He wasn’t sexy, but Earle Bruce won 75% of his games in nine years, won five of nine against Michigan, and four Big Ten titles. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Some empathy for those weary of Michigan-Ohio State ‘what if’ columns, or ‘why not’, or ‘if they don’t win, what then?’. Perspective on the ever-wearing process of having nothing better to write about Ohio State than…it’s not good enough!
It’s Sunday, and like so many of you, I’m glad that yesterday’s in the rear-view mirror.
So glad that the boil over losing to Michigan the past four years was finally lanced. Enough with the questions, the opinions, and the Armageddon conspiracies.
VPP, in Versailles, proudly sponsors Buckeyes football on Press Pros Magazine.com.
As Jeff Gilbert wrote Friday…”Answers are more elusive than a shifty halfback.”
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA and Ohio State sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
And why fool ourselves? There’s never a glass-half-full context to contemplate with Ohio State football, because…..can you imagine the over-examination and nuance columns on Sunday if Ohio State had lost again?
Yes, Ryan Day would have taken the bullet. Fallen on his sword. Would have admitted he’d failed to do enough. Would have taken responsibility. You respect that, but enough is enough. It’s a football game.
But people do not forget.
You’d have to go back to the period between 1988 and 1993 – the dreaded Cooper years – to relive that kind of ignominy and hopelessness in Ohio…five years of having lost a football game to Michigan. While in the meantime, the Dow Jones average rose during that period from 2,000 in 1988 to 3,750 in 1993, an increase of 87.5%. Personal fortunes were made, but it wasn’t enough.
One would have thought the rapture was upon us on the evening of November 20, 1993. “Fire Cooper” was the cry from Ironton to Ashtabula.
“We have to have an Ohio man,” was the cry, the resume’ clincher in the search for a new coach. Cooper was a Tennessean by birth, and reached his coaching zenith, unfortunately, at Arizona State before replacing the generational, and old-school Earle Bruce at Ohio State. As it turned out, Bruce was no more fortunate than Cooper…and he was an Ohio man!
Former Buckeye boss John Cooper was a gifted recruiter…but he didn’t beat Michigan.
Bruce won exactly 75% of his games at Ohio State in nine seasons, including four Big Ten titles (outright and shared). He appeared in eight bowl games, and won five of nine against Michigan. But it wasn’t good enough.
“Give us Barrabas,” was the cry in Columbus – something better and more sparkling than the image of Woody’s short-sleeve white shirts and Earle’s fedora hat.
Cooper, out of the PAC 10, won exactly 75% of his games at Ohio State in thirteen seasons, and he won one Rose Bowl. But he lost to Michigan eight times in eleven years (2-10-1), and the rapture was at the doorstep.
Michigan got Cooper fired, and Jim Tressel hired, another Ohio guy who won a national title in 2002 and led a charmed life against the team up north.
And when Tressel ran aground after ‘Tattoogate’ in May of 2011, the ultimate Ohio guy symbol took over in the person of Urban Meyer, whose record against Michigan (and everyone else) was nigh on to inarguable. He beat Michigan seven consecutive years, and he won the national title in 2014.
Jim Tressel was an Ohio guy and led a charmed life against Michigan…9 wins and 1 loss.
Even the Detroit Free Press admitted during those years…”that we have no business thinking about beating Ohio State” (paraphrasing). “They’re everything that Michigan is not.”
But it wasn’t enough.
Alas, Meyer ran aground like Bruce, Cooper and Tressel. Character, for a period of a month, suddenly took precedence over beating Michigan.
And now Ryan Day reigns over the Big Ten and the nation with the best win-loss percentage in college football (.890%, 82-10) and a national championship in 2024. And it was still questioned prior to Saturday because of those four losses to Michigan.
Which brings us to where we were for a brief time on Saturday evening, and where we might have been by Sunday morning. Unbeaten, and #1 in the country…what would have been left to write about Ohio State football had they not beaten Michigan?
Urban Meyer was 7-0 against Michigan, and couldn’t survive it.
Had they lost, the journalistic account would have been, as you’d expect…glass half empty. For the sake of context, do you not remember last year when a card-carrying minion of Buckeye Nation wrote on social media: “I’d rather beat Michigan than win the national championship.”
And now that they’ve beaten Michigan, will it be enough…if they don’t repeat as national champions?
Who takes that fall?
More questions.
More nuance.
Never good enough.
And do you ever take the time to wonder….
Who’s the next Barrabas?
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