ESPN's Dan Wetzel suggests Ohio State takes Michigan rivalry 'too seriously'

ESPN’s Dan Wetzel and Rece Davis suggested Ohio State takes the Michigan rivalry too seriously. No seriously, they discussed that.

In all seriousness, no pun intended, Ohio State fans were livid following a fourth straight loss to Michigan last season. However, the Buckeyes managed to win the national championship more than a month later. Still, it hangs over them like a black cloud.

“The Michigan thing still hangs over them, for sure,” Davis said on The College GameDay Podcast. “I do think there’s probably a pretty good lesson for this era of college football. You do want to win those rivalry games. They are terribly important to people, and they should be. They’re important to all of the fans, to television, all of those things, because it’s the DNA, it’s the fabric of the sport. It’s what separates it, as much as it can be separated, which is not a as big a degree of separation as it used to be from the NFL or from other professional sports, the be all, end all, feeling of those rivalry games.

“With that being stated the court, stipulating to the importance of that, it was a pretty good lesson last year that the sky doesn’t fall no matter which individual game you lose, no matter how catastrophic.

Ohio State taking Michigan losses too hard?

“I think often, the number of people who called into the various radio shows immediately after the Michigan game and prior to the first playoff game against Tennessee, called and said, ‘I don’t care about the playoff. I don’t care if we win the national championship. I would rather go 1-11 and beat that school up north.’ I’ll bet that’s not how they really felt that night after they beat Notre Dame and raised the big trophy. Don’t mean to diminish Michigan’s accomplishment, nor do I mean to diminish the importance of winning that game you need to beat your rivals. That’s part of the deal in college football. But you can’t make it everything.”

Wetzel argued a few losses to the Wolverines was good for Ohio State. Let’s be real, they won college football’s ultimate prize in the end and can certainly rectify any Michigan errors this coming season.

“I think it’s particularly needed at Ohio State,” Wetzel said. “Last year, they take this thing too seriously. The team up north. We won’t say Michigan … Crossing out the M’s on campus. If you walk around Ohio State’s campus the week of the Michigan game, it is crazy … Ryan Day last year before this game, said losing to Michigan, and I’m paraphrasing, it was, you know, as painful as the death of his father, like this thing needed to be relaxed. I think it just became overwhelming of late. 

“And I think that they all talk like we can’t lose, like they’re trying to impress, like they’re trying to be more hardcore than the most hardcore fan, right … I think Michigan has had a better understanding of it. They’re not afraid to say the word Ohio. It’s okay, right? They take it very seriously. They want to win, but I don’t think anybody was just going to, you know, pass out if they didn’t do it. So I thought the intensity of that game had gotten overwhelming, and that’s probably why they lost the game.”