That should surprise nobody. Which coach feels more pressure to win this installment at noon ET on FOX? That’s up for debate.
No. 4 Michigan and No. 10 Ohio State enter that winner-take-all Big Ten East showdown with identical 10-1 records and opposite records in the rivalry matchup. Meyer is 6-0. Harbaugh is 0-3. What do they know about pressure?
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“The amount of time and effort that you put into these games, and certainly there’s no bigger than this, the word pressure absolutely is there,” Meyer said at his news conference in Columbus, Ohio, on Monday. “For someone to say there’s no pressure, that’s not true.”
Harbaugh offered a more terse, philosophical answer from his conference in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“I always look at pressure as life-giving energy,” Harbaugh said.
The narrative around this matchup between the teams is almost the same as 2016, which produced a 30-27 double-overtime classic at The Shoe. Meyer vs. Harbaugh is a toned-down recreation of the Ten Year War between Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler.
The catch this time is the winner is guaranteed a trip to the Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis on Dec. 1. The College Football Playoff conversation will be a part of the winning team’s future.
The losing team, meanwhile, will feel this one a little more. In this case, that will fall on the losing coach. That is where the pressure factor kicks in: Forget about those other 10 wins. It’s the next win that matters the most.
“If Michigan doesn’t win it, fairly or not and probably not, then this will be the only thing people talk about this offseason,” New York Times bestselling author John U. Bacon told Sporting News. “Now with Urban Meyer, then it would be the first time he lost to Michigan in seven years. The storyline is going to be Harbaugh has the upper hand. That is also an exaggeration, but that’s how this thing works.”
The other narratives are easy to see. Harbaugh would be the first coach to lose four in a row to Ohio State since Bump Elliott from 1960-63. Another loss to Buckeyes would instantly crank up the pressure on social media, and some might wonder if that would put Harbaugh on the hot seat.
We’ll dispel that now: Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel has said as much that it will not. FOX analyst Joel Klatt, who will call Saturday’s game with Gus Johnson, doesn’t see the Harbaugh hot seat narrative either.
“I think that the frustration would be very high,” Klatt told SN. “I don’t think that there is any pressure from a job status standpoint, and candidly I don’t think there was any ever pressure. I think that was a media narrative driven by people who wanted to drive the narrative that Jim Harbaugh was overrated. I’ve never bought either. It’s a terrible premise. All you have to do is just watch to see how they continue close the gap.”
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That might be true. Michigan’s recruiting continues is improved. The Wolverines have won 10 games three of the last four seasons. But that gap includes an 0-3 record against the Buckeyes. The Wolverines haven’t won the Big Ten championship since 2004. They haven’t closed The Game, and 2016 was the latest flagrant example of a missed opportunity.
“When you’re the head coach at Michigan or Ohio State, fair or not, you’re evaluated by how your program is doing but even more so how you’re doing in this game,” Klatt said.
That will be the test for Meyer, who has yet to feel the sting of a loss against Michigan. Given Meyer has both served a three-game suspension to start the season — in the aftermath of assistant coach Zach Smith’s firing — and dealt with severe headaches stemming from an arachnoid cyst all season, there’s more pressure on the Buckeyes to hold their ground.
The Buckeyes are still 10-1 and in position to defend their Big Ten championship, but Klatt uses the word “strain” to describe the vibe around the program.
“There’s obviously something bothering (Meyer) physically, and he has a history that would suggest he will make a decision for he and his family,” Klatt said. “I don’t think it’s totally outlandish to suggest that, ‘Hey, there might be a decision made.’ Having said that, I think that’s wild speculation and I do believe that this team has not played their football. If they do, they are capable of beating just about everybody.”
Our best guess? No matter what happens Saturday, the Buckeyes will neither make the College Football Playoff nor crumble as a program. As long as Meyer is coach, Ohio State will be in the national championship conversation.
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Meyer has dealt with that pressure since Day 1. Harbaugh is in that conversation now, too — for real, this time — and you can tell by the way answers questions from the media. In 2016, when asked about the value of The Game, Harbaugh referenced a pie chart.
This year, when asked if this was just one more game on the schedule, Harbaugh bit back with a three-word answer.
Meyer, meanwhile, said that confidence must flow through the players. Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins will feel pressure in this game, same as Michigan’s Shea Patterson.
“You have to display confidence with the plan,” Meyer said.
That is how you deal with that, and right now Ohio State and Michigan have the right coaches to deal with The Game. Meyer acknowledges it exists. Harbaugh treats it as life-giving energy. The loser will feel a lot more heading into 2019.
But we still think both coaches will be back to face that pressure. Why would anybody on either side want that to change?
“As long as Urban Meyer stays at Ohio State and Jim Harbaugh stays at Michigan, I think it’s on,” Bacon said. “It’s the next best thing to the Bo-Woody wars.”
