Editor’s note: this Ohio State and B1G essay is by guest contributor Hans Hetrick
Let us revel in the 2016 Ohio State Michigan game one more time before the bowl season plays out.
This year’s version of The Game, a rivalry that badly needed a classic game, deserves another tribute. The annual post-Thanksgiving matchup between the Wolverines and the Buckeyes gave us a game to be truly thankful for, a rollercoaster ride of great defense, missed field goals, a last second game-tying, field goal, two overtimes, controversial officiating, an unusually animated Urban Meyer, and a mercurial Jim Harbaugh turned up to eleven.
With the Buckeyes ranked second in the polls and the Wolverines ranked third, every available prize was on the line, a Big Ten title shot and a slot in the college football playoffs. When Curtis Samuel dashed into the end zone to seal an Ohio State victory, the Big Ten’s two most storied football programs had put on a show that will be remembered alongside the 1950 Snow Bowl and the 2006 Game of the Century as one of the rivalry’s greatest games.
As college football’s regular season winded down, many sportswriters began anointing the Big Ten the nation’s strongest conference. There is something to their claim.
The Big Ten placed four teams in the top eight of the College Football Playoff rankings. Wisconsin and Ohio State notched early season high-profile wins over LSU and Oklahoma respectively. Paul Chryst at Wisconsin and James Franklin at Penn State led two historically powerful programs to the Big Ten Championship game and possibly back to prominence. And Michigan and Ohio State are in the capable hands of college football’s two most respected head coaches outside of Alabama.
But before we start proclaiming the Big Ten as the king of the hill, let us remember what happened in 2006. That year The Game featured the #1 ranked Buckeyes and the #2 Wolverines.
The Buckeyes won in a barnburner and the game was dubbed the Game of the Century, a moniker that’s not thrown about outside of Ohio and Michigan.
And for good reason.
The Wolverines got spanked by USC 32-18 in the Rose Bowl, and Urban Meyer’s Florida Gators supremely embarrassed the Buckeyes 41-14 in the BCS National Championship. The Gators defense held Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith and the Ohio State offense to just 82 yards. The 2007 BCS National Championship served as a testament to how spectacularly far the Big Ten lagged behind the SEC in depth of talent.
It was the first of seven straight SEC national titles.
Has the Big Ten caught up and even eclipsed the SEC ten years later?
After Michigan lost to Florida State, in a cracker of a game, the Big Ten’s 2-3 bowl record does not impress.
And the Big Ten will do well to split their four remaining bowl games. Wisconsin faces a well-stocked Western Michigan team in a Cotton Bowl they should win and a high potential for humiliation. Iowa and Florida could put up baseball like scores in the Outback Bowl. Penn State, the Big Ten champs, won a date with a USC Trojan team at the height of their powers in the Rose Bowl. And finally, the Buckeyes will have their hands full against Clemson in the first round of the college football playoffs.
Big Ten football put on a fantastic show in 2016.
Tonight we’ll know if they can take the show on the road.