Beating Michigan can cure OSU’s ills

UM’s seniors can become the first since 1963 to lose four straight to the Bucks.

GATEHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

COLUMBUS — During the last 1,453 days, Lloyd Carr could have spent more than two million minutes thinking about what it feels like to beat Ohio State. It was Nov. 22, 2003, the last time Carr led a Michigan team to a win over the Buckeyes.

Those were the days.

More than 16 million babies have been born since. Katrina was just another name in New Orleans. And Jim Tressel didn’t quite yet walk on water in Columbus.

He does now with five wins in six games against the Wolverines.

Ohio State can cure its ills with a win Saturday in Ann Arbor. Losing to Illinois will seem like a distant memory. Finishing the season with two losses, however, would tarnish some of the luster on Tressel’s sweater vest.

“In the game of football, I don’t know if there’s ever someone having someone’s number,” Tressel said. “The game of football is won on the field by the guys in the trenches. ...

“Some of those streaks we were on were talked about over the course of weeks, and now they’re not alive,” Tressel said. “I don’t think any of that type of thing is anything other than, I guess, discussion points.”

Asked for his fondest memory of beating Michigan, though, Tressel didn’t settle on one.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to have a decent amount of ones to remember fondly,” he said.

That isn’t the case in the Wolverines locker room. Michigan’s senior class can become the first since 1963 to lose four straight to OSU.

Carr once seemed to have John Cooper’s number. Now, the shoe is on the other foot.

“I don’t have an explanation, except to say on those given Saturdays, the best team normally wins,” Carr said. “I don’t have much to give you there.”

Saturday’s game is similar to 2003. Even with a win, Ohio State likely will be on the outside of the national championship picture.

But the winner of this game wins the Big Ten title outright and gets a trip, most likely, to the Rose Bowl.

“I remember how great it was to win that one. To be on the field, students rushing the field and the roses and just having the feeling that we won the championship outright,” Michigan senior Adam Kraus said. “It was a tremendous feeling.”

Ohio State players receive a keychain charm of a pair of gold pants for each win over Michigan. Kirk Barton, Ohio State’s senior right tackle, gave one to his mother and two to his sister.

“There is a big difference between being 4-0 and 3-1 against Michigan,” Barton said. “There’s a difference in how you’re remembered.”

That is true of losing, too.

“The record in this game, you know you carry that forever,” said Carr, who is 6-6 against Ohio State and may be coaching his final season. “By the same token, you don’t judge. I don’t judge a player on his record. I judge a player by the way he competed. By the way he represented this program. ... But certainly, everybody is judged. There are a lot of people watching this game.”

Coaches are fond of the cliché that winning begets winning. So does losing.

Might Ohio State be in Michigan’s heads?

“I don’t really know if they’ve gotten in our heads. They’ve just gotten the best of the us the few years on the field,” Kraus said. “It’s a new year and a new team.”

In many ways, though, it’s the same team that’s waited nearly four years to taste victory over the Buckeyes.