You don’t go 7-0 against Michigan without having a supreme sense of what it takes to excel in rivalry games. In recent college football history, no one has been better than Urban Meyer at preparing his team to beat the team everyone wants you to beat.

Ohio State’s 2019 players got some advice from the program’s former head coach in that department.

Meyer spoke to the 2019 Buckeyes’ team over the summer at the “Gold Pants” ceremony. The Buckeyes give out a gold pants medallion after each Michigan win.

The former Ohio State head coach’s comments were published by Eleven Warriors.

Some of the best ones;

How do you really show respect for a rivalry? And all due respect, maybe some up there don’t understand that. You work that [expletive] every day. Every day. You walk in that staff room – this is for the new coaches, you know who they recruit. You know what they’re doing every day. What I ask Mark Pantoni – who are they recruiting? Who are they going after? What is their practice schedule? What are they doing? Are we outworking them? *** When I see people giggle about how we don’t wear blue in here – I don’t laugh about that. We don’t have blue pens in here. That’s not funny. This is Nike vs. Adidas, this is Coke vs. Pepsi, this is Ohio State vs the Team Up North. This is our livelihood. *** You never lose to those pricks. Ever. Ever. And you work it every day. And I don’t give a shit if you’re from California or Texas or whatever, as soon as you say you’re a Buckeye this is part of your life for the rest of your life – and you don’t lose to those pricks. You beat them every day. Every day.

It’s not hard to imagine why this guy never lost to Michigan.

You can view his full speech to Ohio State’s players here.

Ohio State and Michigan will kick off at noon E.T. in Ann Arbor. The game will be on FOX.