COLUMBUS — It has been two decades since his last win against Michigan, and still he wears his record against the team in blue like a scarlet letter.
But for John Cooper, this rivalry week is one to give thanks just the same.
Now 81, the former Ohio State coach remains here — “They can’t run me out,” he quipped — gratefully ever after. He has his health, his high school sweetheart, and their four grandkids just down the street, to say nothing of a golf game he attends to four times a week at Scioto Country Club.
“When I wake up in the morning,” he said, “it’s going to be a great day.”
So, no, don’t you go worrying about Coop.
And, for that matter ...
“Don’t feel sorry for Michigan,” he told me. “They’ll be back.”
Knowing Coop would take our call in the well-meaning spirit it was intended, I reached out the other day, curious what it is like for the coach defined — fair or not — by his misfortune against Michigan to now live in a veritable opposite world.
Cooper, for all of the successes during his Hall of Fame career, went 2-10-1 against the Wolverines as OSU’s coach. Since, the Buckeyes are 15-2, the shroud of angst that once cloaked the state this time of year long since replaced by the swagger of expectation. (OK, maybe not this season.)
It is a brave new existence, and seeing as Coop still has an office at the Ohio State practice facility and occasionally swings by, I wondered if he sensed a difference in the building come Michigan week.
Does it still require a machete to cut the tension? Eh .... “Those guys are always uptight, I’m telling you,” he said of Urban Meyer and his staff, with whom he is friendly.
In any case, Cooper doesn’t give the subject much thought, other than to root for Ohio State to keep the latest rivalry cycle going. If not, he will return home from the stadium Saturday no worse for wear. That’s the beauty of retirement.
Sure, he still wonders what might have been.
Cooper fielded what endure among the best teams in Ohio State history during the mid-1990s, only for the other cleat to drop late every autumn. Four times between 1993 and 1997, he had the Buckeyes in the top five entering the Michigan game. Four times, they lost, including, most achingly, in 1996.
A 17-point favorite at home, unbeaten OSU that year opened up a 9-0 halftime lead against the three-loss Wolverines, primed for a shot at the national title. Then star Buckeyes cornerback Shawn Springs slipped on Michigan’s first pass attempt of the third quarter and the rest is the story of Cooper’s career, joy yielding to heartache.
“My record against Michigan was not very good. As a matter of fact, it was awful,” Cooper said. “You look back and maybe a mistake here or a mistake here cost you a victory. There are times I look back and think if Shawn Springs hadn’t fallen down or we had this play or that play, we would’ve won the game.”
He wonders, too, how a playoff back then might have changed things. Perhaps his teams in 1995, 1996, or 1998 still would have won a national title and his legacy would be different.
Then he stops himself. “Why drive yourself crazy?” he said.
Life is too good.
First Published November 18, 2018, 8:51 p.m.
