With the Big Ten expanding to 12 teams in 2011 and also going to divisional play and a conference championship game, the annual showdown between Michigan and Ohio State might not be at the end of the Big Ten schedule.
"I can't sit here and say that it's going to be in place, or it's not going to be in place," Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith said on Aug. 24 of the traditional season-ending rivalry. "We'll just have to wait and see how it plays out."
Many who hold dear the traditions of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry are hoping for something close to the status quo. Most don't want to let go of the finality of that late-November Saturday. "The Game," as it's called in much of the Midwest, was first played in 1897 and it's been played 106 times since.
Moving it to October could make "The Game" feel like just another game.
"I'll tell you we'll go to great lengths to make sure that the tradition and rivalries are respected," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said this summer. "I think the important thing is, that they play."
And about those divisions? If Michigan and Ohio State are in the same division, they could never meet again for the conference championship as they have so many times, going back to when Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes prowled the sidelines?
If the Buckeyes and Wolverines are in different divisions, that could set up two meetings in some seasons. Wouldn't that detract from the win-or-else nature of the rivalry?
"Change is tough," Smith said somberly. "At the end of the day, I don't know what change we'll have. Even if we have Michigan at the end of the schedule, there's still going to be change. I don't know what it's going to be. But I'm looking at a number of different scenarios and there's change in all of them."
There is a new Facebook page with more than 9,600 friends, it Called Don’t Mess With the Ohio State/Michigan Game. It allows friends to email movers and shakers at both OSU and Michigan in an effort to stop the Big Game change.
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