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Football
Delany Admits Fan Outrage Influenced Decision to Keep OSU vs. Michigan as Season-ending Game
By Brandon Castel

COLUMBUS — On the eve of Ohio State’s 2010 season-opener, Buckeye fans got some good news and some bad news Wednesday.

After weeks of suspenseful drama that featured some lousy performances by lead actor Jim Delany and his supporting cast, the Big Ten finally revealed the new divisional alignment for 2011.

The biggest—and best—news of the day for fans was that their voice was heard. “The Game” between Ohio State and Michigan isn’t going anywhere.

“The game will occur on the last day of the regular season as it has since 1935,” said Delany, the Commissioner of the Big Ten, during the live broadcast on Big Ten Network.

While “The Game”  has been preserved, at least through 2012, the bad news for OSU-Michigan purists is that college football’s most fierce rivals will now be in opposite divisions as the Big Ten realigned following the addition of Nebraska as the 12th team.

“It allows us to have that great cross-rival that we wanted, but also allows us, when we earn it, to go to the championship game and play for it all,” Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon said.

“We don’t mind playing Ohio State twice in one year.”

The divisions may not have names for another 90 days according to Delany, but Ohio State’s will also include Penn State, Wisconsin, Purdue, Illinois and Indiana while Michigan’s division includes Iowa, Michigan State, Minnesota, and Northwestern along with the newcomer Nebraska.

“Our No. 1 priority was competitive equality and No. 2 was rivalries,” Delany said.

“We have tradition, we believe it is the bedrock of what we do, but we need to continue to innovate.”

For that reason, Delany and the Big Ten athletic directors considered moving the Ohio State-Michigan game to an earlier date in November rather than the final weekend of the regular season, but Delany says they never looked at moving “The Game” to October.

“One idea was to take the rivalry games and play them in the first seven weeks of the season,” Delany said via teleconference.

“And play the last two weeks in a purely divisional context as a build up to the conference championship game.”

But Delany didn’t count on the backlash he and Big Ten athletic directors would receive from “thousands” of fans who were outraged at the idea of moving traditional end-of-the-year rivalry games like Ohio State-Michigan simply avoid cross-divisional games or potential rematches.

“No. 1 we heard the fans. No doubt I think their voice mattered,” Delany said.

“People love the rivalry. They let us know that that was important to them.”

Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel said earlier this week that he received “zillions” of emails about the possibility of moving the game and athletic director Gene Smith called the reaction from fans “overwhelming.”

“A lot of fans wanted that game to be retained at the end,” Smith said.

“It gave me some great insight to come to the conclusion that that was the right thing to do. It confirmed what we both already knew.”

Even Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne heard from irate fans in Columbus and Ann Arbor who were upset that Big Ten expansion was putting the intensity of the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry in jeopardy.

“I got an awful lot of mail here in Lincoln Nebraska about Ohio State and Michigan playing at the end of the season,” Osborne said during the live BTN broadcast. 

“They were really irate and some of them were blaming me.”

In the end, the Big Ten athletic directors voted unanimously to approve a schedule that kept the Ohio State-Michigan at the end of the season despite the fact it could create a rematch between the Buckeyes and Wolverines on back-to-back weekends.

“It’s a great opportunity for both programs to win divisions and play in the championship game,” Gene Smith said.

“If we play on back-to-back weekends it will be exciting.”

Delany referenced the 2006 “Game of the Century” between Ohio State and Michigan as a precedent for equal if not increased interest in a rematch.

“We thought back to 2006 when OSU-Michigan played that classic 1 vs. 2 game,” Delany said.

“There was a lot of discussion about Michigan maintaining their No. 2 ranking because they played so well. It didn’t happen but everyone in the country would have been happy to see that game.”

The other important factor Delany forgot to mention on the live broadcast but confirmed on his teleconference was that all cross-divisional games will count in the conference standings, which means Ohio State and Michigan will have a chance to bounce each other out of the conference title game each November.

It wasn’t a perfect solution, but for once fans got their way.

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