Michigan football: Jim Harbaugh on OSU – ‘Channeling Bo & Woody’
Head coach Jim Harbaugh and his Michigan Wolverines will be playing Ohio State with the Big Ten East title on the line for the third time in six tries. He’s gone to the final weekend of the regular season still in the hunt in four of his seven seasons.
This one, though, will be the first time everything is on the line with the game in Ann Arbor instead of Columbus.
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“It’s a great thing for us. We’re looking forward to playing in front of a wildly supportive Michigan crowd base,” Harbaugh said.
They’ll need it. Ohio State fans have come out in droves in the past when Michigan teams were down. Legendary broadcaster Bob Ufer probably wouldn’t get away with his putdowns if he were still alive, but his descriptions of the Buckeye fan base were spot on.
This might be the biggest Michigan–Ohio State game in Ann Arbor since 1997, however, given what’s at stake, and Wolverine fans were loud that day. It’s not just the rivalry game at stake this year — like then, there are national implications.
“It’s both really, right? Both those things,” Harbaugh continued. “Both teams have a lot on the line. It’s a true playoff in that sense and in the College Football Playoff world, this is the start of the playoffs. The team that wins will advance. The team that doesn’t, won’t.
“It is that and also the big game — and THE Game. The rivalry. … There’s no reason, no need to hype it. It’s the things we just talked about. It’s a playoff game; it’s a rivalry game. It’s at the highest level.”
The Wolverines switched things up this year and put more emphasis on the Buckeyes from the first day of spring practice. They run a ‘Buckeye drill’ with one-on-one drills between the tackles every day, man vs. man, toughness on display to remind themselves each day what they’re up against when OSU comes to town.
His seniors have “worked like crazy,” Harbaugh praised, to be in this position. It’s one nobody would have predicted at the beginning of the year, when the Wolverines were projected to finish around 7-5 by most.
“This is everything they’ve been working for and planning for with themselves to be in this position,” Harbaugh said. “And now they’ll get their shot against perhaps the best offensive team in college football. Ohio State has also been stellar defensively in recent weeks.”
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There are athletes everywhere on the field, and they always seem to play their best game against ‘that team up north.’
“Blocking is going to be paramount. Again, it will be channeling Bo and Woody,” Harbaugh said of former U-M and OSU coaches Schembechler and Hayes. “Blocking and tackling. The game will in large part come down to it.
“… This is a game you’ve got to channel Bo. You’ve got to channel the blocking and the tackling. Sustaining blocks, getting off blocks and making tackles, blocking and tackling.”
Michigan could do all of it really well and still lose with some bad breaks (see: 2016). That’s how good the Buckeyes are.
But it’s past time they played their best game in this one, and they’re due for some breaks in this rivalry.
The former can often lead to the latter, and that’s where it will start Saturday in Ann Arbor. There wasn’t much talking about the Buckeyes after a big win over Maryland, but you can be certain that’s where all the attention is now.
