Go Blue? A Guide to Unconventional Cheering (Part Two)

Okay Buckeye fans, let’s face some hard truths. If you’ve picked up any newspaper in the last two months or watched five minutes of Sportscenter, you’ll have noticed that the Big Ten as a conference is lacking a little bit of respect. For this read: it has no respect. Various analysts have referred to it as the “Little Ten”, called it “by far the weakest BCS conference” and have otherwise suggested that any team playing in the Big Ten might as well have lined up a series of Pop Warner peewee teams to play this season.

This brings us to reason number two for why Ohio State fans should root for Michigan during all but one notable week of the year: We need Michigan—and all other Big Ten teams, for that matter—to be as good as possible, year in year out.

Let’s face it. That Appalachian State loss was fun—heck, I went to Boone and bought a T-shirt—but it didn’t do much for conference credibility, especially after last year’s bowl season. When Michigan then lost to Oregon in Week 2, I watched fellow Buckeye fans celebrating with a wary eye. Already, the internal conflict had begun: as fun as it is to see our archrival humiliated, what does this mean for Ohio State?

Well, ten games into the season, it appears to mean this: Ohio State is the most doubted team in America.

Every week I read articles about how they haven’t played anybody. Never mind that just who constitutes “anybody” is a constantly morphing and ultimately self-serving concept. When the Buckeyes were 5-0, analysts said the upcoming Purdue game would be their first big test. When the Bucks easily handled the Boilermakers, rather than boost the Buckeyes’ street cred, Purdue was dubbed overrated. When the Bucks were 7-0 with games against Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan remaining, the analysts said the Bucks were just getting to the meat of their schedule. And they were. But after they handled the Spartans, the analysts dismissed that game, saying, and I’m quoting someone I don’t remember from ESPN’s College Gameday here (perhaps Mark May?), “Everyone expected the Buckeyes to be 8-0 at this point, but their first test comes next week against Penn State.”

Well, the Bucks blew out Penn State at Happy Valley, and followed that up with a three-touchdown victory over Wisconsin. But of course now those teams are dubbed overrated, and the first big test is supposed to come this week against Illinois. Do you see a pattern here? In a Big Ten that is perceived as weak, the Buckeyes can’t win respect. If they lose a game, it will instantly be hailed as the just desserts of an overrated team. If they continue to win, it’s because they’re playing a bunch of cupcakes. If Ohio State beats Illinois (who also beat both Wisconsin and Penn State) and Michigan (currently ranked 12th in the BCS), will they have gained respect? Of course not. I can hear it now: Illinois doesn’t count because, well, they’re Illinois, and Illinois always sucks—never mind their record this year. And Michigan? Well, didn’t they lose to that I-AA team earlier this season? Ah, yes, that. You see my point.

I’m not saying such Big Ten bashing is just. Not for a minute. But it’s the perception that counts. As it stands, the only way Ohio State can gain national respect this year is if it runs the table and beats an SEC or Pac-10 team in the national championship game. These are the conferences currently fulfilling the role of analysts’ darlings, and to an obviously biased degree. An example or two should suffice.

Penn State and Wisconsin, who both started the year in the top twenty, have just three losses, and those to Big Ten opponents. Rather than sending the message that the Big Ten is a tough conference, however, the analysts say that the teams were simply overrated and have dropped them completely out of the rankings. Contrast this to the SEC where six three-loss teams are currently ranked in the AP Top 25, as is the Pac-10’s three-loss Cal. And remember, Cal lost to UCLA—the same UCLA that got crushed by Utah 44-6 and handed Notre Dame its only win of the season—so I don’t want to hear, oh, they were all losses to quality teams.

Analysts’ bias is leading them to confusion and even contradictions. They consider the Pac-10 a “strong” conference, yet have dubbed USC’s loss to 40-point underdog Stanford the greatest upset of all time. Here’s my question: how can losing to someone in your own conference be called the greatest upset of all time? If that’s the case, get Stanford out of your conference. Yet somehow, such a scenario doesn’t diminish the respectability of the Pac-10. It does, however, take away Michigan’s status as the victim of the biggest upset of all time—proving that, even in defeat, the analysts scorn the Big Ten.

So what’s the way out of this quagmire? Buckeye fans need Big Ten teams to win every high-profile non-conference game they play, especially bowl games. And this includes Michigan. Yes, I know it hurts. But remember, it’s all in the interest of self-preservation.

And that’s why I root for Michigan—the very team I was born to loathe—every week but one. Any Buckeye fan should be so insane.