11/30/2019 – Michigan 27, Ohio State 56 – 9-3, 6-3 Big Ten

Afterwards, Justin Fields said that he thought Ohio State took things more seriously:

I asked Justin Fields and JK Dobbins why Ohio State has had more success in this rivalry.... #OhioState “We take it more seriously than they do.” #Buckeyes #Wolverines #TheGame pic.twitter.com/Z4Hlj4OumE — Justin Rose (@JRoseWXYZ) November 30, 2019

He's probably right. This September he told the world that he took nothing but online classes. Fields was part of a university community in the same way someone in jail next to it is:

“From what I have seen, the campus is beautiful and the people around are great,” Fields said.

Even in relatively good circumstances online classes are often jokes. A lot of small liberal arts schools are scrambling to get together joke online masters degrees in a hopefully-futile bid to survive in the face of declining enrollment. Those programs exist only to give people bullshit credentials they hope will pass muster in an environment that doesn't really care to examine them.

Those are for people for whom the diploma they receive might actually mean something at some point. For an Ohio State quarterback? If Fields even does any of his own work, spelling his name will suffice to pass. I don't have many illusions about the academic standards placed on Michigan players, but I'm dead certain they actually show up on campus because I know many people who have taught or been in classes with Michigan football players. So you wonder at which point the dubious nature of college football becomes outright fraud.

"How far is too far?" is not a question that's ever troubled anyone at Ohio State. The NCAA is a joke to be exploited. Classes are a joke to be avoided. Anything not related to beating Michigan is a joke.

And, okay, you win. Whatever. Good one.

[After THE JUMP: slightly more of this]

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Michigan's not going to do that stuff. This isn't a value judgment. For a guy like Justin Fields, classes are a stupid distraction. It's reasonable to treat them like that. Michigan isn't going to do that, because the institution thinks things like going to class are important. This is also a reasonable thing to think.

What it does mean is that this is going to continue. Ohio State faced a potential reckoning point when some idiot emailed Jim Tressel about Terrelle Pryor. Gordon Gee said he hoped Tressel didn't fire him, eventually did fire Tressel when it was inevitable, and then everyone treated him like he'd martyred himself for orphans. They took their bowl ban, changed nothing, and continued beating Michigan.

That's literally all that matters in Columbus. When Fields said his bit about online classes the local paper rushed to defend him like he'd been caught lying four separate times to the NCAA. To describe their media as bootlicking does an injustice to bootlickers, who may have ill feelings about the boot in question.

Meanwhile Michigan's athletic department is so prim and proper it won't even try to dissuade hordes of Ohio squareheads from filling the seats around me every other year.

So that's how it is, and how it's going to be. Michigan's going to pretend to dignity and Ohio State's going to beat their ass. Nothing is going to change. You can be done with Don Brown all you want. Michigan can hire Super Robot Lombardi as their defensive coordinator, and Ohio State will beat his ass. Not one emotion you might have matters. You can agitate on a message board all you want and even if you get your heart's fondest desire, Ohio State is going to beat that guy's ass.

Maybe at some point Michigan will win one of the games that happens to end up close, and hooray for that. Not one thing you say or think or care about is going to change the situation.

So okay. The only thing I'm annoyed with this Monday is that I have to spend time writing this instead of talking about the basketball team, which is good and fun, because of some lingering sense of obligation. What is the optimal point at which I have discharged this duty in a way that will be minimally satisfying to the insane 20% of the fanbase who wanted a full hour of football talk on the podcast? At what point do the wishes of the 50% who asked for zero minutes of football take primacy?

Right about… now.