It doesn’t have to be either/or. No, I wouldn’t describe Michigan as “needing a jump-start”.

Yes - I mistyped.

Just discussing this article - which is the sillier supposition? That a team that has floundered for over a decade but which just managed a 10-3 season might still be in “need a jump-start” mode? Or that a program that has won a national championship and multiple conference titles since a “dumb tattoo scandal/vacated…

Michigan joined the Big Ten in 1896 - Ohio State began playing organized football in 1897, reaching a level of competence sufficient for acceptance into the Big Ten in 1912. Michigan had a 13-0-2 record prior to the Big Ten’s acceptance of Ohio State. From 1912 on - the year of Ohio State's entrance into the Big Ten -…

You'd make an EXCELLENT Michigan fan - little in the way of comprehension skills ...

Denying? No. Deflecting? Most certainly. And who can blame you? 3-13 THIS century? A losing record (45-47-4) following a 13-0-2 start to the series? Hell - if I were a Michigan fan I'd hang on to those 1890s/1900s wins like grim death, too - it's all you have ...

Speaking of "pumping your chest" ... they carry the same significance only if the team you're rooting for has gone 3-13 in the CURRENT CENTURY. Yes - Michigan's 13-0-2 stretch to end the nineteenth century/start the twentieth century tells us the exact same information about the two programs' relative strengths NOW as…

By my reckoning, a team that has sucked balls for over a decade but manages a 10-3 season the most recent year is much, MUCH closer to "needing a jump-start" than being considered a "traditional power". And if that 10-3 team - after a decade-plus of futility - is a "traditional power", what do we call programs like…

You know that, and I know that - but Dusty Baker and Michigan Fan seem to believe those first thirteen games - from 1897 on - carry the same significance as the games played this century.

Which part of 13-0-2 from the beginning aren’t you picking up on?

Again - based off nothing more than the fact that the Michigan program had a twenty-year head start on Ohio State's ...

Not at all. But the point remains that Michigan won the first thirteen or fourteen games in the series as an established national power, when Ohio State was beginning its program.

Huh ...

I hate shitter hogs. Almost as much as I hate those self-absorbed maggots who act as though they’re renting that supermarket self-scanner by the hour. Nothing worse than getting caught in the self-scanning line just after a flock of these types has landed, and is occupying every damned scanner. Unless you're caught in…

I think that would only hurt the rest of the Big 12. And aside from athletics, Texas is the marquis academic school in the conference.

I'm trying to imagine dudes wasting hours standing at the bathroom sink and measuring that shit out - a bit too much primping, IMO. Buncha dandies ...

... and you. You dandy-diddler.

An English teacher would have italicized a particular word, rather than typed in all caps, when seeking to emphasize that word. You knob-gobbler.

Would have went with "English teachers chortle".

Yes! It is all I have left to root for.