COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State saved its best fight for last. Unfortunately for all that is Scarlet and Gray, when the Buckeyes finally started throwing punches — or something close to them — time had expired here Saturday afternoon.
On the game.
Perhaps on the season.
The resulting postgame melee between Ohio State and Michigan laid bare the worst parts of one of the game’s best rivalries. Several skirmishes broke out on the field among players following Michigan’s 13-10 win after some Wolverines players attempted to plant two of the team’s flags at midfield.
In what was their strongest display of male testosterone of the day, Ohio State finally defended their field — as the stands were emptying out, as the boos were raining down. As a fourth straight loss to the Team Up North began to sink in.
And fester.
“We’re going to win in your house, and we’re going to plant the flag,” Michigan quarterback Davis Warren said afterward. “You should have done something about it.”
All of it came after four years of planning for this moment, when all things Harbaugh, Stalions and Go Blue were going to be backhanded into the Olentangy River in one big payback that was going to make all right with the Ohio State universe again. The line opened with Ohio State favored by 23.5 points, the biggest in the history of the series. Ohio State fielded the best roster money could buy, $20 million of it, for this purpose. To pound Michigan.
And then the Buckeyes did what they absolutely couldn’t, shouldn’t do. They came out flat.
That’s the best way to explain how a team whose only blemish this season was a one-point loss to Oregon could stink this much. All it was going to take for a Big Ten Championship Game rematch with the Ducks was a comfortable win over the Wolverines.
Saturday was supposed to be a pit stop for Ohio State on its way to Indy.
Instead, Buckeye Nation needed a barf bag.
Instead, Ohio State didn’t score in the second half. Not only that, it didn’t have so much as a first down in the game’s final 20 minutes. A Michigan team that couldn’t pass (128th nationally) didn’t really have to. The Wolverines rammed it up the gut 11 straight running plays for the game-winning field goal with 45 seconds left.
The score was reminiscent of those epic slugfests in the Ten-Year War: Bo and Woody. Except this one could have, at times, been fought with those foam noodles you hit each other with in the pool.
Each quarterback threw a pair of interceptions. You can understand Michigan’s play-calling being conservative. It didn’t have the firepower to begin with. But Ohio State looked like it was trying to run out the clock from the beginning.
There were too many runs into the middle of the line. Next to no imagination. The boos from 106,000 fans began cascading down in the second half.
That from an adoring crowd following the nation’s No. 2-ranked team. Yeah, that’s how much the Buckeyes stunk.
“They tried to look at us [before the game],” said Michigan defensive back Makari Paige, who had one of those interceptions. “They tried to stare us down. We knew in our head they really didn’t want to come out here and play us.”
Adding obscurity to insult, the nation’s No. 2 team was beaten by a transfer kicker from Troy (Dominic Zvada) and Warren, a former walk-on.
Zvada is actually one of the nation’s better kickers, a two-time Lou Groza Award finalist. It’s just that the Buckeyes didn’t figure he’d figure in the outcome. Zvada’s 54-yarder in the first half made him 7-for-7 from 50-plus this season.
And while all this Ohio State angst is going around, Ryan Day may want to check his back too.
“As you know,” the coach told reporters, “this is not easy to accept.”
Ohio State quarterback Will Howard — he of the two crippling interceptions — was asked where on the list of takeaways was the fact the Buckeyes, 10-2, are still likely in the College Football Playoff.
“Very low,” he said.
There was some ugly history here. In 2017, Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield took a victory lap with the team flag and attempted to plant it at midfield following a big OU win here. He later apologized.
Ohio State players were seconds into singing the school song “Carmen Ohio” Saturday when they noticed the Michigan flags waving near midfield.
“They’ve got their f****** flag,” Ohio State linebacker Jack Sawyer said.
Seconds later, Michigan fullback Max Bredeson got pepper-sprayed directly in the face by a police officer.
“I’m all right. I’m right,” Bredeson said with tears running down his face from the pepper spray.
“I’ll kill you for real,” one unidentified Michigan player shouted at an opponent.
“I’ve never lost [to Ohio State],” defensive lineman Mason Graham yelled to taunting fans as he ran up a ramp to the visitors’ locker room.
Four in a row adds to the depths of Day’s situation. He is now 1-4 against Michigan and looked a bit shell-shocked afterward.
“I have to take the ownership,” Day said.
The reaction will be a lot more profound than just ownership in the coming days. For the fourth year in a row, a team other than Ohio State is going to win the Big Ten.
“We’re going to regroup and go into the playoffs and make a run,” Howard said, almost trying to convince himself.
So at least there was that.
Ohio State lost to a team that was about to become the first defending national champion to lose at least six games the following year since 1943. That might still happen in Michigan’s bowl game, but the sweet memories of Saturday will prevail.
The violent aftermath was reminiscent of the 2002 Michigan-Ohio State game here, when police pepper-sprayed fans who were trying to tear down goalposts following that year’s win that clinched a spot in the BCS Championship Gam, which Ohio State won.
And it’s never a good sign when a statement from Ohio State Police trumps postgame comments by players and coaches.
“Obviously, some things happened, and we’re still trying to sort through and figure out what happened,” Eric Whiteside, Ohio State Police Department deputy chief, told CBS Sports.
In keeping with the spirit of things, the game ended with a Michigan player being flagged for “simulating shooting a gun” while celebrating the win.
Things devolved from there, at least for Ohio State.
MORE: Ohio State still in great College Football Playoff position
