Joel Klatt: Michigan winning title sparked Ohio State’s championship run

Around a year ago, the mood in Columbus was quite different. Three straight losses to Michigan was a gut punch but the pain got worse on Jan. 8 when the Wolverines won the national championship. Jim Harbaugh finally broke through, accomplishing what he was brought to do at Michigan.

Monday night changed things, though. Ohio State was the one back on top of the college football world as Ryan Day found his own breakthrough. Four College Football Playoff games resulted in four monumental wins, capping it off in Atlanta by taking down Notre Dame.

FOX’s Joel Klatt believes Ohio State’s national championship may have been sparked by the Michigan run last season. It’s a common theme for him throughout sports, seeing somebody you despise having success.

“Throughout sport, professional and college, we see a driving factor in an organization or program’s motivation being when they see their rival do something great,” Klatt said. “There’s an expectation, both from the fans and internally… where when your rival does something like win a championship, there’s like ‘Well, that’s the standard because we’re not going to allow our rival to be ahead of us.'”

A decade separated Ohio State’s two titles, going back to the 2014 season in the CFP’s first-ever campaign. For six of those years, the Buckeyes dominated The Game, both under Urban Meyer and Day. Until the flip switched in 2021 when Michigan began a four-game win streak — one that is still active.

Momentum was completely captured by the Wolverines winning it all in 2023 and Klatt believes Ohio State players did not sit well with the idea. Guys such as Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau rallied together, came back for one more season instead of jumping to the NFL, and ultimately completed their goal.

“Ohio State had driven the standard for so long that forced Michigan to go for Jim Harbaugh and they were killing Jim Harbaugh,” Klatt said. “…(Michigan) was able to overcome Ohio State and win a national championship. And then guess what that spurs? Ohio State is like ‘Nope, we got to do something about that.’

“All those players in the locker room and they sat there and thought to themselves ‘We can achieve something great. Why don’t we come back and win a national championship?’ They were able to do that.”