Who Actually Runs the Massive Ten: Ohio State or Michigan?

Ohio State runs the Massive Ten — or does it?

The Buckeyes need to be heard on this level: They’re defending nothing. They’re chasing every part. And every part higher imply Michigan.

Ohio State gamers line up reverse Michigan gamers on Nov. 30, 2024, at Ohio Stadium. (Picture by Ian Johnson/Icon Sportswire through Getty Photos)

It’s a sentiment that the majority opponents would embrace. Enter the silo. Silence the surface. Safe and shield. Deal with what’s to come back, not what has come to cross.

Nonetheless, that’s not what we do with defending nationwide champions, particularly once they’ve not crushed their arch nemesis since 2019 and haven’t received the league championship in a convention they declare to rule since 2020. 

Not solely has Michigan — Ohio State’s enemy now and perpetually — received three of the final 4 Massive Ten titles and claimed the 2023 nationwide title, however the Wolverines have watched a complete class of Buckeyes go winless towards a program they check with as “That Staff Up North.”

The very best tact, the most effective take, in any dialog the place factors should be made, is sharpening the reality into an iron level, particularly when sliced at a rival. And that’s what Michigan defensive finish Derrick Moore did on Thursday when requested what he considered Ohio State profitable its most up-to-date nationwide title. 

“First, I’d prefer to congratulate them on the win,” Moore stated. “However you realize it’s not an actual win if y’all [Ohio State] ain’t beat us.”

Moore went on to elaborate on his assertion, noting the first-year 12-team Faculty Soccer Playoff and the place the Buckeyes would have ended up had it not been for the expanded subject.

“If the playoff enlargement wasn’t round, they wouldn’t have received the nationwide championship. So we just about take a look at it like, y’all had a pleasant, little, simple run. However we helped y’all alongside the way in which. We just about helped y’all construct again up. However after that, they dominated all people that got here in entrance of them, so, I’ve received to present all of the credit score to them.”

Ahem: The place’s the lie? Ohio State, being the No. 8 seed, would doubtless have been disregarded of a four-team playoff. And that loss to an unranked seven-win Michigan crew would’ve slammed the door on a dialog to get the Buckeyes in amongst most rational followers and, extra importantly, a rational choice committee.

Derrick Moore #8 of the Michigan Wolverines runs a play throughout the fourth quarter of a sport towards Ohio State. (Picture by Ben Jackson/Getty Photos)

Bear in mind this: Michigan ran the desk in 2023. The Wolverines ran by way of Ohio State with out their head coach on the sideline, proper by way of their competitors within the Massive Ten title sport and over Nick Saban’s Alabama crew and Kalen DeBoer’s Washington crew to win the title. If not all nationwide champions are alike, 2023 Michigan seems to be so much like 2018 Clemson and 2024 Ohio State seems to be so much like 2007 LSU.

It’s one factor to win the nationwide title. It’s one other for Ohio State or Michigan to beat the opposite, and that’s by design. For therefore lengthy, we’ve lived for rivalry video games as a result of it wasn’t that way back that we counted votes to determine who the nationwide champion was. Nobody was actually taking part in for one as a lot as they had been taking part in for the appropriate to level at another person in a sport that mattered greater than it ought to and say, “I beat you.”

That’s what Ohio State-Michigan is all about. 

It’s about eight consecutive losses from 2012 to 2021. It’s about City Meyer by no means realizing what it is prefer to lose to Michigan, and it’s about Ryan Day realizing these 4 losses to the Wolverines would possibly imply extra to OSU followers than his one nationwide title.

It’s about crimson X’s on all phrases that start with the letter “M” throughout the week of The Recreation. It’s about 62-39 (2018), 56-27 (2019) for Ohio State, adopted by 42-27 (2021) and 45-23 (2022) for Michigan. It’s about Michigan closing the hole from laughable in 2020 to “We Personal You” in 2024.

It’s affordable that evaluating the way you win is as essential as profitable, particularly given the Midwest penchant for truthful play and taking the tough highway, as a result of it’s the appropriate manner. And that brings us to the apparent rebuttal, the place Ohio State would possibly take a look at Michigan and ask, sincerely, “did not they cheat?”

Michigan defensive again Rod Moore (9) holds up a Michigan flag at midfield after the Wolverines defeated the Buckeyes. (Picture by Ian Johnson/Icon Sportswire through Getty Photos)

This is what we all know: The NCAA launched an investigation early within the 2023 season amid allegations that Michigan used a sturdy in-person scouting and sign-stealing operation. The Wolverines served a penalty for this in the identical season for which they received the nationwide title, because the Massive Ten suspended Jim Harbaugh for the ultimate three regular-season video games of the yr after its investigation concluded Michigan had violated convention sportsmanship guidelines through an impermissible in‑individual scouting operation.

Simply two months in the past, based on reviews, Michigan proposed suspending present coach Sherrone Moore for the third and fourth video games of the 2025 season for deleting a thread of textual content messages because the scandal broke. Then, this previous week, Massive Ten commissioner Tony Petitti reportedly despatched a letter to the NCAA Committee on Infractions suggesting that Michigan’s soccer program mustn’t face extra sanctions stemming from the sign-stealing scheme.

I believe what galls most people isn’t that Michigan wasn’t punished, however that this system was not punished harshly sufficient for its transgression. In any case, Ohio State doubtless misplaced an opportunity to play for the 2012 nationwide title as a result of, after a 12-0 season, it was compelled to serve a bowl ban as a result of gamers bought memorabilia. At present, that feels quaint.

Had a few of these occasions not occurred, the query would stay: Who runs the Massive Ten? In a season the place the convention may win a 3rd nationwide title in as a few years for the primary time within the CFP period and in a league that Michigan helped present in 1896, which now options 4 applications of their second yr as members, the constant excellence of Penn State and the awakening of Indiana, now’s the second for the convention’s two finest applications during the last 5 many years to throw down a gauntlet. 

Come Nov. 29 on the Massive Home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the final two nationwide champs will meet, and we’ll take a look at the scoreboard to see who actually runs this league, and, maybe, the game.

RJ Younger is a nationwide school soccer author and analyst for FOX Sports activities and the host of the podcast “The Quantity One Faculty Soccer Present.” Observe him at @RJ_Young.

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