I have been watching Michigan downplaying the Ohio State rivalry for 12 straight days now, and yesterday the quarterback finally topped everybody.
John Fanta of NBC Sports asked Bryce Underwood how different The Game is from every other one on the schedule.
“It’s just another game. Just, with guys in a different color. That’s how I see it.”
Different color! Bryce, that’s what we’re going with?
Bryce Underwood Ohio State Talk Died the Day He Actually Played Them
Same kid who sat on the Rich Eisen Show telling the LeBron James story, making real sure LeBron knew he was going to Michigan, and out comes it’s over for Ohio State. Last March. He had not taken a college snap in his life!
Then in September he’s on The Hard Count with J.D. PicKell calling it the biggest rivalry in sports history, still is to this day, of course. Growing up in the state, what it means there to beat Ohio State, the whole thing.. beautiful. Loved it.
Then he played in it.
63 yards passing the ENTIRE game. Ohio State walked into the Big House and took it 27-9, and Michigan’s offense finished the day with 163 total yards. Not the passing game. The offense.
So what happened between the biggest rivalry in sports history and guys in a different color? One Saturday, that’s the whole thing.
And I already know what half of you are typing. He’s matured, he took the emotion out of it, that’s what good quarterbacks do, you don’t want a guy so jacked up he can’t see straight. Sure! He matured at the exact moment he found out.
The other one I’ll get is that he was a true freshman with no help, and fine.. that’s fair. The line was bad, the offense was bad, it wasn’t all on him. But that’s an argument for why he lost. It is not an argument for why he stopped talking about it.
Michigan Downplaying the Ohio State Rivalry Is Now 3 Guys in 12 Days
He’s the third one from that program to say a version of this since the end of July.
Big Ten media days, brand new head coach Kyle Whittingham gets the rivalry question and says hate’s a strong word. Says a rivalry can be intense without the hatred factor. Says Ryan Day is a good person and he’d be making crap up if he said otherwise.
Six days later Kerry Coombs is up there saying there’s no reason for any of it to be nasty. Grew up with Woody and Bo, doesn’t have to be hateful. This is a man who ran Ohio State’s defense and now works in Ann Arbor, so.. sure, Kerry.
Then Whittingham has to come back out at his first camp presser and clean the whole thing up. Do we have a better chance to win if I hated them, or what? I want to beat them worse than anybody around. We’ve got the countdown clocks. I probably should have worded it differently.
That’s a man who spent a week and a half getting cooked by his own fanbase and came back out to say he didn’t mean it.
And the very next day his quarterback said something worse!
Two Years Ago This Program Planted a Flag on Ohio State’s Logo
That’s what kills me here.
Michigan wins in Columbus in 2024, walks out to midfield and sticks their flag in the Block O. It turned into a brawl. Police ended up using MACE on a football field, over a flag.
Same program, two seasons ago.
Now the head coach doesn’t want it nasty, the special teams coach doesn’t want it hateful, and the quarterback sees guys in a different color. What changed?? Nothing but the scoreboard.
Somebody asked Julian Sayin the same kind of question this week and Ohio State’s quarterback said it becomes your livelihood, and that’s the entire answer.
The Football Reason Is Real and I Still Don’t Buy It
And look, I’m not stupid about this. Whittingham’s an old school guy who spent 21 years running Utah and he’s not about to start performing for a podcast. Coombs coached in Columbus for years and has actual friends down there. Underwood might legitimately play better ball when nobody has him wound up.
Fine! Believe every bit of it.
You still don’t hand them that in August. That’s the deal you signed when you took the job. You say the game is everything, you act like the game is everything, and then if you lose at least you lost caring about it. What you do not do is start lowering the temperature in fall camp on a game nobody has played yet.
Because there’s only one reason a program starts talking like this, and everybody in both states already knows what it is..
