Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin stuck the landing on his comments about "The Game" this week. TTUN QB Bryce Underwood somehow took Wolverines head coach Kyle Whittingham's strange rhetoric on the Buckeyes rivalry and made the Maize and Blue side of it sound weaker.
Sayin said that, when it comes to losing to TTUN, it "becomes your livelihood" when asked by On3's Ari Wasserman and Andy Staples about the rivalry. He was the backup in 2024, his redshirt freshman season, when Will Howard and Co. fell in "The Game" at home, 13-10, to a 6-6 Sherrone Moore-coached outfit. He knows firsthand that sting and how it consumes Columbus, Ohio.
Underwood, while speaking to John Fanta about the rivalry, made what OSU fans would call an unforced error, but what may just be the norm in Whittingham's program. Underwood basically no-sold the game and the rivalry's juice.
"It’s just another game. Just, with guys in a different color. That’s how I see it," Underwood told Fanta.
Gone are the ancient texts from this rivalry on that side of the state line. Whittingham started this conversation when he admitted that he had no comprehension of the rivalry's "hate" because he doesn't feel hatred toward Ryan Day.
“I’ve learned how intense that rivalry is and how important the game is,” Whittingham said during the 2026 Big Ten Football Media Days. “Hate is a strong word, but I want to win that game as badly as anybody in Ann Arbor. ... I just think a rivalry can be intense and emotional without the hatred factor. I don’t think there’s any place for that personally. I think Ryan Day is a good person. To sit here and say I hate Ryan Day, I’d be making crap up because that’s not true.”
Bryce Underwood didn't need to give TTUN's fans such a bleak statement
Underwood didn't set the world on fire during the 2025 season, throwing four touchdowns and seven interceptions down the stretch against the Buckeyes and some of the worst teams the Big Ten had to offer last year: Michigan State, Purdue, Northwestern, and Maryland.
The Wolverines' sophomore signal-caller didn't need to offer any controversial statements about the rivalry at all. He dug himself a hole with his fanbase in 2025 and may have dug it even deeper with these comments.
Well, unless they know something in Ann Arbor that the rest of the world doesn't...
Wolverines confident about a massive upset...or accepting their fate
Perhaps Whittingham really does have a daunting program that will give Day and Co. fits, and he's simply being respectful about it. That'd be a mind-bending reality for Ohio State's fanbase to accept come late November.
Perhaps this is just fear, though. Maybe Whittingham knows his team doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning this game, and he and his players are simply in full denial about the consequences of a loss. Maybe they're not stressing because it's a sunk cost trying to beat the preseason coaches poll's No. 1 overall team in year one of the Whittingham era on the road.
Either way, it's been an interesting PR play for TTUN, and Buckeye Nation can't be upset with how this is playing out. Especially about Sayin's recent comments when juxtaposed with his QB counterpart.
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