The Game: Michigan vs. Ohio State

Ask college football fans to name the sport’s fiercest rivalry and many will say the same two words: “The Game.” Every year, usually to close the regular season, the Michigan Wolverines and the Ohio State Buckeyes meet with bragging rights — and often a Big Ten title — on the line.

The bad blood runs deeper than football. The two states have been needling each other since the 1835 “Toledo War,” the border squabble over Toledo that helped shape Michigan’s boundaries. On the field, the rivalry’s defining chapter was the “Ten Year War” of 1969–1978, pitting Michigan’s Bo Schembechler against Ohio State’s Woody Hayes. The twist: Schembechler had played for Hayes and coached under him before taking the Michigan job — then beat his old mentor in a famous 1969 upset of the top-ranked Buckeyes. Hayes reportedly so disliked his rival school that he refused to even say “Michigan,” calling it “that school up north.”

Decades later, the series remains close, and a single November Saturday can define both teams’ seasons.