{"id":93034,"date":"2025-07-26T03:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T03:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93034\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T03:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T03:11:14","slug":"who-really-runs-the-big-ten-ohio-state-or-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93034\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Really Runs the Big Ten: Ohio State or Michigan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RJ <\/p>\n

RJ Young<\/p>\n

FOX Sports National College Football Analyst<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/p>\n

Ohio State runs the Big Ten \u2014 or does it?<\/p>\n

The Buckeyes want to be heard on this point: They\u2019re defending nothing. They\u2019re chasing everything. And everything better mean Michigan.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ohio State players line up opposite Michigan players on Nov. 30, 2024, at Ohio Stadium. (Photo by Ian Johnson\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sentiment that most competitors would embrace. Enter the silo. Silence the outside. Secure and protect. Focus on what\u2019s to come, not what has come to pass.<\/p>\n

However, that\u2019s not what we do with defending national champions, especially when they\u2019ve not beaten their arch nemesis since 2019 and haven\u2019t won the league championship in a conference they claim to rule since 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not only has Michigan \u2014 Ohio State\u2019s enemy now and forever \u2014 won three of the last four Big Ten titles and claimed the 2023 national title, but the Wolverines have watched an entire class of Buckeyes go winless against a program they refer to as “That Team Up North.”<\/p>\n

The best tact, the best take, in any conversation where points must be made, is sharpening the truth into an iron point, especially when sliced at a rival. And that is what Michigan defensive end Derrick Moore<\/a> did on Thursday when asked what he thought about Ohio State winning its most recent national title.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“First, I\u2019d like to congratulate them on the win,” Moore said. “But you know it\u2019s not a real win if y\u2019all [Ohio State] ain\u2019t beat us.”<\/p>\n

Moore went on to elaborate on his statement, noting the first-year 12-team College Football Playoff and where the Buckeyes would have ended up had it not been for the expanded field.<\/p>\n

“If the playoff expansion wasn\u2019t around, they wouldn\u2019t have won the national championship. So we pretty much look at it like, y\u2019all had a nice, little, easy run. But we helped y\u2019all along the way. We pretty much helped y\u2019all build back up. But after that, they dominated everybody that came in front of them, so, I\u2019ve got to give all the credit to them.”<\/p>\n

Ahem: Where\u2019s the lie? Ohio State, being the No. 8 seed, would likely have been left out of a four-team playoff. And that loss to an unranked seven-win Michigan team would\u2019ve slammed the door on a conversation to get the Buckeyes in among most rational fans and, more importantly, a rational selection committee.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Derrick Moore #8 of the Michigan Wolverines runs a play during the fourth quarter of a game against Ohio State. (Photo by Ben Jackson\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n

Remember this: Michigan ran the table in 2023. The Wolverines ran through Ohio State without their head coach on the sideline, right through their competition in the Big Ten title game and over Nick Saban\u2019s Alabama team and Kalen DeBoer\u2019s Washington team to win the title. If not all national champions are alike, 2023 Michigan looks a lot like 2018 Clemson and 2024 Ohio State looks a lot like 2007 LSU<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to win the national title. It\u2019s another for Ohio State or Michigan to beat the other, and that is by design. For so long, we\u2019ve lived for rivalry games because it wasn\u2019t that long ago that we counted votes to decide who the national champion was. No one was really playing for one as much as they were playing for the right to point at someone else in a game that mattered more than it should and say, “I beat you.”<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Ohio State-Michigan is all about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about eight consecutive losses from 2012 to 2021. It\u2019s about Urban Meyer never knowing what it’s like to lose to Michigan, and it\u2019s about Ryan Day knowing those four losses to the Wolverines might mean more to OSU<\/a> fans than his one national title.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about red X\u2019s on all words that begin with the letter “M” during the week of The Game. It\u2019s about 62-39 (2018), 56-27 (2019) for Ohio State, followed by 42-27 (2021) and 45-23 (2022) for Michigan. It\u2019s about Michigan closing the gap from laughable in 2020 to “We Own You” in 2024.<\/p>\n

It is reasonable that comparing how you win is as important as winning, especially given the Midwest penchant for fair play and taking the rough road, because it\u2019s the right way. And that brings us to the obvious rebuttal, where Ohio State might look at Michigan and ask, sincerely, “didn’t they cheat?”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Michigan defensive back Rod Moore (9) holds up a Michigan flag at midfield after the Wolverines defeated the Buckeyes. (Photo by Ian Johnson\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) <\/p>\n

Here’s what we know: The NCAA launched an investigation early in the 2023 season amid allegations that Michigan used a robust in-person scouting and sign-stealing operation. The Wolverines served a penalty for this in the same season for which they won the national title, as the Big Ten suspended Jim Harbaugh for the final three regular-season games of the year after its investigation concluded Michigan had violated conference sportsmanship rules via an impermissible in\u2011person scouting operation.<\/p>\n

Just two months ago, according to reports<\/a>, Michigan proposed suspending current coach Sherrone Moore for the third and fourth games of the 2025 season for deleting a thread of text messages as the scandal broke. Then, this past week, Big Ten<\/a> commissioner Tony Petitti reportedly sent a letter to the NCAA Committee on Infractions<\/a> suggesting that Michigan<\/a>‘s football program should not face more sanctions stemming from the sign-stealing scheme.<\/p>\n

I think what galls most folks isn\u2019t that Michigan wasn\u2019t punished, but that the program was not punished harshly enough for its transgression. After all, Ohio State likely lost a chance to play for the 2012 national title because, after a 12-0 season, it was forced to serve a bowl ban because players sold memorabilia. Today, that feels quaint.<\/p>\n

Had some of these events not occurred, the question would remain: Who runs the Big Ten? In a season where the conference could win a third national title in as many years for the first time in the CFP era and in a league that Michigan helped found in 1896, which now features four programs in their second year as members, the consistent excellence of Penn State and the awakening of Indiana, now is the moment for the conference\u2019s two best programs over the last five decades to throw down a gauntlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Come Nov. 29 at the Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the last two national champs will meet, and we\u2019ll look at the scoreboard to see who really runs this league, and, perhaps, the sport.<\/p>\n

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast “The Number One College Football Show.” Follow him at @RJ_Young<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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