Ohio State Football vs. Michigan: A legacy-defining game

The Game is the most important game for both the Ohio State football program and TTUN. It’s the best rivalry in all of sports. If you perform well in The Game and come out on the winning end, you are loved forever in Columbus or Ann Arbor. Perform poorly, and you’re remembered as a goat. Not the good kind.

Saturday’s edition of The Game will be a big legacy game for some of those inside the Ohio State football program. For C.J. Stroud, he has a chance to go out 1-1 as the starting quarterback in The Game. If he loses, he goes winless against TTUN and won’t be remembered nearly as fondly as those before him.

Justin Fields, J.T. Barrett, Dwayne Haskins, and Craig Krenzel are all quarterbacks that left Ohio State with a winning record. They all are welcome in Columbus forever because of their success against TTUN. Stroud has a chance to be remembered like those QBs if he wins this game and then wins a national title.

Ryan Day is under a lot of pressure to win this game as well. His legacy is on the line too. If he loses this game, he will become the first coach since John Cooper in the 90s to have a losing record against TTUN at any point in his coaching tenure. That’s a pretty big deal.

Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel defined their legacies by their domination of TTUN. Ryan Day is 1-1 against them so far. If he wins on Saturday, he keeps himself in the good graces of Buckeye fans. If he loses, fans are going to start to turn on him a bit.

I am not saying in any way, shape, or form that Day’s job would be in jeopardy. He has done a lot in his tenure as Ohio State’s head coach already. But things would start to get a little toasty. John Cooper won a lot of games against other teams too, but you don’t hear Buckeye fans’ adulation for him often.

We’ll see how the game goes. Hopefully, legacies are defined in a good way for those within the Ohio State football program.