WSJ: "A Miserable Person [from Wisconsin]'s Guide to Watching Michigan vs. Ohio State"
In case you needed some laughs this morning, from the Wall Street Journal's Jason Gay, who often complains of working at a newspaper filled with Wolverines fans. The whole column is worth reading, but here are some excerpts:
By now, you hopefully know that yours truly, a diehard Wisconsin Badger is not cut out to cover this subject. I’m too conflicted, too emotionally raw, too surrounded by Journal colleagues who graduated from a certain university in Ann Arbor. I’m not mature enough to recognize my shortcomings and understand my enemies. It feels wrong. I can barely type out these words...
Gay grudgingly concedes that Michigan is improved:
Fine. I’ll put on a helmet and try to plow through it. The reason this year’s OSU-Michigan game is a big deal is that…Michigan is looking like a very good college football team this year.
There, I said it.
The Wolverines are 10-1, ranked No. 5 in the College Football Playoff rankings. The team’s only blemish was stepping on a rake against Michigan State in East Lansing. Coach Khakipants aka Jim Harbaugh has the Wolverines playing well-balanced football.
A win Saturday would put the Wolverines in the Big Ten Championship on Dec. 4, where a victory would likely vault them into the playoff with a shot at a national title, and I would never hear the end of it from the four bazillion Wolverines at the Journal.
I don’t feel well. I need to go for a walk around the block...
Gay acknowledges that he, as a Wisconsin fan, dislikes Michigan more than OSU even though OSU has done more to hurt Wisconsin over the years (he likens the B1G West to "the discount airport hotel of the Big Ten"):
Every Big Ten football fan pays psychological rent to Columbus—OSU hasn’t lost a Big Ten game since 2018—but Wolverines fans pay a little extra.
I can’t lie: I get a kick out of it. It’s become my petty personal tradition, to sit on the couch for Michigan-OSU and run out of fingers and toes counting Buckeyes touchdowns. Of course, this also happens when Wisconsin plays Ohio State—the Badgers have also lost eight straight to OSU—but I don’t let it spoil my small-minded Michigan Schadenfreude.
I’m not sure how to feel. I can tell you that I fear Ohio State with every bone in my feeble sports columnist’s body. All the anxiety that Michigan fans are feeling about Saturday, I feel, too. Wisconsin has had a lot of tough dates with Ohio State in the Big Ten championship.
The Buckeyes don’t just beat you. They make you wonder why you follow college football. If Wisconsin meets Ohio State, I may need to watch from underneath the couch...
If Michigan were to beat OSU and make it to Indy, how would Gay feel?
As for Michigan: Sure! It’d be fun. Why not? Bucky vs. Khakipants in Indianapolis for Big Ten Bragging Rights. How sweet it would be to win that title and spoil a Michigan playoff bid. I wouldn’t need anything for Christmas. Alternatively, I will try to block out the idea of losing twice to Michigan in one season, since I’d probably have to flee the country.
November 26th, 2021 at 8:24 AM ^
Let's ruin this guy's Christmas!!
Go Blue!!!!
November 26th, 2021 at 9:11 AM ^
....and most everyone's in that state down south.
November 26th, 2021 at 9:57 AM ^
I wonder if he plans to live in an entirely new country or just one of the US territories.
November 26th, 2021 at 8:26 AM ^
Lol. Well written and pretty much dead nuts on.
November 26th, 2021 at 8:31 AM ^
You're either losing twice to Michigan or once to ohio if you even make it to Indy.
November 26th, 2021 at 8:33 AM ^
This line pretty much describes the last several yrs.
“The Buckeyes don’t just beat you. They make you wonder why you follow college football”
November 26th, 2021 at 8:36 AM ^
This is great stuff. Thanks for posting, Mr. Football.
May I call you Communist? Also, though I know we're supposed to avoid politics, I have to ask:
Do you control Hotel Putingrad or does the comrade control you?
November 26th, 2021 at 9:05 AM ^
Thank you Comrade for your service to our country. Most call me "Commie" or "CF". I've been a member of MGoBlog since the Lloyd Carr days; the CF handle comes from a complaint Lloyd's linebackers coach once made of spread offenses...in non-football matters I am a perpetrator of private ownership of the means of production!
November 26th, 2021 at 12:21 PM ^
Refresh my memory. Calling spread offenses "Communist football" must have been effective, shaming such offenses so much that no one used them ever again, right?
November 26th, 2021 at 8:50 AM ^
I have a friend who graduated from Illinois, and in his most balanced moments his resentment of Michigan equals that of Ohio State ... but often, for some reason, it exceeds it. Wilbon as well, on PTI, seems almost to resent us more than Ohio State.
That always confuses me. For one thing ... it's been decades now since we were as potent, as dominant, and as overwhelmingly superior as Ohio State. But for another ... Ohio State is so patently (more) evil, arrogant, crude, and awful (than we are), and always has been!
How in the world can fans of other non-MSU Big Ten teams continue to revel in our defeats as much as those of the Buckeyes? It confuses me. I understand, in the 70s and 80s and 90s, thinking of the two programs as essentially equivalent, but ... but now? It's got to be muscle memory at this point, no?
November 26th, 2021 at 8:56 AM ^
They covet our helmets.
November 26th, 2021 at 9:08 AM ^
In a 2016 article for the WSJ, Jason Gay explained it thusly:
Now don’t ask me if I’m jealous because I didn’t have the stuff to get into Michigan. Of course I didn’t have the stuff to get into Michigan. I’m certain that today I couldn’t get into Wisconsin, buddy. I’m still convinced my acceptance was an accident.
November 26th, 2021 at 9:11 AM ^
At this point:
There is actually a chance to beat Michigan and brag about it
vs
There is no chance to beat OSU, so just take it and move on
November 26th, 2021 at 9:29 AM ^
The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that Michigan is more hateable than Ohio State.
November 26th, 2021 at 10:23 AM ^
I just don’t see that in my work travels. For a year I covered the OC and La area and you’d think Cali would hate us? Nope, just the Buckeyes. The last few years prior to covid it was Boston and Philly and same thing, buckeye hate everywhere. I took care of Dallas for a co worker one summer…hot as balls and like the waiting room to hell. Hated the Buckeyes. It was actually there that I got to witness a buckeye fan in his PJs almost throw punches in an airport with an Arizona fan. I mean what screw needs tightened that #1 you wear pajamas on a flight and 2, your so mentally deranged that an Arizona fan gets in your head? I rock something Michigan on Sunday flights out and get the “go blue” no matter the city.
November 26th, 2021 at 5:14 PM ^
Yes, across the country I think that's true. I, too, get Go Blue's all the time as well, both in Arizona now, and even in Prague and Budapest, when I lived there. But in the Big Ten -- from alumni of other schools -- I think it's true.
Ah hell, it's not that big a deal. I think I was -- this is embarrassing, but it's true -- maybe 16 or 17 years old before I realized that you could theoretically be a decent human being and go to Ohio State, and even play on the football team. Seriously, growing up in Ann Arbor, it was so patently obvious that they were horrible, horrible -- Woody Hayes alone, for God's sake, not to mention Jack Tatum, and I'm sure many others -- that I simply assumed that, like Slytherin as a house (this from someone who never read the books), it was a school specifically designated for mean, rude, dangerous, and violent people.
I'm not completely sure I was wrong.
November 26th, 2021 at 9:52 AM ^
I'd agree that it's not always easy to understand why UM draws so much resentment. Outside sports, though, it *is* the Public Ivy and I've never seen another Big Ten school (never mind the private NW for a moment) ranked ahead of it overall.
If you're (say) an Iowa grad in (say) Chicago, it's more likely that management will be UM-heavy than the other way around. Everyone knows this. It's also the case that Michigan fans can be special in public settings. (Let's be honest.)
They're everywhere, too. NYC, etc. How many other schools could've filled the Staples Center with local alums like UM did at the '18 Regional?
November 26th, 2021 at 11:17 AM ^
This entire response is why the rest of the B1G hates UM more than Ohio State. You don't hate OSU as much about their commitment to football as you do UM for believing and constantly bringing up their intellectual superiority. UM fans believe they are better than everybody else. Outside of the B1G footprint, most fans would hate OSU more because they only interact with the football team on TV.
November 26th, 2021 at 12:12 PM ^
As a Michigan guy, I may be biased but most of the Michigan people I encounter are relatively modest personally.
Other Big Ten universities are fine institutions, with strong individual programs, like Purdue and engineering, and Wisconsin used to be as strong overall. Certainly the strongest academic/athletic conference, except possibly the Pac 12.
But other than NU, what Big Ten school can boast the academic reputation, nationally and internationally, of the University of Michigan?
Considered from another angle: if Notre Dame joined the Big Ten, it would be in the same academic category as UM—which may be part of the reason they stay out (other than money and football cupcakes), so they seem more singular.
November 26th, 2021 at 1:01 PM ^
Could you see why constantly talking about how great your academic reputation is would rub other fans the wrong way? Or using excuses like academics, other schools cheat but we are clean, and refereeing (this fanbase focuses more on referees than any other school in the country, it is pretty weird). All of these are signifiers of a moral superiority. The Michigan stereotype is that of a Michigan Man looking down their nose upon their opponents who they do not believe is their equal as a person. That generates a different reaction than OSU looking down upon other schools football team.
November 26th, 2021 at 1:32 PM ^
Absolutely. I can't recall ever in a conversation stating that Michigan is better academically than any other school in the Big Ten. It would be rude, and understandably cause resentment. And I'm sorry if you know Michigan fans like that.
However, I suspect every fan base has assholes who claim some superiority and use it to deny the equal dignity of another person.
BTW, while you may be right that Michigan fans complain more about the refs than every other fan base, I'm not sure that true, or could even be established—except by someone claiming greater moral superiority by declaring it.
November 26th, 2021 at 8:53 AM ^
I mean, his holiday is already destroyed. Whether we do that or Ohio State does that, the deed has already effectively been done. I will admit, however, that I don't often see a Wisconsin fan with THAT much unveiled disdain for Michigan. It's a rare treat really.
November 26th, 2021 at 11:56 AM ^
It's tough to tell how much is actual disdain and how much is dislike transformed into great schtick for a writer.
November 26th, 2021 at 9:02 AM ^
very enjoyable article and my favorite line was about the B10 west being the 'discount airport hotel'.
here is a link for those inclined to read it all: https://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/wsj-miserable-person-wisconsin%27s-guide-watching-michigan-vs-ohio-state
November 26th, 2021 at 11:01 AM ^
As a lifelong Michigan fan from Wisconsin my worst fear is we beat Ohio State and then lose to Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship game. I hate having to play Wisconsin as my childhood Badger fan friends are insufferable. I was excited to not have to play them again for 6 years while ending on a win. So while I will be ecstatic at the realization we FINALLY beat Ohio State and have a shot at making the playoff!!! that will quickly turn to dread at having to face Wisconsin again.