The Ohio State and Michigan rivalry has been one massive talking point in the college football territory that can never be outdated, no matter what. The quintessential game, the goosebumps of the history, the class, the reputation, the popular culture, tradition, and the prestige of both schools attached made it an absolute no-brainer to occupy the center stage every year in the annual meet-up. Once upon a time, it was Urban Meyer; it was Ohio State that kept the Wolverines in check, but the tables had eventually turned. Ryan Day stepped up and gave rise to a recurring losing streak for the past four years. The trauma has eaten up the OSU fans so badly that even a national championship looks feeble as a fix.

If you believe it has already reached its peak, consider the perspective of national analyst Josh Pate.

Josh Pate dished an ‘unpopular’ take on the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry angle

The intensity of the rivalry of a game often carries two paradoxical sides. If one gives you your daily dose of adrenaline, the other is meant to leave a bitter taste in your mouth, exposing a lot of hatred, controversy, and everything that stands against what the word fair play denotes. But Josh Pete takes a unique stand amidst all the chaos. One fan triggered his deep-seated emotion about “The Game,” noting, “Unpopular take, but maybe it’s good the CFP is removing some intensity from the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry. It’s reached levels of toxicity lately that don’t feel good for the sport.”

The toxicity that the fan talked about was especially seen in the 2024 version of the rivalry game between the Wolverines and the Buckeyes. After Michigan handed Ryan Day an embarrassing loss, Sherrone Moore’s players planted the Wolverines’ flag on Ohio State’s field. That led to scenes that many people criticized as the TV audiences saw both sides going at each other.

Despite the scenes, Pate didn’t agree with the fan’s comment, nullifying both aspects of the comment part by part. For the first part, he said, ”Has it gotten a little too toxic around here? No is my answer to that.” Pate continued, ”But listen to the crux of this whole thing. He said this is an unpopular take, but maybe it’s a good thing. The playoff is removing some intensity from the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry because of the levels of toxicity that it has reached lately, and please don’t ever let that happen. Please, don’t ever get here, please. Don’t let us get to a point where this is a real thing that’s happening this past year. I know you just came out of a cave if you’ve been hibernating; we got the greatest rivalry in college football.” 

With due respect to the fan named Nate, the analyst holds up the iconic culture and intensity that the rivalry carries. He mentioned that it was the greatest rivalry he had ever seen in his life.

Later, he drew a difference between what is really toxic and what is a raw passion that weak-minded people aren’t ready to experience. He addressed a time when Romans used to flock to the Colosseum and watch people kill each other. That’s what defines the word toxicity, and what we see each year between two football powerhouses is a pure emotion running deep in veins. There is a difference, a subtle yet massive difference.

So, did he just underestimate the weight of a Natty against the Michigan loss? Well, no, Pate walked on a quite rightful middle path.

Did the national championship dilute the pain of the loss for Ryan Day’s team?

The Ohio State Buckeyes won the National Championship on January 20th with a 34-23 score, toppling a fairly organized Notre Dame in a spectacular fight. It marked the perfect end of their fairytale season in Columbus, highlighting a holistic team performance from each of the players on both sides of the ball. For many fans, it remains a dream within a profound, calming reality. But the way one portion of them is trying to cover up the Michigan woes is what upset Pete the most. They’d rather focus on a real fan base who talked sense.

”There is a thought out there that because that happened, the impact of this game’s outcome is devalued. Ohio State fans, in some cases, have tried to make that argument; they don’t really believe it; they do believe that winning the national championship softens the blow; they don’t believe that the outcome of the game doesn’t matter anymore; no, no serious Ohio State fan believes that…” Pate draws the line between the right and wrong approach to the situation.

He knows what Ryan Day has to undergo for the Michigan loss. The situation got so cooked up that a bunch of lunatic fans even dished death threats to the head coach and his family, propelling him to recruit security. But even that doesn’t bunch for reducing the importance of the game at all. ”Some of my Ohio State folks are lying right now. Any Ohio State fan who’s telling you I don’t care that we lost the Michigan game because we won the title is lying,” Pate exposed the double standard of some fans.

So, what is the bottom line? From Josh Pate’s lens, the win made the woes a little less gutting (if ever) but didn’t heal them.