Only a handful of college football rivalries are simply too big for cute little names like “The Iron Bowl,” “The Egg Bowl,” or “The Backyard Brawl.” Only a few are simply too bitter for the exchange of some silly trophy like “Floyd of Rosedale” or “Paul Bunyan’s Axe.” But only one was selected as the greatest sports rivalry of the Twentieth Century, beating out even Yankees-Red Sox, Packers-Bears, Steelers-Browns, Lakers-Celtics, and USC-Notre Dame. Let me put my 20-22-1 record against the spread for the season on the line and tell you about what is referred to across the Midwest only as “The Game.”

#4 OHIO STATE (+6.5) AT #5 MICHIGAN: Nine years ago this November, I was a first year graduate student at The Ohio State University when the Wolverines came to town. Being a recent graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, I naturally assumed that Ohio State-Michigan would be no different than the bitter Pitt-Penn State games I grew up with.

I was wrong.

High Street turned into the closest thing to a combat zone that I’ll probably ever witness. Fistfights and shoving matches spontaneously erupted everywhere, whenever groups of Buckeye fans and Wolverine fans just passed and happened to look at each other the wrong way. The Columbus Police sprinted from one skirmish to the next, firing pepper spray as they went, in a failing attempt to keep order. Any car with a Michigan license plate had its windows smashed in (including one I saw that also had an OSU student parking pass). Bonfires erupted around campus before, during, and after the game — some allegedly set by Michigan fans on park benches near buildings.

And we won that year… one of John “Deer-In-The-Headlights” Cooper’s two wins in 14 tries against Michigan.

In comparison, I didn’t see a single fistfight last Saturday night at the Backyard Brawl. As a matter of fact, I both entered and left Mountaineer Field completely unmolested. Panthers and Hoopies may officially hate each other, but it rarely comes to blows or widespread vandalism (well… against the other team anyways).

This Saturday will mark the 100th Ohio State-Michigan Game. Since 1951, the series is tied — no thanks to the aforementioned stammering idiot Cooper. However, Cooper’s successor — Jim “I-Could-Run-For-Governor-Of-Ohio-On-The-Communist-Party-Ticket-And-Win” Tressel — is 2-0 against Michigan. Can he go 3-0?

I’m guessing no. Michigan’s stud tailback Chris Perry will have trouble running against the best run-defense in America. However, Quarterback John Navarre should be able to complete just enough short passes underneath the secondary to Braylon Edwards to keep his offense moving on a few drives. Ohio State’s lethargic offense, on the other hand, will have to come out with a whole new bag of tricks to move the ball against Michigan’s speedy defense. While trick plays are a staple of this series, I still don’t think it will be enough.

When Maurice Clarett was tossed off of the team, I said that it would hurt the Buckeyes in three games: North Carolina State (which we were lucky to win… even by Ohio State’s standards of “lucky”), Wisconsin (which we lost), and Michigan. Here comes the Wolverines, with both Lloyd Carr (a national championship coach who was actually on the hot seat after last year’s game) and John Navarre (one of the best quarterbacks in Michigan history who is still sometimes seen as a failure) hungry for redemption from two straight losses to the Scarlett and Gray.

I’ll (gulp) take the Wolverines to cover and pray to be wrong.

#21 PITTSBURGH (-15) AT TEMPLE: Call me lazy, but I’m not going to go through my standard, detailed, number-crunching analysis for this game. Besides, all the numbers would show is that Temple really sucks, whereas all knowledgeable Pitt fans know that the Owls always play us tough no matter how bad they suck. Plus, our Panthers have to feel a little deflated after they got sodomized in Morgantown. And did you see that Temple-Virginia Tech game? So I’ll take Temple and the 15 points, please.

PENN STATE (+5) AT MICHIGAN STATE: At the opposite end of the college football rivalry spectrum from Ohio State-Michigan is this absolute snoozer. The Governors of Michigan and Pennsylvania had a “Land Grant Trophy” built in a desperate attempt to fire something up between these two schools that have absolutely nothing else in common besides (1) being the two most recent additions to the Big Ten, and (2) being the nation’s two oldest land grant universities (look up the Morrill Act on your own time, dammit, and only if you’re really bored). However, Michigan State has understandably always been more concerned with its cross-state rival Michigan, and Penn State has always been more concerned with the nearest Big Ten outpost, Ohio State (as has been discussed here before). Thus, there have always been two bizarre love-triangles in the Big Ten, with Penn State being the odd woman out in each. Perhaps she should start sleeping with Pitt and WVU again.

In any case, Penn State’s season of sorrows suddenly came alive last Saturday when the Nittany Lions got their first Big Ten victory in blowing out hapless Indiana 52-7. The Lions now have one last chance to spend the winter without an entirely bad taste in their mouths. This is what passes as their bowl game. Meanwhile, the listing Spartans — who have lost their last three games to Michigan, Ohio State, and Wisconsin — have, as usual, no motivation going into this pseudo-rivalry game whatsoever.

Given the motivation factor and Penn State’s solid performances against Indiana and (to a lesser extent) Ohio State, I’m going to go against my long standing (and largely successful) tradition of picking the Lions not to beat spreads and take Penn State and the five points here. This is my upset special of Rivalry Week.

WEST VIRGINIA (-2) AT SYRACUSE: So let me get this straight… After that performance against Pitt, the Mountaineers remain unranked in the Coaches Poll and are only favored by two points going into the Carrier Dome against the 5-4 (2-3 in conference) Orangemen? Quincy Jones, Rasheed Marshall, and company are better than that. Although I’ll be rooting against them for Pitt’s sake, the Mounaineers will cover.

Hail to “The Game,” Hail to a Buckeye upset, and Hail to each Wolverine grad actually having to stay in Michigan after they graduate.

P.S. Before we all laugh too hard at “Stuttering John” Cooper, remember who his chief protege is.

Both Pittsburgh papers reported the same thing: the starters are changing at some position. The only difference is do you want the news straight or laced with sarcasm.

I’ll take mine with sarcasm, please.

Walt Harris has reverted to the greatest motivational tactic known to football coaches: He is sending players to the bench.
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It is the first time this season that the seventh-year Pitt coach has tinkered so heavily with his lineup from one week to the next. These things tend to happen when your defense sinks toward rock bottom — 75th worst in the nation — and when select offensive personnel fail to make plays.

Here are the changes:

Pre-season All-American Candidate, Claude Harriott, DE is now a co-starter. Harriott was bothered by injuries early, then subject to double teams, and lately has just sucked.

Weakside Linebacker, Malcolm Postell, the guy beaten at the end of the first half for the touchdown against WVU, is benched for J.J. Horne.

The #2 WR, Princell “Blockhands” Brockenbrough, has been benched in favor of freshman Greg Lee. Blockhands dropped an easy TD against WVU, and all season long has made it a habit of dropping easy passes because he is trying to look upfield without the ball.

Free Safety is now an open position. Tez Morris has had the job.

Strangely enough, Jawan “tap dance” Walker is the starting RB, rather than co-starter with Tim Murphy. I’d love to know what the Pitt coaches saw on game film to merit that decision.

Brandon Miree, the Pitt starting RB who has been out most of the season with a stress fracture, was listed on the depth chart for the Temple game, but isn’t expected to play. He did practice a little last week. There have been unconfirmed and unreported rumors that Miree has been physically ready for some time, but has been mentally “soft” about feeling any pain. There might actually some truth to that, if you want to read between the lines:

Harris said that the stress fracture in Miree’s leg has healed, but he is not mentally ready to return to action.

“We scrimmaged to try to get him confident that he can take a hit and make sure he can hold onto the football while getting hit,” Harris said. “He’s been away from it for a long, long time. But to me, it is still up in the air whether or not he feels he is ready to go. We know he is physically ready to go, that is why he is practicing and scrimmaging, but the mental healing has to take place.

“When you are a tailback, you are a marked man. He wants to play well and, hopefully, he feels more and more confident in his health.”

Well, maybe not even bothering to read between the lines.

Then there is this warning from Harris to his team about playing Temple. I love this:

Harris said Temple has a distinct home-field advantage because the lack of a crowd lulls opponents to sleep. “You can see when you watch the tape, there is nobody in the seats up high,” Harris said. “Fans don’t play the game, we do and Temple uses that as an advantage, an edge. People are going in there thinking ‘this is a scrimmage.’ If you have that attitude, you will get yourself beat.”

Beware the empty stadium. Beware.

Finally, Harris wants Rutherford to stop trying to do too much — something that seems rather difficult when there is no running game — because the interceptions were the result of Rutherford trying to force the ball.

When Pitt played Boston College at the start of the month, I mentioned how they were completely ignored by the Boston media. That’s nothing compared to the way Temple football is ignored in Philly. The Philadelphia Daily News has them in a day old piece just rounding up local colleges (though Wednesday is the last day to pick up seats purchased from now abandoned Veterans stadium). The Philadelphia Inquirer has a “Temple” section, but most of it concerns the basketball team. And the PhillyBurbs.com coverage of Temple is downright pathetic.

There was a column recently in the Philadelphia Daily News, from Temple alum, and the ancient, perpetually cranky, and large sportswriter Bill Conlin. His message. Quit.

The Owls will go looking for a new conference lugging the leper’s bell: Nobody cares. Nobody goes.
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I have lost track of the times I have delivered this message, but here goes again: Drop your pretensions and the grandiose Division I dreams a fanatical cadre of alumni keeps gulping like methadone. Wallace is the latest of many good coaches holding his fingers inches apart to indicate how close the Owls are to being really big time. Just a good recruiting class here, a few breaks there, a little bit more of a commitment from alumni, students, the media and area high school coaches.

Nobody told the Temple people that urban college football began a rapid death when University of Chicago egghead Robert Maynard Hutchins dropped football and such powerhouses as NYU and Fordham dropped out or downsized. I get the argument that Southern California is proof an inner-city university can field consistently great football teams. The only difference between the Owls and the Trojans is that USC is among the wealthiest private universities in America, a depository for conservative, Republican money. Richard Nixon tapped USC for brain power the way John F. Kennedy tapped Harvard.

Temple has Bill Cosby…

So, don’t give up football, Owls. Instead, give up the delusion you can ever be a successful, big-time program. Get back with Delaware and Villanova, William & Mary and Northeastern. Give a call to Georgia Southern. Keep scheduling the Daytons and Akrons. You’ll need to be good to beat any of them.

Definitely going to be a light week.