Anyway, given this crazy year, nothing should surprise us any more, right? So when Michigan announced the cancellation of The Game, the battle against arch-rival Ohio State that has taken place each and every season since 1917, few batted an eye. Some, as Buckeye-alum-turned-ESPN-analyst Kirk Herbstreit did last week on national television, proclaimed that the Wolverines would be ducking heavily favored Ohio State if they cancelled the matchup, going so far as to pressure the Wolverines to keep the game on its schedule despite the surging numbers of COVID-19 cases on the team's roster.
See, fans of the #4 Buckeyes understand that a cancellation leaves them with just five games under their belt, one less than the minimum the Big Ten required in order to play in the conference championship game. And the College Football Playoff committee weighs conference championships heavily when deciding which teams will play for the national title.
Regardless of which side you're on, it's too bad that this year's installment of arguably the greatest rivalry in college sports won't be played this year. Yes, the Buckeyes were an early 30-point favorite (with an ever-increasing betting line), and the Wolverines had only one scholarship quarterback left on the depth chart who was even eligible to play. It's too bad because a vision had come to me, a premonition of how things would have unfolded had the game gone on as planned. We'll never see it come to fruition now. But trust me, this so could have happened.
Michigan, a 53-point underdog by kickoff, managed to scrap and claw and stay in the game against the mighty Buckeyes. Fourth-string quarterback Dan Villari (the only remaining active QB on scholarship) played valiantly before being demolished by a scarlet-jerseyed pass rusher in the third quarter. His backup, a walk-on from Hawaii, couldn’t locate his cleats or any shoes for that matter, and after offensive coordinator Josh Gattis’s phone calls to transfer-portal candidate Dylan McCaffery went unanswered (I wouldn’t answer the phone either if I got a new PS5!), linebacker Michael Barrett agreee to jump positions and fill in the rest of the game behind center.
Somehow, astonishingly, miraculously—impossibly in fact—the Wolverines kept the Nuts within striking distance. Columbus native Buster Douglass was interviewed on the OSU sidelines and said that his famous knockout of 42-to-1 favorite Mike Tyson would be considered a “a minor upset” compared to what was shaping up on the field. Trailing by a single point in the final seconds, Michigan reached field goal range and Coach Harbaugh called his last timeout.
Kicker Quinn Nordin pushed a winged helmet over his new “Wild Thang” haircut and trotted onto the field. Ohio Stadium was at a hushed silence, much as the empty building had been all afternoon. Nordin steadied himself for the potential game-winning kick. The ball was snapped and spotted and he approached it, whipping his leg into the prolate spheroid with the all the wallop he could muster.
The ball sailed high in the air toward the goal posts before deflecting off each upright, first the left, then the right, and came to a rest atop the crossbar.
The partisan Buckeye crowd demanded that it was no good and victory was theirs. But as there were only 17 of them in the stands, they pretty much went unnoticed. Harbaugh lost his ever-loving mind on the sidelines with the refs, saying it should definitely count. "Another fourth down spot! I see how it is down here!" he screamed—holding up his middle finger and thumb inches apart as a reference to a referee's contraversial fourth-down that cost his Wolverines victory in 2016—while being restrained by athletic director Warde Manuel, school president Mark Schlissel and the entire University of Michigan Board of Regents.
The officiating crew huddled for what seemed like hours before announcing that a swift sprint through the tunnel was the best way for them to reach their cars ahead of the growing angry Buckeye mob. A helicopter circled overhead and a ladder descended from it carrying B1G commissioner Kevin Warren, who waved to the sparse crowd much like Peter Falk in The In-Laws. The commish landed gently in the center of the big red “O” and gathered the two head coaches together for a discussion.
Harbaugh once again accused OSU coach Ryan Day of cheating. Day once again threatened to hang 100 points on Harbaugh in 2021, even if it meant quitting his job at Ohio State and getting hired by whichever NFL team faces Harbaugh’s new employer in the coming season. This was all too much for Warren to hear, literally, due to the audio limitations of his COVID-proof hazmat suit. As the coaches were about to resort to fisticuffs he separated them, realizing that an on-field decision was just not going to settle this.
The Big Ten Conference has an illustrious history of screwing up its choice of postseason representative. Undefeated Ohio State won a share of the 1961 national championship despite the university's faculty council voting down their invitation to participate in the Rose Bowl, citing a priority of academics over becoming known as a "football school". (I wouldn't have wanted to be the faculty member that broke the news to legendary coach Woody Hayes.) Ohio State's defending national champions of 1969, the team Woody called his best ever, were denied a return trip to Pasadena due to a ridiculous "no-repeat" rule. Even Bo Schembechler's unbeaten 1973 Wolverines, who tied #1 Ohio State 10-10 and dominated the Buckeyes statistically, were a seeming lock for a Rose Bowl berth until a vote of the conference's athletic directors (led by in-state rival Michigan State) chose the Buckeyes by a 6-4 margin.
Warren chose to kick it old school and gather his athletic directors together for a vote, passing out ballots the way an eighth-grader slides notes across a school desk. “Who do you like?” was hand-written across the top, with boxes for Michigan and Ohio State underneath. The vote went 8-6 in favor of declaring the kick no good and the Buckeyes the winner. It would later be revealed that Michigan State AD Bill Beekman cast the deciding vote. Turns out he wasn't a big Schembechler fan either.
