OSU's Urban Meyer, UM's Brady Hoke both Ohio born, now roam opposing sidelines in The Game

11/24/2012

COLUMBUS — For the bet­ter part of the last quar­ter-cen­tury, the soul of col­lege foot­ball’s great­est ri­valry was of­ten miss­ing.

The Ohio State-Mich­i­gan game did not pair coaches who grew up with this rite of fall, and it swung from one lop­sided ex­treme to the other. Ten­nes­see na­tive John Cooper in­fa­mously called it just an­other game, then went 2-10-1 in that run-of-the-mill sea­son fi­nale, while Jim Tres­sel got it and was 9-1 against Mich­i­gan. Don’t even men­tion the Rich Ro­dri­guez era.

But times are chang­ing.

When fourth-ranked Ohio State places its per­fect sea­son on the line against No. 20 Mich­i­gan to­day at Ohio Sta­dium, there is a sense the ri­valry is em­bark­ing on its next great era.

Ohio State’s Ur­ban Meyer and sec­ond-year Mich­i­gan coach Brady Hoke have both en­joyed big early suc­cess — on Satur­days and on sign­ing day — and, just as im­por­tant for the health of The Game, are deeply in­vested in beat­ing the other guy.

The coaches were born and bred in Ohio, Meyer in Ash­t­ab­ula as the son of a father who wor­shipped Woody Hayes, and Hoke out­side Day­ton as the con­trar­ian who pulled for Mich­i­gan be­cause ev­ery­one else liked Ohio State. They are sons of The Ten-Year War — the stretch be­tween Ohio na­tives Woody and Bo that for­ever el­e­vated the ri­valry — and just maybe the pro­tag­o­nists in an­other one.

The fire is back, with Hoke grat­ing Ohio­ans by re­fus­ing to call Ohio State by its full name and Meyer never shy about his dis­taste for “that school up north.” How per­va­sive is that sen­ti­ment? The let­ter "M" is cov­ered on build­ings and street signs across Ohio State’s cam­pus this week.

“Let’s kick the [ex­ple­tive] out of Mich­i­gan,” Meyer said Fri­day at for­mer coach Earle Bruce’s “Beat Mich­i­gan Tail­gate" in Co­lum­bus.

Of his ad­ver­sary hail­ing from this state, he said, “I think that's when you start us­ing the term like war, with all due re­spect. This is not war, it's a game, but it's a very in­tense game when this is home.

“[Hoke] was born in the state of Ohio, which I still don't get," Meyer added. "That’s an­other story. But it adds to the in­ten­sity, rather ob­vi­ously. I think when you're talk­ing about it as close to home, it adds to the fuel, fuel to the fire.”

As if to­day needed any more fuel. For Ohio State, the first con­test be­tween Meyer and Hoke of­fers the leg­acy-de­fin­ing chance of a per­fect fi­nale to a year that be­gan any­thing but. Despite play­ing un­der the shroud of a post­sea­son ban — and com­ing off a 6-7 sea­son — the Buck­eyes can claim the pro­gram’s sixth un­beaten or un­tied sea­son.

Meyer knows the rar­ity of per­fec­tion, achiev­ing it once in his first 10 sea­sons as coach — and not in the two sea­sons his Flor­ida Ga­tors won a na­tional ti­tle. The Buck­eyes, who re­tain an out­side shot an As­so­ci­ated Press na­tional ti­tle, and Notre Dame re­main the only two un­beaten teams af­ter losses by Kan­sas State and Ore­gon.

“It's a credit to a bunch of play­ers and as­sis­tant coaches that keep that fo­cus [de­spite the dis­trac­tions]," Meyer said. "Once you leave the fa­cil­ity, who knows what's be­ing said? Who knows when you start talk­ing about the end of the sea­son, agents and who's com­ing out, who's do­ing this, what about this … am I go­ing to trans­fer? All that non­sense goes to­ward end of the year.”

For­tu­nately for Meyer, Mich­i­gan week re­quires lit­tle mo­ti­va­tion.

“This is the Su­per Bowl,” se­nior line­backer Eti­enne Sabino said. “This is the bowl game. This is the na­tional cham­pi­on­ship. This is ev­ery­thing for us. This is The Game.”

Hoke and Mich­i­gan, mean­while, await ea­gerly. The Wol­v­er­ines won the Sugar Bowl last sea­son, but the chance to spoil the Buck­eyes’ pur­suit of per­fec­tion might be Hoke’s most sat­is­fy­ing vic­tory yet. Mich­i­gan has tar­nished five un­beaten OSU sea­sons on the fi­nal week­end of the reg­u­lar sea­son, most re­cently in 1996.

The Game is here, back and healthy again.

"In years past, I don't want to say that it lost any­thing, but this year it'll def­i­nitely be much more in­tense," se­nior de­fen­sive back Zach Domi­cone said. "The ri­valry will def­i­nitely pick up in in­ten­sity."

NO COMMENT: As the stakes of OSU’s one-year bowl ban con­tinue to rise, ath­letic di­rec­tor Gene Smith again this week re­fused to sec­ond-guess the school’s much-de­bated de­ci­sion not to vol­un­tar­ily de­cline a bowl in­vi­ta­tion last year.

"I could sit here and give you a mil­lion other what-ifs had we taken that, but I’m not go­ing there," Smith said. "I’m wor­ried about mak­ing sure that we po­si­tion our foot­ball staff, our stu­dent-ath­letes, and do ev­ery­thing we can to have the op­por­tu­nity to beat that team up north. That’s my mis­sion right now. I apol­o­gize if that sounds in­sen­si­tive, but that is the re­al­ity of what we have to do."

Con­tact David Briggs at: dbriggs@the­blade.com, 419-724-6084 or on Twit­ter @DBriggsBlade.