Ohio State Fanbase Collective Cognitive Dissonance
Finally, I get to use my worthless Psych degree from LS&A '92.
Been following 11W and a few other osu slappy boards just because, you know, schadenfreude. I think like a lot of folks here, I enjoy their misery a bit more than is healthy. Particularly the one poster who talked about Saturday "ruining everything he loved about osu, and he was done with 11W." Just glorious.
Anyway, something strange has emerged as I read these mindless, droning posts over there. There is still - even now - a pervasive belief that the sign-stealing scandal is THE reason for three straight losses -- including this past Saturday. There is zero ability from the bulk of this fan base to even process the notion that they were outplayed, outmuscled, and in the case of Saturday -- outcoached, despite an accumulation of data analysis which creates absolute clarity on the reasons for each loss. The entire fanbase assigns accountability farrrr below the broken narrative they greatly prefer. They were stolen from.
Cognitive dissonance occurs when you believe two conflicting things at the same time. In this case, the osu fanbase truly believes they lost because of the sign-stealing while ALSO begrudgingly accepting they lost via X's and O's, and horrendous coaching from cryin' ryan'. Generally speaking, cognitive dissonance breaks when one of the competing ideas takes control of future action. Under normal circumstances, you would think data would eventually direct their belief system. But I'm here to reinforce something most of you already know:
That fanbase down there will never give up the notion that they have been stolen from, and that Michigan's wins will forever be tainted because of it.
And to that I say (with all the power my stupid liberal arts degree can muster): F 'em.
November 29th, 2023 at 11:42 AM ^
OSU fans have been clambering for the rivalry to stop being so one-sided for more than a decade, and now that it is they are whining that OSU is not winning. What they really want is for the games to be closer but still OSU victories because they're so used to winning that losing really hurts them.
Still a fascinating concept considering most OSU fans are also Bengals and Browns fans...
November 29th, 2023 at 11:44 AM ^
I mean, if this means they refuse to self-inventory and never fix the problems actually at the root cause of their defeats, this is excellent.
November 29th, 2023 at 11:51 AM ^
OSU has been paying their players since at LEAST Tressel was hired. Their players don't (or rarely) set foot on campus or in class. Cheating is ingrained in their DNA, and the past 20 or so years of their success has been predicated on it. Now that NIL is starting to level the playing field they cannot handle parity, so they have to cling to the hope that potential petty level three violations are the real reason for the team's decline.
I have never wanted to beat OSU more than this year. But more - I've never wanted THE PLAYERS TO WIN more...no team, NO TEAM...has deserved a win more than team #144, and no team worked harder for it.
I am SO happy for that team.
November 29th, 2023 at 12:06 PM ^
Poetic assonance abut cognitive dissonance.
November 29th, 2023 at 12:27 PM ^
I think this shows the vast difference in fanbases. While Michigan was getting destroyed by crossing routes in man coverage during Don Browns tenure the majority of fans assigned accountability to the defensive scheme and Don Brown. The coaching staff also adjusted accordingly and held people accountable while recruiting to fix an issue. Those adjustments lead to almost immediate results. Ohio refuses to assign accountability. Nothing is their fault and they assign blame elsewhere. As long as this continues to happen Michigan will continue to own the rivalry. I personally am a large fan of their inability to hold themselves accountable and hope it continues to happen. I guess when they aint come to play school things take a little longer to figure out.
November 29th, 2023 at 12:35 PM ^
I just don’t care what OSU fans think. I know many, even in the middle of Indiana, and most of them are new to the rivalry (since 2005 or later) and mistakenly believe that OSU has always been dominant in the game.
Myself, being a Michigan fan since the mid-80’s, knew that the series has ebbs and flows for each team, with an occasional outlier (2011 for UM), and that all it would take would be time for the Michigan side to come out on top again. Almost got that in 2016, and to a lesser extent in 2017. For me, the past three years have been awesome to be a Michigan fan, as the rivalry has shifted, finally, back to UN being on top. And that is something the newer OSU fans don’t get, and seem incapable of getting, which is why the excuse meter has been turned up to 11 the past three years. I believe they are truly incapable of seeing what the older Michigan and OSU fans know about the series.
I don’t know if it’s cognitive dissonance for them so much as they just haven’t known anything before the past three years except that OSU has been dominant in the series during their fandom, so they just simply can’t accept that the series has shifted again. Their expectation has always been that OSU would win, so if it’s anything else their minds just can’t wrap their heads around it.
November 29th, 2023 at 1:23 PM ^
The problem with OSU is they recruit so well, their team is so stacked with STARZ, that they believe they have won the game before it is even played. Which is a misunderstanding of the sport. It's especially humiliating to be beaten despite having the "better" team.
November 29th, 2023 at 1:47 PM ^
If this post proves one thing, it is that your 1992 psych degree is certainly not useless, as you apply a core psychological concept to a real life setting and explain it in a manner that would certainly make your psychology 101 professor proud (let us say Dr. Chris Peterson).
November 29th, 2023 at 8:37 PM ^
Some of the dissonance makes sense to me, actually.
I think Michigan's strategy of finding guys with high ceilings combined with not giving a damn about scholarship limits (due to NIL) allows the team to cultivate talent in a way that requires much more scrutiny than the traditional 'looking at a recruiting class ranking.' Honestly, without hearing it from MGoBlog, I, a college football fan with above-average interest in the sport, wouldn't have understood Michigan's strategy as quickly. Michigan is using NIL and the transfer portal to find out which 3- and 4-stars are actually 5-stars. Sometimes, the team also lands 5-stars. So when OSU fans say stuff like, "these guys don't have our talent," I get it. Because it's harder to see.
It's the sign-stealing stuff that is so much more difficult for me to swallow. Whatever the impact of Michigan's sign stealing, it was wiped by the time MSU got rolled 49-0. Michigan kept adding data to the pile that the team didn't need signs to win, capping it off with this OSU victory.