSU both losing last week (the first time both have headed into the game with losses since 1959). The stakes are still the same, in terms of the Big 10 title & a trip to the Rose Bowl, but tOSU’s dropping out of being undefeated & #1 in the nation, and UofM having their 8 game winning streak ended. It’s just that the game now doesn’t have quite the national significance that it otherwise would have.

But it’s still Michigan vs. Ohio State…

For bragging rights & all the Big 10 marbles…

And that means something…

To help get myself in the proper mood for the festivities tomorrow, I’ve been reading The 100-Yard War: Inside The 100-Year-Old Michigan-Ohio State Football Rivalry. If you’re even passingly familiar with and/or interested in this rivalry & what makes it tick, then you’ll enjoy reading this book. It does a great job of weaving together the psychology, sociology, and history of this rivalry. I cut my teeth on the rivalry during the final years of the epic Bo vs. Woody phase, during which the conference wasn’t the Big 10 as much as it was the Big 2 & the Little 8. I attended two of the games in Ann Arbor (1977 & 1979), and I was attending UofM in 1986 (the year that Jim Harbaugh guaranteed a victory in Columbus). It’s a special thing, all the feelings & emotions that comprise this rivalry. The only thing I’ve experienced first hand that even comes close to rivaling it in terms of competitiveness, emotion, mutual hatred, and vitriol is the UNC-Duke basketball rivalry.

For getting a last-minute infusion of humorous partisanship before tomorrow’s kick-off, I would suggest visiting the M Zone blog. Good stuff…

Despite my not being quite the true believer in Michigan football that I once was (after all, I can easily take a perverse pleasure in the suffering of the more, shall we say, arrogant Michigan fans when they lose), and I’m a tiny bit more favorably disposed towards tOSU (thanks to bigsis — a UofM grad — inexplicably allowing of her eldest, and my goddaughter, to attend tOSU), I can’t bring myself to root either against UofM or for tOSU. I. Just. Can’t. Do. It.

I won’t be crushed if Michigan loses, particularly if Ohio State can sneak back into the BCS title game picture (unlikely as it is, but still possible in light of Oregon’s falling prey to the “2007 Curse of the 2nd-Ranked Team” phenomenon…), but neither can I root for anything other than a Michigan victory.

I just hope for a good, close, entertaining game of college football to show up on my TV tomorrow afternoon. If I get that, then I’ll be happy.

-ghp