Outside it was cold and gray and hostile, exactly as these Michigan-Ohio State games are supposed to be. Outside there were eyes overflowing with tears and a field overflowing with fans and a scoreboard that read Ohio State 30, Michigan 27, which didn’t even begin to tell the whole tale of what had just transpired.
Buckeye players couldn’t get through the throng to their locker room, too many red-clad fans taking selfies, too many dancing with friends (or strangers), at least one blazing a celebratory joint right there where Woody Hayes once patrolled.
Another got physical with Jabrill Peppers, who appropriately shoved him back. Later, as Michigan players and staffers were solemnly grabbing boxes of Chick-fil-A and heading to the bus as Ohio State fans, separated by a wrought iron fence, shouted at them and heckled them and sang that they didn’t give “a damn about the whole state of Michigan.”
On a beautifully powerful afternoon of football, on a day when so many fans here appropriately cheered their great fortune at witnessing the sport at its very best, at the first game in this rivalry to need overtime (and two of them at that), at least part of the ending was the sport at its petty and pathetic worst.
Meanwhile, inside a jammed news conference, Jim Harbaugh was spitting fire about the referees.
“Bitterly disappointed,” the Michigan coach said.
“Bitterly disappointed in the officials,” he added later.
“Yeah, I’m bitter,” he concluded.
 |
Jim Harbaugh argues with a referee during Michigan’s loss to Ohio State. (Getty)
|
In case this rivalry needed a reminder of its ferocity, of its fight, of the fierceness that can overwhelm everything, then across another gloriously competitive and brutally violent November afternoon, there they were, Buckeyes and Wolverines and a controversial ending.
Behind an open microphone, Harbaugh was railing now. He played 49 games as a Michigan QB back in the day and 177 more in the NFL. He coached 44 games in the NFL and 110 more in the college ranks and he said he’d never seen worse officiating, never saw a game decided by the refs like this.
“Not at this level,” Harbaugh said.
His bones of contention were four-pronged.
A pass interference that extended Ohio State’s game-tying fourth-quarter drive that he deemed “a gift.”
“The ball was uncatchable,” Harbaugh said. “Past the receiver when Delano Hill made contact.”
Then, to make matters worse, there was what he deemed a missed pass interference by Ohio State on Michigan’s Grant Perry that would have given a first down in double overtime. Instead Michigan had to kick a fruitless field goal.
“Fast forward to the second OT and Grant Perry is getting hooked, turned,” Harbaugh vented before returning to the pass interference that was called. “And that really benefited them, that gift interference penalty.”
There was also a misconduct penalty on himself for throwing papers in the air after he protested an offside call in the third quarter. Harbaugh said an official who also calls basketball games explained it was worth a flag because “it would have been a technical in basketball …
“Well,” Harbaugh steamed, “this isn’t basketball.”
And finally, a ball spot on the game’s penultimate play, a fourth-down, game-on-the-line J.T. Barrett carry that ended either on or just short of the 15-yard line. Harbaugh was convinced it was short. The ref said it was on the 15. A replay review held up the spot.
“That wasn’t a first down,” Harbaugh said.
Was it? Wasn’t it? The play will be debated with such vengeance that it’s impossible to rule out that it could ignite a border war near Toledo, or at least some bar-room brawls for a decade or so.
The situation was simple, Ohio State facing fourth-and-1 on the Michigan 16-yard line. Meyer chose to go for it rather than attempting to tie the game via a Tyler Durbin field goal, perhaps in part because Durbin missed a fourth-quarter chip shot.
There was also a bit of Big Ten machismo.
“‘If you can’t get that far, you’re not a championship team,” Meyer said.
Barrett, the veteran quarterback who had struggled and then found his stride late, carried the ball. As he approached the 15, Michigan defensive tackle Chris Wormley took him out at the knees, causing Barrett to crash into an in-progress block by teammate A.J. Alexander on the Wolverines’ Delano Hill.
Barrett had momentum and seemed destined to fall across the line, but then was slammed into Alexander’s rear. He stopped on impact. It was painfully close. The ref ruled it good, but didn’t bring out the chains to measure. Since the drive had started at the 25, Ohio State needed only to reach the start of 15. While the 10 yards is therefore seemingly obvious, it is also commonplace to measure anyway because the chain is precise and an on-field paint job can be off, perhaps by inches.
Instead the call went to the replay booth.
“That stopped the heart for a second when the official said, ‘I’m getting buzzed,’” Meyer said. “ … I was standing right there, so I thought he had it.”
The replay was close. One issue with what was shown on the television is that that yellow line is thicker than the 15-yard line and thus begins before it by at least a few inches. That created a bit of an optical illusion of where Barrett needed to get to deserve the first down. Did that impact the replay officials?
Either way, changing an on-field spot is fairly rare, especially when it isn’t obvious. Doing it inside the cauldron of emotion of Ohio Stadium and ending the Buckeyes’ playoff hopes would seem even less likely.
Harbaugh didn’t care. He’s convinced Barrett didn’t make it and felt the replay proved it.
“I thought there were some outrageous calls, including the one that ended the game,” Harbaugh said.
It actually didn’t end the game. A Curtis Samuel touchdown run on the following play did, giving the Buckeyes a heated and what at times felt like an improbable victory.
At 11-1, second-ranked Ohio State feels very good about its playoff chances even if Penn State, and not them, advance to the Big Ten championship game. As for Michigan, it sits at 10-2 with this loss and another close one at Iowa on a field goal on the final play.
Should Michigan, which entered the game at No. 3, make the playoff, especially ahead of, say, a potential 11-2 Penn State or Wisconsin, both of whom they defeated outright?
“We make our case on the field,” Harbaugh said. “I’m not going to make any arguments.”
The officiating will pour fuel into an open wound and then cause it to be lit on fire, but Michigan will roll back to Ann Arbor with plenty of additional regret. Its defense dominated most of the game, repeatedly stuffing and frustrating the Buckeyes.
Wolverine quarterback Wilton Speight, however, threw a pick-six in the second quarter, fumbled on the Ohio State 2-yard line in the third and then on the next possession tossed another interception that set Ohio State up on the Michigan 13, which the Bucks punched in. That’s a 15- to 21-point swing right there. Avoid just one of those and Michigan wins.
It also undermines the complete efforts of both sides, the all-or-everything ethos that drives this rivalry. Battered but not beaten, Ohio State fought back. Rocked, but not rolled, so too did Michigan – sending the game to double overtime on its own dramatic fourth-down conversion.
“That was one of the greatest games in this rivalry and it will forever be,” Meyer said. “Instant classic.”
It’s easier to see it that way as the victor, as the one whose season almost certainly goes on. Across the way Harbaugh could only see red, could only see mistreatment, could only tense up with outrage.
“Bitter,” he kept saying.
This is but the second meeting between Meyer and Harbaugh, who promise a potentially prolonged and particularly heated stretch of games.
If so, this is when it got real. This, on a raw and rough and raucous and rollicking afternoon, is when Michigan and Ohio State returned to its competitive and controversial best, a game won or lost by extra sessions and subjective inches and referee decisions, the validity of which likely depends on whether it’s scarlet or maize running through your veins.
No comments:
Post a Comment