Back in the summer, who would have guessed that Michigan football would actually be favored over the big, bad Buckeyes. They’re not heavy favorites though and the line could still move a lot between now and kickoff. The spread actually doesn’t matter all that much in THE GAME anyway.
Weird stuff happens in rivalry clashes.
Michigan State can advance to the Big Ten Football Championship Game and earn at least a share of the division title with a victory over Penn State on Saturday. If the Nittany Lions defeat the Spartans, the winner of the Ohio State at Michigan game will earn the title game berth and the outright division title. So that’s what’s on the line here, everybody got that?
SPREAD: Michigan football -1 (although the spread for this game is absolutely all over the place)
TV: ABC noon est
Brad Nessler, Todd Blackledge, Holly Rowe
Radio: Bill Rosinski, David Norrie, and Joe Schad
Here’s the latest College Football Playoff standings
Full #CFP25 for games played through November 21 https://t.co/nzVRBrICnx pic.twitter.com/Jgzs0WxAaN
— College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) November 25, 2015
Michigan football preview:
This weekend brings the 112th edition of the greatest rivalry in sports.
Like I said, weird stuff happens in rivalry games, and Jim Harbaugh sometimes acts in the behavior that one would commonly associate with a sociopath. See below:
Harbaugh smashing a buckeye after speaking to the group on the walk to visit graves of Bo, Yost and Ufer pic.twitter.com/uPgt8tKfQt
— angelique (@chengelis) November 25, 2015
Michigan football fans might also enjoy this collection of the best OSU schadenfreude on Twitter immediately after Michigan State snapped Ohio State’s 23-game winning streak on Saturday. Jim Harbaugh referred to his do-it-all do-everything Jabril Peppers with an analogy to Willie Mays.
Heady praise. Maybe he’s a guy that seems to be on his way to a Michigan football career in the vein of Charles Woodson or Desmond Howard.
Ohio State Preview:
The Buckeyes winning streak, which just ended, ranked sixth in Big Ten history and was the longest for the Buckeyes since they won a school record 24 consecutive contests from 2012-13, a streak that was also ended by the Spartans. Twitter took a lot of shots at Ohio State once it was over, and there was some Urban Meyer eating cold pizza on a golf cart in a basement memes out there.
Of course, the real story this week was Ezekiel Elliott. Here’s more on that.
Elliott won’t be disciplined. Perhaps everything will be fine and this won’t be an issue going forward, maybe?
Will Meyer will rally all the troops together now?
Nothing unites like a common enemy, and there’s greater enemy in Buckeye land than “that school up north.”
Prediction: Buckeyes 19, Michigan football 14
Even though it’s in Ann Arbor, and there’s some dysfunction junction going on in Columbus right now, I still see tOSU getting it together, and getting fired up for THE GAME. Buckeyes currently have too much of an edge in talent over Michigan.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and sometimes writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. The website is also featured on News Now.
Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye. He also appears regularly on numerous television and radio talk shows all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone.