OSU-Michigan: Six Years of Memorable Events
Written By: Andrew | Category: Ohio State Buckeyes | Comments: 21
Tomorrow afternoon The Ohio State University and The University of Michigan will square off on the football field for the 106th time. Despite DP’s unfortunate allegiance to the Maize and Blue, this site is obviously a pro-Ohio State site. Yes, we focus on professional sports, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t Scarlet and Gray in the hearts and souls of most of us who write for this site. Speaking personally, as an alumnus of The Ohio State University, The Game is of utmost importance and it tends to dominate my thoughts around this time of the year.
So with that in mind, I got to thinking. The Senator Jim Tressel is 7-1 against Michigan. His 7 wins against the Wolverines is 2nd in school history. He’s the first coach to ever win 5 straight against That Team Up North. He’s the first coach to ever win 7 of his first 8 in The Game. The Vest, despite all his doubters and the incessant complaints about his coaching style, has given Ohio State an unparalleled era of success against Michigan. It was then that I realized a lot has happened in the 6 years since Michigan last ruined my weekend. A friend of mine informed me that on November 22, 2003, when Michigan last beat OSU, Facebook was not yet in existence. So from there, my mind started racing. This series has come a long way since that fateful 36-0 win for Michigan in the inaugural matchup back in 1897. But what has all happened in the last 6 years? I sent out a call to arms to my fellow WFNY writers and asked for some help in researching this and we came up with some excellent little factoids. Lets take a look….
The Last Time Michigan Beat OSU in Football:
- Kanye West hadn’t released his debut album yet.
- George W Bush was in his first term as President.
- The Boston Red Sox still hadn’t won a World Series title in 85 years.
- The Madrid Train Bombings hadn’t yet happened.
- The Abu Ghraib scandal hadn’t yet been made public
- LeBron James had played in 13 NBA games
- Ronald Reagan was still alive
- The Statue of Liberty was still closed to the public in the wake of 9/11
- The TV series Lost was still only in development phase
- The Washington Nationals were the Montreal Expos
- The Malice in the Palace had not yet happened
- Kelly Holcomb went 29-35 with 3 TDs in beating Arizona 44-6 the week before (Craig)
- The #1 song in the country was “Baby Boy” by Beyonce and Sean Paul (Scott)
- The iPod actually had buttons (Scott)
- Barry Bonds was selected NL MVP for the 3rd year in a row and the 6th time overall (Jacob)
- Barack Obama has not yet been sworn in as an Illinois Senator (Denny)
- Matt Lawton, Jody Gerut, Ellis Burks and Alex Escobar were on the Indians roster (Craig, via Jacob)
- The Cat in the Hat beat out Gothika and Elf at the box office that weekend (Denny)
Finally, one last little nugget of info that a friend passed along to me. If Michigan loses to OSU tomorrow, it will be Rich Rodriguez’s 13th Big Ten loss. In his 9 seasons at the helm in Columbus, Senator Tressel has exactly, you guessed it, 13 Big Ten losses. So try to keep some perspective the next time you’re one of those “fans” calling for Jim Tressel to be fired, folks.
So now we turn it over to you, our faithful readers. What did we miss? What else has happened in the 6 years since Michigan last beat OSU?
Go Bucks! Beat Michigan!!!
Author: AndrewSchnitkey
Andrew Schnitkey is a founding editor of WaitingForNextYear. Though he has written about every Cleveland franchise over the years, his primary focus is the Cavaliers and NBA basketball in general.Andrew Schnitkey has written 449 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
I had not yet been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
It’s truly been far too long since we had a Jay Cutler sighting around here. Welcome back, sir.
I remember that game in 2003. At halftime, the Wolverine band tried to spell out Script Michigan, but they didn’t have enough band members, and it wound up as Script higan. Then two of the kazoo players ran into each other trying to dot the h.
BTW, nitpick alert: I think the correct quote is “that SCHOOL up north.”
The Patriots only had one very lucky super bowl and 1000 fans.
Tim couch was still on the roster
Butch Davis was still the coach
We didn’t hate Boozer (or Hughes)
Z had only completed his 2nd complete season (free of injury)
Though Waitingfornextyear.com did not yet exist, we Cleveland sports fan were still waiting for next year nonetheless.
The Indians hadn’t caved to the Red Sox in the ALCS
The Cavs hadn’t got swept by the Spurs in the NBA Finals and
The Browns hadn’t yet overachieved and gone 10-6 still to miss the playoffs
The show “Friends” was still on the air.
The Browns have not beaten the Steelers since the last time Michigan won.
Tivo (DVRs) had only been around for 4 years and was not a common household item. As a result many of us were still waiting till commercial breaks to try and go the bathroom, get a beer, get some chips, and try to make it back to the tv before commercials were over. Also a lot of swearing when we missed a play or two because phone interuptions, people at the door, etc. Also we didnt have the ability to slow mo plays are rewind and watch a big hit again.
Man I love my DVR!
GO BUCKS!!
2,191 Days of pure joy! God I hate Michigan!
I had never written a blog post.
I got a similar chain mail from a buddy the other day….some of these are repeats, but I’m not going through them all and picking them out.
On that date:
“The Da Vinci Code” had come out earlier that year. Not the movie. The book.
Saddam Hussein was still at large.
Outkast had a big hit with “Hey Ya”.
Theatergoers anxiously awaited the release of “Lord of the Rings:
Return of the King”, one month later.
“Elf” was the top film that weekend.
The European Union had 15 members instead of 27.
The world had known the name “Steve Bartman” for about five weeks.
The last “missing” episode of the recently-cancelled Fox cartoon
“Family Guy” had been aired two weeks prior.
Barack Obama was in the Illinois state legislature, and Sarah Palin
was the chairperson of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
None of us had seen Britney Spears naked yet, and it was still an
appealing concept.
LeBron James had been playing pro basketball for three weeks.
After a trip to Europe , a friend spent $200 developing my pictures
into prints from the rolls of light-sensitive film on which they had
been captured.
The CIA would still contend that Iraq had WMDs for several more months.
The two defending NFL conference champions were the Oakland Raiders
and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
A child who is in kindergarten today was born.
This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_backlight_transparent.png)
is what an iPod looked like.
Avenue Q and Wicked had just opened on Broadway.
Arrested Development’s first season had premiered several weeks earlier.
New episodes of “Friends” were being aired.
GMail and Flickr were still months away from Beta release.
Howard Dean’s “scream” was about two months away.
The minimum wage was $5.15 an hour.
You could still buy a new Oldsmobile.
Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were still alive.
Tyrone Willingham had another year at Notre Dame.
Urban Meyer was in his first year coaching… at Utah .
The NFL’s New England Patriots had a trio of rising-star assistant
coaches who were expected to go on to great success in head coaching
jobs: Charlie Weis, Romeo Crennel and Eric Mangini.
Terrelle Pryor was in middle school.
Rich Rodriguez would be the Big East Coach of the Year.
John L. Smith would be the Big Ten Coach of the Year. Related: 8 Big
Ten teams have changed head coaches since then.
Notre Dame was on a 40-year winning streak against Navy.
Michigan had the longest active streak of bowl game appearances.
No Michigan team had ever lost more than seven games in a season.
No Michigan team had failed to win back-to-back games at least once in
a season since 1962.
Every fifth year senior had left Michigan with at least one win against OSU.
And finally…
The last time Michigan beat Ohio State was November 22, 2003. Nine
weeks later, Facebook was founded.
YouTube didn’t exist either, and MySpace (GLITTER GRAPHICS!) was in its infancy.
Praise be to the Gods.
Ohio State had a ridiculous recruiting class that would lead to great years from ‘05-’08, including two title games.
Michigan was still good.
People didn’t laugh at the Big 10.
People didn’t laugh at Michigan’s season.
Jim Tressel was considered a genius. Now he is questioned every week.
Every major Cleveland sports team had an awful season in 2003. This trend would finally end eventually with the rise of the Cavs.
The Indians had ridiculously good “prospects” and almost all of them are on new teams now.
the browns were better then
travis hafner could actually hit a ball
shittspurgh still didnt win a superbowl in this decade
the world baseball classic didnt exist
Steve Irwin and Billy Mays were still living the dream
and Whats the difference between a UM cheerleader and a Cadillac?
-You can only get 8 guys in a Cadillac!
haha, my favorite so far:
After a trip to Europe , a friend spent $200 developing my pictures
into prints from the rolls of light-sensitive film on which they had
been captured.
I was at that game in 2003, and my own addition:
I still had 1 year left on my British work visa!
oh I forgot Reality TV was nowhere as ridiculous as it is now!
Michigan still sucked…
Holy Crap! I wasnt even married yet and I have been married for FREAKING EVER!
[...] a refresher, check out DP and I discussing talking points during the week, or Rock’s list of things that have happened since Ohio State last lost to [...]