Is it time we award the players an item for winning 'The Game'?

Submitted by victors2000 on November 28th, 2019 at 11:34 AM

We all know Ohio State players receive a gold pants trinket when they beat Michigan. They have all sorts of things that memorialize us: Script Ohio, Carmen, Ohio. From their side of the rivalry there is true fabric to this game.

It ain't going away. We can give it lip service, 'The greatest rivalry in sports', but the fact is we as a team, as a community, rarely if ever match the passion for this game that they have. Perhaps it would behoove us to bring more depth to this game, and one way would be to provide a momento for those players that beat Ohio State.

Before you all - you know who you are - go half cocked and knock the suggestion down and burn it with mental fire without thought, this fight ain't going away. It means a great deal - in our hearts - to win this game. Maybe we should reward our heroes with something to memorialize the victory.

*closes eyes, grimaces, and hits the save button*

kurpit

November 28th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^

"Maybe if we dangled a small piece of jewelry in front of the players they'd win the game."

Seriously? You think the problem is that the players don't try hard enough because they don't get a necklace pendant if they win?

Joined: 02/25/2009

MGoPoints: 9237

buddha

November 28th, 2019 at 1:18 PM ^

I think this is a really cool idea. If the story is true, UM was absolutely dominating OSU pre-WW2. In an effort to remove the mystique of UM, the coach gave golden pants to players who beat UM to signal UM players put their pants on one leg at a time just like anyone else. 

The pants were not THE thing that won games against UM; however, they symbolize yet another way OSU respects and approaches this rivalry. They personalize it; they memorialize it.

Frankly, outside of UM’s nauseatingly paternalistic attitude towards the game, it’d be cool to do something memorable to celebrate our victories over OSU. Who knows, maybe it would provide an incremental bit of mental strength going into the game and help us win one every once in a while. 

I like the idea!

Joined: 10/08/2009

MGoPoints: 5033

buddha

November 28th, 2019 at 2:22 PM ^

This take is so lazy. 

By all means, OSU is filled with a bunch of immoral and unethical individuals at leadership who have made unlawful decisions. Many of these decisions- in my mind - are a level above the regular bullshit that seems to plague college athletics (or - at least - men’s football and men’s basketball). Over and above any recency bias, I’ve always maintained UM has had some degree of moral high ground over those guys (harkening back to my paternalistic comment earlier).

Nevertheless, they have built a machine around beating UM...and they’ve been very successful. They’ve been the dominant and most consistent program in the B1G for 50+ years, and it’s heavily centered around one annual objective: Beat Michigan. 

I think there are both strategic and operational lessons that UM can learn from OSU in order to both be more competitive in the rivalry as well as the national stage...gold pants (or whatever) is a small but actionable step of many that would be required to build that institutional infrastructure. Moreover, it lines up nicely with their original motivation for starting the tradition to begin with: Stop glorifying the talent on the other team and just go out and beat the shit out of them. 

Joined: 10/08/2009

MGoPoints: 5033