Growing up in the 70s and 80s, there was an intense hatred for all things Michigan by me and my friends.  

Including those few annoying kids at school who were “big” Michigan fans, even though they were not from Michigan. 

In 90s which is when I was at OSU (fall 88- spring 92), I would have sworn Columbus had more Michigan fans than OSU fans.   

The low point:  I distinctly remember a trip to city center mall in the early fall of 1993 to get an OSU sweatshirt.   I went into foot locker. Right by the entrance was a very nice display of 40$ sweatshirts, very neatly folded.  The problem was. They were Notre Dame and Michigan sweatshirts.  They didn’t even have Ohio State.  I was livid and complained to the barely understandable manager.  Needless to say, I went to longs bookstore. No “cool” Nike sweatshirt for me. 

This made me think of all the success Jim Tressel had.   The majority of those “fake Michigan and Notre Dame” fans disappeared in the early 2000’s.   The only ones I see left are just the annoying people who root against the home team no matter what. ( not talking about legit Michigan natives who moved to Columbus for work). 

So what happened to that next generation of annoyingly shallow fans?   

Tressel eliminates their creation? 

Are they now the fringe Ohio State fans?