How’s THAT for a quick season? Is it just me?

Tomorrow the top-10 ranked Buckeyes will play The Worst Michigan Team In History. Seriously. In 111 years, no OSU team has faced a statistically worse UM opponent.

UM fans, if you think that makes Buckeye fans breathe easier or act overconfident, guess again. Games like this always make me nervous. On paper, OSU should have an easier time with the Wolverines tomorrow than they had against I-AA Youngstown. Which is precisely why I’m hoping the OSU team doesn’t think of it that way. If there’s one weakness with this current class of senior leaders, it’s that time and time again they’ve failed to take the big games seriously. Cakewalking into Florida. Infighting against LSU. Choking against USC.

However, if there is a reassuring theme from the Tressel era, it’s that he’s always been successful at getting the players fired up for Michigan. Even in his one loss, the overmatched Buckeyes kept it close into the fourth quarter.

Unlike what you’ve read in the papers, The Worst Michigan Team In History did not miss out on a bowl game this season. Actually, they earned a spot in the “Horseshoe Bowl,” and that’s how the Worst Players in Michigan History are looking at it.

Below are the tables comparing apples to apples between the good and bad guys.

The tables list the opponent(s) in chronological order down the first column, and include the following ‘important’ stats: total points (Pts), total yards (Yds), total first downs (Dwns), and turnovers (TOs); for each team and its opponent (Opp).

Table 1: The Worst Michigan Team In History

Table 2: Ohio State

The values in Table 3 indicate a team’s overall performance, percentage-wise, against the average numbers the common opponents collectively allow.

For example, in the table below, Michigan scored an average of 12% fewer points on these common opponents than what those opponents typically allow, while their defense allowed those same opponents to score 15% more points than what they would typically get, and so on.

Table 3: Performance against what Common Opponents Typically Allow

Notes:
The Worst Michigan Team In History gets a lot of guff for its poor offensive performance, but as the charts show, the defense deserves just as much, if not more, blame for this season’s woes. Some rationalize that this is a direct result of the poor offense – “the defense is on the field too much.” But this is absolute bunk. Look at OSU – statistically, their offense is about as poor as UM’s, but OSU is in position to win 10 games this year. Why? Because they have a decent defense. UM has no excuses.

Also: Holy 17 to 6 turnover ratio for OSU, Batman! To me, this is the most satisfying defensive improvement from last season, and the one that’s most likely to impact tomorrow’s game.

Only one question this week:

• Final score?

sportsMonkey’s Prediction:

• Ohio State wins its conference record 4th straight Big 10 Championship with a 932 to negative 50 drubbing of The Worst Michigan Team In History.
• Seriously, OSU, 42-13. Tradition and adrenaline keep it interesting in the first quarter or two, but the Buckeyes pull away and don’t look back.

el Kaiser’s Prediction:
First of all, let me thank sportsMonkey for handling Michigan week for me here at MotSaG while I was away on a business trip to the Freezing tip of Northern Maine, working in the FREEZING cold for hours on end. I had a grand total of 10 minutes of internet the whole week, so I was clueless to what was going on in the ‘Sphere. Of course I had no doubt that SM would skewer the The Worst Michigan Team In History because that’s just how he rolls. And thanks for the trips down Memory Lane, Monkeyman.

So my prediction is for a blowout, OSU: 47 UM: 10

Gotta love Corso.

Also available in bonus Eating Crow Poster goodness.

How low has the UM program fallen?

Let’s just say things are bad when a coach tells his fans who are upset at a 3-win season to “Get a Life.” You stay classy, RichRod.

el Kaiser and I have spoken at length over how long UM fans must suffer before the universe is brought back into balance. During the dark Cooper years, most UM fans were absolutely insufferable. Year after year, even when Ohio State had the better team, UM fans sat back and laughed at the shock and embarrassment of Buckeye fans as they dropped the annual November matchup.

Most Michigan fans even started advocating that the Spartans or the Irish should become the Wolverines’ primary rival. This was never a serious suggestion, it was just something that was said to rile up their southern counterparts.

For thirteen years this went on. Superior OSU team after superior OSU team found a way to lose to inferior Michigan competition. The Wolverines cost the Buckeyes two for-sure national championships during that period. In contrast, a single game against the Buckeyes earned them a national title and a Heisman winner.

The statistical oddity of Cooper’s tenure and the perceived superiority of the Michigan team and culture caused the fans in maize and blue shirts to sneer more and more every year, and to become more insufferable.

And then Cooper departed, and Tressel entered, and things finally turned around.

So at what point is this Sicilian thing totally balanced? When is payback enough?

Michigan fans, consider this:

For those of you who are down on the program now, try imagining your next victory against OSU coming in 2012. That’s what we endured under Cooper.

However, it goes without saying that OSU fans are not as rabidly unsportsmanlike and full of cockiness and overconfidence as our neighbors to the North were in the 90s. Getting your team’s butt whipped in two consecutive national title games tends to force a realistic humility.

Ergo, when considering whether “enough is enough,” we’re prepared to give some allowances for the suffering you endured due to (1) losing seven out of eight games to Tressel**, (2) Appalachian State, and (3) the entire 2008 UM Season of Fail^TM. Because even when Cooper was losing to UM annually, at least he never dropped to a I-AA team at home and humiliated the conference with a 3-win season. And he never would have told his fans to “get a life” if they were upset with said 3-win season.

So while I may post rib-jabbing “Memories” pics every day of Beat Michigan Week, it’s all in good fun. I can take it like I can dish it out. If the Bucks lose this week, next year’s “Memories” pics would be Michigan highlight pics, intended to fire up the OSU masses to not let it happen again.

And make no mistake, my Buckeye brethren, a loss to a grossly inferior UM team, at home, on Senior Day, with the highest favored point spread in the matchup’s history, would be humiliating. And it absolutely could happen. For those that pick on Michigan’s inept offense, guess who’s not really that much better? Now is not the time to be cocky and overconfident. Let’s not act like a bunch of Mike Harts, here.

But oh, how awesome would will it be to graduate two consecutive classes of players that have never lost a game to Michigan? Why, I just might call it “even” if that happened.

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**All this assumes the Bucks win on Saturday. Otherwise, I take it all back.

Normally we ignore the BCS fearmongering that goes on this time of year, but the latest and greatest “zOMG BCS anarchy article” is up at Yahoo Sports, and this one actually has a semi-plausible angle.

If we assume that the MNC is going to be a matchup between the Big 12 and the SEC winners, then Buckeye fans must root for either Penn State or Oregon State to lose during the regular season. Otherwise, it’s Orlando for the Bucks.

Here’s the rationale: If we assume that the MNC is between the Big 12 and SEC winners, and the Rose is locked up with Penn State and Oregon State, that leaves six bowl spots left between the Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange bowls. Three of those six spots are already locked up: the Big East champ, the ACC champ, and the winner of the Boise St./Utah game either Boise State or Utah, (whichever is ranked higher at the end of the season).

So, we’re down to three spots left, with the following four teams competing for them: the SEC loser, the Big 12 loser, USC, and Ohio State. Of those four teams, which one is most likely to be left out? You guessed it.

So, Buckeye fans who want a BCS bid for the Bucks must root for (1) a destruction of UM, of course, and (2) for Oregon, Arizona, and Michigan State to have a solid end to their seasons.