Any day now, the Big Ten is expected to release its updated 2020 football schedule.
And any day now, the Earth could be swallowed by the sun.
That’s because The Game could become The Opener, with Ohio State and Michigan being slated to play ... in September.
With the Big Ten reportedly considering a 10-game, conference-only schedule that would be frontloaded with divisional contests, anything is possible, including, yes, the Buckeyes and Wolverines batting leadoff.
I’m not sure about you, but I don’t like this idea.
I love it.
OK, that’s not entirely true.
What I’d really love — and what most of us would really love — is a normal season that escalates to the crescendo of our favorite creature comfort: Ohio State and Michigan cracking heads at the end of the regular season.
That’s where the game belongs, and that’s where it’s resided on the schedule almost every year since 1942, with two exceptions. Michigan played a final regular-season game at Hawaii in 1986 and 1998.
In our imaginations, the magic of the rivalry is the year-long anticipation, the entire season building up to that chilled final Saturday of November, the game meaning everything, whether everything is on the line or not.
And if you want to argue that messing with the date would diminish the greatest rivalry in sports, I’d be there right there with you ... in any other year.
But this year? Not so much.
If I may offer the Big Ten one piece of advice in assembling the modified schedule, here goes: Live a little.
There’s nothing in 2020 that can be considered too much of a break with tradition. Everything is a break with tradition. Urban Meyer could join Jim Harbaugh’s staff as the coach in waiting at Michigan, and the year wouldn’t be any weirder.
I appreciate the idea of keeping Ohio State-Michigan as the finale, dangling it out there as a reward if college football is able to successfully cross the 10,000-mile bridge from September to the end of the season.
But, again, if ever there was a year to flip everything on its head, this is it.
Inverting Ohio State-Michigan on the schedule would not only provide a show-stopping welcome back for college football — a ratings monster off the bat — but give us the best chance to see the rivals compete at full strength. Let’s face it: If by some miracle we’re able to responsibly hold a season, chances are players and teams will be in and out of quarantine, the rosters shallowing as the year deepens. (OK, this all crazy. Bear with me!)
For all of the unfortunate novelties of 2020, what’s wrong with a fun one?
Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time a global pandemic led the game to be rescheduled.
In 1918, after the politics of conference realignment had paused the rivalry for six seasons, the Buckeyes and Wolverines were scheduled to play Oct. 26 at Ohio Field. But plans changed as the Spanish Flu ripped through the Midwest.
The game — which Michigan went on to win 14-0 — was instead pushed back to Nov. 30, marking the first time the schools would meet in the final game of the regular season.
They’ve played every year since.
Could another audible keep the streak alive?
First Published July 26, 2020, 10:09 p.m.
