Scarlet and Gray Stockholm Syndrome

Growing up in Dayton, my relationship with the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry might not have been as ingrained as it would've been if I'd grown up in Columbus, the heart of Buckeye territory. Dayton sits in the southwestern corner of the state, close enough to Cincinnati that you start encountering dissidents, people who root for Kentucky or, God forbid, Notre Dame. In Columbus, everyone bleeds scarlet and gray. In Dayton, you had to choose.

But my mom went to Ohio State, so for me the choice was clear.

As a kid, I didn't fully comprehend the extent of the rivalry. Perhaps that's because, for most of my childhood, it was a mere speedbump on the way to bigger and better things each year. I can still remember when our second-stringer J.T. Barrett went down against Michigan in 2014 in a somewhat close game, and Cardale Jones finished the job. That encapsulated the state of things then: Michigan was an obstacle, but one we cleared with the inevitability of gravity.

Then Jim Harbaugh came to Ann Arbor in 2015, and the temperature changed, not just in the rivalry itself, but in how it infected every corner of my life.

Ryan Covitz and the Birth of the Blood Rivalry

I was one of only two students in my grade placed in an advanced math class. The other was Ryan Covitz, who came from a family of Wolverines. Before Harbaugh, our rivalry had been mostly historical. It was only once Harbaugh came that I realized The Game wasn’t just a tradition; it was a war, and I’d spent my childhood sleepwalking through it.

I can still picture 2016, J.T. Barrett and the spot controversy. I watched it with my whole family in rural West Virginia, everyone huddled around the living room, including my mom and uncle who both went to OSU.

The infamous J.T. Barrett spot happened in overtime, and we were all adamant he made the line to gain. Which he obviously did. When the eventual Curtis Samuel touchdown happened, it felt triumphant in a way that only Ohio State-Michigan can feel triumphant.

Ryan maintained for months afterwards that Barrett was short and the Buckeyes cheated to get the win.

Come middle school, Ryan moved away, funnily enough, to Columbus. The only time I would contact him after that would be to give him a hard time after the Wolverines lost to the Buckeyes like clockwork.

Urban Meyer's teams could stumble against Iowa or get embarrassed by Purdue, but come November, they'd show up and demolish Michigan with the reliability of a natural law. In 2019, Meyer stepped aside, mired in controversy, and Ryan Day took the helm. He took care of business in Year 1.

But then COVID hit, and the 2020 version of The Game was cancelled. Day had promised to hang 100 on Harbaugh's Wolverines. The timing of Michigan's COVID outbreak felt convenient, suspiciously so.

Either way, The Game was cancelled. Day's commandment went unfulfilled.

2021: The First Crack in the Facade

What we didn't know then was that the cancellation had bought Harbaugh something more valuable than pride: time. In 2021, the Buckeyes struggled. But we were playing Michigan, and we always beat Michigan; it's just what we did.

Until Hassan Haskins and Aidan Hutchinson had different plans.

My grandpa was in the living room watching the game with us. He was from Michigan, didn't care a bit about college football, but he knew how to push our buttons. So every time Hassan Haskins broke off another run, he clapped and laughed like he was a lifelong Wolverine.

It was already bad enough that our bloodline traced back to enemy soil. But when that same family started cheering for Michigan in our own living room? That was beyond the pale.

My older brother was a sophomore at Ohio State by this point. My mom was a Buckeye. And when Grandpa kept pushing, kept ribbing us like he wanted to get ejected, we obliged. We plainly told our octogenarian grandfather to get out of the room.

In any reasonable society, my mom should’ve objected. But she was a Buckeye. And it was The Game. She kept her mouth shut.

After the loss, I started counting the days until we'd get another shot. Not wistfully. Not patiently. But with a spiteful, burning desire for retribution. Every day crossed off the calendar was a step closer to justice. A step closer to that sacred fourth Saturday in November, when the reckoning would come for the Wolverines.

2022: The Home Victory That Wasn't

The 2022 matchup was supposed to be the get-right game. It was at home. C.J. Stroud was humming in his second year. We had a new defensive coordinator. My brother had come to Ohio State in 2021—this was his only home game against Michigan as a student. The energy in Columbus felt electric, inevitable.

We did not get the victory we so desired.

The day can best be summed up by a photo my brother sent to the family group chat: a drunken surrender cobra he found himself in as the result on the field became undeniable. Arms over his head, helpless, watching it all collapse in real time.

By this point, Ryan Covitz had long fallen out of my life. But the real agony of these losses wasn't just the scoreboard; it was watching social media light up in the aftermath. The Covitzes of the world, posting about how great a win it was, how long they'd waited for this, how sweet it felt to finally beat the Buckeyes. Again.

What had seemed like an outlier in 2021 was now officially a trend.

2023: McCord and the Cat

By 2023, I was a freshman at Ohio State, and Kyle McCord was our quarterback. The Wolverines were fielding what might've been the best team of the century. They were also in the middle of a sign-stealing scandal that would eventually get their coaches suspended.

The week leading up to the game, I watched every Ohio State-Michigan documentary I could find, getting myself in the right headspace. The day of, I rushed through woodwork with my grandpa so I'd be ready when kickoff came.

We were underdogs. This Buckeyes team had nearly lost to Notre Dame early in the season, saved only by a miraculous final drive from McCord. He'd thrown passes that should've been intercepted, made decisions that should've cost us the game, but somehow we'd won anyway. It felt like he was playing with borrowed luck.

Even when we were down, I held onto hope.

We fought hard. McCord had us driving late, a chance to win it. He heaved a prayer toward Marvin Harrison Jr., but this time fate didn't forgive him. The ball hung in the air and fell into the wrong hands. At that moment, I left my grandparents' living room, walked out to the garage, and found their cat. I sat beside it, petting it in silence, and cried.

For any adult man, that would be entirely excessive. And it undoubtedly was. But I wanted one win over Michigan while I was actually there, while I walked the Oval, while I paid the tuition. And once again, it slipped away.

2024: My First Home Loss

The next year, the Wolverines were absolutely awful, and it was a home game for us Buckeyes. That Thanksgiving week, I left my grandparents' house early, driving back to Columbus just in time for kickoff, convinced I was about to witness an easy win and the start of a title run.

Instead, we lost on another humiliating November afternoon.

There's a study I once read that claimed you can predict whether a college team won or lost based on how much team merchandise you see people wearing the day after. At Ohio State, that plays out with brutal clarity. After losses to Michigan, campus doesn't feel depressed so much as it feels abandoned. The Oval is empty. High Street is dead. It's like the whole university collectively decided to pretend it doesn't exist for a day.

After the loss, I sat for a while in the stadium stairwell, taking in the faces of my fellow Buckeyes, all equally shellshocked and sunken. Outside, the jeers started. A group of Michiganders stood along the walkway, smirking behind their phones, fishing for a reaction. With many a Buckeye, myself included, they succeeded, earning enough middle fingers to fill a section of the Horseshoe twice over.

By this time, my grandpa wasn't with us anymore. He had passed away before that game. But I know that wherever he was, he was laughing. Laughing at me and my fellow Buckeyes as we sulked out of that stadium like kids caught crying at recess. And he had no qualms about it, I'm sure. Just like I had no qualms kicking him out of that living room three years earlier.

2025: Hope Is a Learned Delusion

On Friday, I'll be driving back to Columbus for The Game. Again. I've already started watching the old documentaries. I've already started convincing myself this year will be different. It's a form of Stockholm syndrome, loving a rivalry that repeatedly tortures me. I know it's foolish.

But I also still remember being that kid watching Curtis Samuel waltz into the end zone in overtime in 2016, arms outstretched in triumph. I remember what salvation looks like. And maybe that's the cruelest part: knowing it's possible, having tasted it before, and spending every November since then chasing that feeling.