Meyer, Hoke add to rivalry

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Once upon a time, “The Game” was just another game.

When Michigan and Ohio State played, sure, it was important. After all, the schools put it at the end of their schedules in 1935 in recognition of that fact.

But it never really was an epic battle until two longtime friends ended up on opposite sides and transformed it into an over-the-top grudge match.

“The Bo Schembechler/Woody Hayes era, when college football began to explode on a national level — that’s what made this such a visual rivalry for the country to see,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said.

Now, more than 40 years later, two coaches steeped in the rivalry — each more than willing to toss a little disrespect toward the other side — will be prowling the sidelines in today’s 109th meeting.

Is this the second coming of the “Ten Year War”?

“It’s a new face for the rivalry, of course, but the rivalry is bigger than any one individual,” Michigan offensive lineman Patrick Omahmeh said.

Just like Schembechler and Hayes, Meyer and Michigan’s Brady Hoke are ultra-competitive Ohio natives who don’t hide the fact that they can barely abide their chief rival.

Hoke refers to Ohio State as just “Ohio,” which makes Buckeyes fans’ blood boil. Meyer has taken a page from Hayes and refuses to utter the “M-word,” instead calling it “That Team Up North.”

A chippiness has returned to this staid old annual showdown. It was already evident a year ago when the sides traded shoves, obscenities and taunts in Hoke’s first game (a 40-34 victory) as a head coach in the series.

It’s even more palpable this year with Meyer joining the fray, 25 years after he was a graduate assistant on Earle Bruce’s staff and learned firsthand from Hayes, Bruce and the others to despise the Wolverines.

Hoke is not sold on the theory that the head coaches, at least since the last of the 10 Schembechler-Hayes battles in 1978, have much influence on the rivalry. But he does agree that it doesn’t hurt when both “get” what the game means to so many.