THE SITUATIONAL: Thank You, Next

Mine is right after New Year's, so like other early January babies our countdowns get lost in the countdown. Maybe you take inventory of the days until you're set to leave on vacation, or get another paycheck, the weekend - we find the present too boring to live inside of at times. What's next is more interesting.

Except that every present moment used to be a next. Each day is also an anniversary of some sort, or another grain of sand in whatever hourglass you decide it belongs to. Here's a popular one - Ohio State plays Michigan in football again in just three days.

The Buckeyes face the Wolverines every* year, which means anyone invested in the rivalry is participating in some sort of a countdown and/or anniversary. When your team used to win this game way back in the prior decades, we showcased that hourglass. It was all-caps and it was gorgeous.

Currently, the number of days since Ohio State won this game contains a slew of NCAA shenanigans, missed opportunities and soiled coaching diapers. Depending on how you view this version of the hourglass, you're going to focus on whatever sand grains bring the most comfort.

Shorter version: Connor Stalions isn't walking out of the tunnel on Saturday. But Ryan Day is.

No matter how you twist your mind into explaining this number, it will still have a comma in it until the Buckeyes flip the hourglass. If any number in this rivalry is unacceptable, the current one is felonious.

On Saturday, Ohio State will have waited 313 days to say thank you to the team which saved its 2024 Natty-or-Bust season.

A year ago Michigan won the type of game the winner of this rivalry rightfully celebrate for decades. Once the hourglass flips, that moment still lives on in the rivalry zeitgeist. It was a game which was all but conceded by the Wolverines until the Buckeyes decided they needed to give Sherrone Moore his only road win of the 2024 season.

It had been 378 days since Michigan had beaten any opponent in a hostile location. That drought prematurely ended in amazing and hysterical fashion, which led to their fans recasting how poorly the Wolverines' national title defense had gone to that point.

Winning this game produces the energy of the sun, a billion nuclear weapons ora pod of unsupervised 2nd graders eating candy. It can even transform a dogshit season into one that's savored forever.

What it looks like to be a #ReliaQuestBowl champion #FootballInParadise pic.twitter.com/iklpggGpv5

— ReliaQuest Bowl (@ReliaQuestBowl) January 22, 2025

The ReliaQuest social media team posted that while Ohio State fans were celebrating the greatest run in college football history. Michigan's bowl game - an inconsequential, empty shell of an event - had taken place 23 days earlier. They posted that when they did for exactly one reason. One of its two teams had the second most powerful bragging rights in the sport.

Earlier in 2024, Michigan had its ass kicked at home - by Texas, ironic! - in an ESPN Gameday spectacle at the top of its national title defense before absorbing two separate two-game losing streaks en route to winning no road games.

Until it got to Columbus. Rebuilding following a national title run comes with setbacks. Maybe.

It's the end of the season which dictates how any season is remembered. If you don't think Ohio State and Michigan have anything in common - you're wrong for a lot of reasons, but that is at the top of the list.

This game on paper isn't close. Hey, neither was last year's.

Twenty years earlier, the Buckeyes had massacred the favored Wolverines - undefeated in conference play and already headed to the Rose Bowl - to end a mediocre season of their own. A month later, Ohio State fans were elated over their four-loss Alamo Bowl champions.

I still randomly see Ted Ginn Jr. in the wildcat putting the Oklahoma State Cowboys in hell on my social media feed two decades later. Dogshit season! There's nothing like winning this game. National titles are rare, precious and wonderful. They don't come with Gold Pants.

There's also nothing like losing this game, as you know all too well regardless of your age now. Anew anniversary is either created or delayed, and since the passage of time is undefeated, days pileup and we keep accounting for them in the good column or the dreadful one.

Ohio State will close its national title defense regular season schedule the same way it opened it, with ESPN College Gameday outside the stadium. Unlike the previous champions, they have not lost - or really been challenged, even as everyone's biggest opponent of the season. This game on paper isn't close. Hey, neither was last year's.

If you only began counting the days to the Michigan game as the Longhorns were arriving in Columbus to start this whole thing off, you'll hit 91 as the Buckeyes take the field in Ann Arbor on Saturday.

"Ohio State may have to credit Michigan for them being in the national championship game tonight."

@MattBarrie pic.twitter.com/oOCHHNGt5s

— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) January 20, 2025

But in all likelihood, you were already counting down because that exercise only pauses one day a year. It will pause again on Saturday when it hits zero, and then will start up on Monday - ideally, while the Buckeyes are preparing to return to Indianapolis for the first time in 1,803 days. Another number with a comma in it. Felonious.

Ohio State will have waited 313 days for the privilege of saying thank you to the team which saved its 2024 natty-or-bust season by finally unlocking its potential. Let's get Situational.

OPENER | OHIO STATE ON PURPOSE

I've spent much of this season harping on Ohio State's chronically pitiful special teams because the near-wire-to-wire no.1 team in the country's flaws are generally difficult to parse until there's a kicking person running onto the field.

Jayden Fielding has missed three field goals in this game over the past two years, including two chippies and one over 50 that Day ran 40 seconds of clock in the closing moments of the 2nd quarter in 2023 to attempt, instead of *gestures broadly at 5-star offensive players*.

But that was when he was still trying to do four jobs at once. That's when he was still inside of his own head about this Game Unlike Any Other. So no special teams today - just offense and defense. Let's start with Michigan's non-victory formation 2nd half drives against Ohio State this decade (NSFW):

MICH 2ND HALF DRIVES VS OSU SINCE 2021

QUARTER	PLAYS	YARDS	RESULT
2021 3Q	3	81	TOUCHDOWN
2021 3Q	5	78	TOUCHDOWN
2021 4Q	9	66	TOUCHDOWN
2021 4Q	5	63	TOUCHDOWN
2022 3Q	7	75	TOUCHDOWN
2022 3Q	3	2	PUNT
2022 4Q	15	81	TOUCHDOWN
2022 4Q	4	18	MISSED FG
2022 4Q	1	75	TOUCHDOWN
2022 4Q	3	92	TOUCHDOWN
2023 3Q	6	46	FIELD GOAL
2023 3Q	7	75	TOUCHDOWN
2023 4Q	7	44	FIELD GOAL
2023 4Q	13	56	FIELD GOAL
2024 3Q	3	4	PUNT
2024 3Q	3	3	INTERCEPTION
2024 4Q	15	77	INTERCEPTION
2024 4Q	11	57	FIELD GOAL
TOTAL	18 DRIVES	9 TDs	5 FGs

Michigan has scored on 13 of 18 2nd half drives since the rivalry turned, giving Matt Patricia the opportunity to force a 4th quarter punt in this game for the first time since Jeff Hafley was Ohio State's defensive coordinator.

Nine points on their last six 2nd half drives is a trend worth preserving, especially if Ohio State chooses to run its own offense instead of Michigan's. Last year the Buckeyes ran on 1st down seven times in the 2nd half and played way too much of the game in a tight box, which if you're a Michigan fan in 2024 (psst, or this year) is exactly what brings you hope.

The MGoBlog Ohio State preview was uh probably not going to be like the previous three in reference to the 2024 meeting where the Wolverines were three-touchdown road underdogs, while the postgame analysis was What Was Ryan Day Thinking? in case you're wondering how prepared everyone was - not just you, reader - for Michigan's winning streak to end at three.

They needed help to keep the game competitive, and hoo boy they got it. This is damning:

Im still baffled by how conservatively Ryan Day coached that game. Being aggressive used to be his whole thing and now hes just Jim Tressel with way worse special teams.

— Ben Axelrod (@BenAxelrod) November 26, 2023

Oops, that's not from 2024 - that's from Ohio State's most recent trip to Ann Arbor two years ago. This was less about forcing the grrrr toughness issue and more about in-game adjustments in a self-destructive way. Day is a masterful football mind and play designer, and he schemed up a touchdown to Emeka Egbuka in the seam early in the game - which Kyle McCord threw at his heels.

Instead of going back to it later, it then felt like Day realized McCord couldn't be fully trusted, and the in-game decisions reflect it - this was back when he was head coach, QB coach and offensive coordinator.

But shedding two of those full-time jobs didn't caress better in-game adjustments out of the Buckeyes last season either, after Will Howard took a head shot and Cal's current backup quarterback was deemed unplayable. That same backup was his Plan B when McCord was a shaky starter in 2023. Day finally sat down with the guy in charge of that predicament.

What finally produced the in-game changes everyone was begging to see was losing to Michigan a fourth consecutive time. Here's what happened almost two months later, after 13-10 on Senior Day:

Notre Dame gave up 3 TD drives of 75+ yards in a game just once all season long.

The Irish have given up 4 such TD drives to Ohio State tonight, on all 4 of the Buckeyes' drives.

— Matt Fortuna (@Matt_Fortuna) January 21, 2025

They decided to be Ohio State on Purpose instead of Michigan by Accident. And that's the whole game plan, recipe, blueprint and wishcast for the Buckeyes on Saturday. Attempt to resemble the best version of this team as closely as possible instead of cosplaying as its opponent.

INTERMISSION

The Solo

Last year in an attempt to exorcise the demons of Michigan claiming a national title* songs exclusively from 1997 were sacrificed in this space. This strategy worked marvelously, so this year's theme will be Songs From Any Year Except 1997 or 2023.

---

John Caferty claimed his band was named Beaver Brown after a can of paint, but let's be serious - it's because some men *raises hand* choose to remain 12-years old for as long as possible. They simply didn't have the technology to call themselves 6-7 in 1972.

Every generation has its own version of The Stupidest Shit Ever. Embrace it, as we are not ready for what the kids born this weekend are going to spring on us in 15 years. On the Dark Side contains a sax solo. Let's answer our two questions.

Is the musician in the video actually playing the saxophone?

That's Michael Antunes, who passed away shortly before the current college football season kicked off. He didn't go by Mike. Everyone just called him Tunes. Amazing name for a musician. When I was a kid, there was a pitcher named Bob Walk. A disastrous name for his chosen profession.

Frank Beard was the only beardless guy in ZZ Top - what was he even doing? Be your destiny: Bernie Madoff stole billions from investors. Anthony Weiner liked showing his hog to people. Tim Duncan was over seven feet tall and played basketball.

That's how you do it. Tunes was absolutely rocking it here. VERDICT: yes, confirmed

does this sax solo slap?

Right around the time Bob Walk (wtf?!) was working his way up to the Bigs, a band named Eddie and the Cruisers was producing bangers little boy me was enjoying the hell out of - except the Cruisers were a fictional movie band and Eddie wasn't real. Beaver Brown scored the whole movie, but some kids often have trouble parsing reality out of fiction. Hey, so do some adults!

Tunes bangs out a sax solo here by which all others are measured. VERDICT: slaps

The Bourbon

There is a bourbon for every situation. Sometimes the spirits and the events overlap, which means that where bourbon is concerned there can be more than one worthy choice.

Over the weekend while I was walking north on High Street after the Rutgers game, someone in our party said, hey did you know if we just kept going we would end up in Ann Arbor in time for The Game?

Of course I knew this. US-23 is a tether between Ohio State's campus and Ann Arbor. It's 182 miles between the two islands, so at a gentleman's pace with friendly people handing us roadside water and snacks, along with four sleeps (Delaware, Upper Sandusky, Fostoria, Toledo) we might have arrived sometime tomorrow.

Or more likely, ended up in the hospital (Wyandot Memorial). There are more practical ways of getting to Ann Arbor than just keep walking toward the smell until you step in it and if you think there couldn't possibly be a bourbon for this, well that's why I never considered becoming a teacher.

A Tale of Two Islands is difficult for the average, rabid teetotaler to understand or appreciate; kind of like the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry to people in Alabama who cannot understand why the Iron Bowl is a junior varsity regional arrangement for the rest of the country. T2I begins with Barrel's foray into rum, which they made out of discarded Islay single malt whisky casks to lend a peaty finish.

T2I takes those rum-ified Islay casks and makes bourbon with them, so you get rum's sweetness and Scotland's smoke. Inside is a 73/23/4 corn/rye/malted barley mash and it's no younger than five years, so more mature than anything calling itself Beaver Brown.

Imagine sitting in a donut shop along US-23 (Buckeye Donuts) preparing to send yourself to the infirmary for excessive chafing. You're inside chewing on a rich, complex cigar with a low burn rate while taking one bite out of everything on display - so you're getting chocolate, banana, butter, fruit, every food group on your palate.

T2I is only for those who are brave enough to venture into something difficult to describe or appreciate. Available broadly because Barrel is among the strongest large format distilleries in America. You should be able to get it, even in Alabama.

CLOSER | DRY YOUR TEARS TO PERFECT YOUR AIM

My hottest take about the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry is that revenge games are as personal as they are impossible. Sure, a player who participated last year might feel a sense of retribution - but that's a tiny, fleeing figment in what's a football forever war.

Besides, who would be Ohio State's target for revenge in this particular chapter? Itself? The dorks who took the flag onto midfield which unlocked so much reeking loser behavior, including a politician drafting a bill to make flag-planting a felony? The Buckeyes are what Walter White would describe as the danger here.

And that danger could blow up in their own faces again if they misuse or just flat-out abandon it. In Ohio State's first outing after The Game in 2024, Jeremiah Smith had accumulated more targets with 10 minutes remaining in the 1st quarter than he got against Michigan the entire game.

That's to say Michigan's back seven will be in hell against a fully operational Ohio State passing attack, and that's not a shot at this weekend's opponent. Replace Michigan with the program of your choice in that statement. Replace Michigan with any of last season's playoff qualifiers.

If RYAN Day chooses to make rushing yards without any context whatsoever the focal point of the game strategy, it MAY be up to MATT Patricia to produce the points necessary to win.

A shot at Michigan would be pointing out the math club Northwestern calls its receiving room had three guys average double-digit yardage every time a ball hit their hands and they didn't drop it. It's looking at its Maryland game last week and imagining what might have happened if Malik Washington could throw with any sort of accuracy.

It's revisiting a gutty five-point win over a Purdue program which hasn't won a conference game since 2023 and seeing how efficient Ryan Browne was in defeat. Michigan State's Nick Marsh, as the danger (using the term loosely for Sparty) in that rivalry game playing to his customary output.

Washington's Demond Williams, without throwing three times as many interceptions in one afternoon as Julian Sayin has in conference play. Wisconsin's Hunter Simmons throwing for far and away his career high in a game that had little to no garbage time. Those are games Michigan won.

You throw out everything when they play Ohio State, but the key to Saturday is what the Buckeyes choose to throw out themselves. Losing this game was a choice in 2024, and it is again this year albeit to a lesser extent. If Day chooses to make rushing yards without any context whatsoever the focal point of the game strategy, it may be up to Patricia to produce the points necessary to win.

SITUATIONAL ARCHIVE The Situational Whiskey Cellar

Based on everything that's transpired since last Nov 30, the lesson Day had refused to learn was finally absorbed. The past 15 games serve as the reason to believe. Except that the singular lesson from this rivalry is that everything else must be discarded prior to playing in the game.

This time, Ohio State simply must resist the temptation to throw out its identity with the trash.

Thanks for getting Situational today. Go Bucks. Beat Michigan.