It’s no secret the Michigan football program has had a — shall we say — unfortunate run against Ohio State. It’s not quite Washington Generals against Harlem Globetrotters futility, but it’s not far off.
Because of all of the issues in competing with the Buckeyes despite bringing in Jim Harbaugh to perform a ceremonial and miraculous walk across Lake Michigan to be the savior of the program, things have not gone well. Harbaugh is 0-8 against Ohio State and the gap continues to seemingly widen. With it, Harbaugh received the weirdest contract extension in the history of college football and made wholesale changes on his coaching staff.
One of those begrudging and forced changes includes a change at defensive coordinator. Gone is Don Brown after getting publicly flogged on a yearly basis by Buckeye offenses, and in his stead comes a 33-year old, inexperienced defensive coordinator in the person of Mike Macdonald.
Macdonald was plucked from the family tree if you will when he was convinced to leave the better coach Harbaugh’s staff (Jon) with the Baltimore Ravens. He left his post there to get the promotion of all promotions and handed the keys to the Wolverine’s defensive kingdom. A crumbling kingdom where the moat of the castle has dried up to be sure, but an empire nonetheless.
As with any new coach on Michigan’s staff these days, inevitably Macdonald was asked about how his defenses would be more effective vs. Ohio State while appearing at his first media availability. I mean, inquiring and perpetually disappointed minds want to know.
“Look, I appreciate the question, but in all honestly, we’re just trying to get as good as we can get right now,” Macdonald said. “It is a, literally, what’s important now focus. From meeting to meeting, from rep to rep, from practice to practice. All the stuff in the season, that’s gonna take care of itself and we can’t worry about that until we get good at what we’re doing right now. Those conversations, I’m gonna leave that private to us and our guys. But over the course of time, there’s no way that we can compete with anybody until we get good at what we do. That’s how we’re planning on handling it.”
Ummm, OK. Yet another Wolverine coach downplaying the rivalry. I’m sure that’s exactly what the fans of “the winningest program in college football” (snicker, snicker) want to hear from a guy tasked with performing the reboot of the century to a college football defense. All of it designed to once again compete with the scarlet and gray elephant in the room.
#Michigan DC Mike Macdonald learning how to get people excited on Twitter very quickly lol https://t.co/R12P1fQ54t
— Brice Marich (@BriceMarich) February 28, 2021
I mean, own it. Nobody wants to hear you shout empty promises and hollow rah-rah stuff, but at least acknowledge the emotion and all that goes into wanting to be better. Michigan fans are longing for someone to tip the scales and have some sort of plan and emotion surrounding the rivalry and that just isn’t happening.
Treating this game like all the others and not playing it up to everyone in earshot hasn’t historically worked in this rivalry. It didn’t work for John Cooper at Ohio State, and it hasn’t worked for Michigan for years now. THE No. 1 reason why the Buckeyes have owned the Wolverines for almost two decades now was is because they live and breathe the rivalry every single second, of every minute, of every day, of every year.
Keep doing you Michigan, and Ohio State will keep being what it is, which is the big, bad bully taking your lunch money out on the football field of Big Ten recess.
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