Ohio State gives Michigan football a chance to prove it's winning on its own merit

DETROIT − Most years, it’d be about “The Game,” and only about “The Game,” and while this rivalry has given us some bulletin board quotes here and there over the years — remember Ryan Day’s we’ll hang a 100 on them? — the week leading up to Michigan vs. Ohio State is usually about football.

Like who is going to stop Marvin Harrison Jr.? (Hint: no one.) Or will J.J. McCarthy be healthy enough to use his legs in a way that made him such a dual-threat for most of the season? (Answer: he says yes.)

Or can U-M run the ball against the best defense it will face? Or stop the Buckeyes’ run game? To sum those up: Who knows? This Saturday is as close to a pick em’ as we’ve had in a while. But just when we think we know which way the rivalry is leaning, it switches.

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All of these questions matter, of course, and their answers will clearly help determine who will be headed to Indianapolis for the Big Ten title game the following week.

Yet there was Jim Harbaugh, talking about bathing suits Monday during his weekly news conference, another reminder that even “The Game” can’t block out the noise surrounding his football program.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh walks the sideline during the warmups prior to his team’s game against TCU in the 2022 Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium.

Noise is why he brought up bathing suits, if you were wondering. Noise that began like a siren.

“It’s ear-piercing at first, and then it becomes tolerable,” he said, “and then you block it out.”

Harbaugh looked down at the lectern as he said this. He was checking his notes.

Clearly, he’d been thinking about the right metaphor to describe the “noise” of accusation, allegation, suspension and firing, to describe what it’s been like coaching in the face of all the noise, and what it’s been like for his team.

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As for the bathing suits?

Let’s let Harbaugh make the connection:

“It’s like the ‘Ted Lasso’ show: Believe. What comes out of that is believe. I’m just so proud, so proud of our team. Despite that noise, our locker room’s in one piece. Like Ted, for me, locker rooms (are) a lot like my mom’s bathing suits: I like to see them in one piece. We’ve got that and it’s amazing. There’s so many lessons to be learned, many life lessons that our young guys are learning at this age. It’s how the world works.”

Got it?

No?

Well, Harbaugh digs “Ted Lasso,” the show about an American football coach who takes a job as a soccer coach in England. Lasso is prone to dad jokes and corny platitudes and a specific kind of American homespunery.

And when Harbaugh says his program is all about faith, family and football, as he says often, it’s not too hard to imagine Lasso saying it. In any case, Harbaugh was trying to say that this year’s “The Game,” at least for Michigan, is as much about blocking out the noise and remaining in one piece as it is about game planning.

It hasn’t been easy. Not for the players. And while that may be how the world works, as Harbaugh said, it’s a tough lesson to learn.

Harbaugh is used to the noise. He gets paid to handle the noise, especially when the noise is his own doing — he may not have known that Connor Stalions was breaking rules by in-person scouting — but he gets paid to take responsibility for what happens in his program. And so, he won’t be on the sidelines this Saturday for “The Game.”

His players, however, had nothing to do with the alleged cheating. Still, they have to deal with the noise, and the assumptions that they haven’t earned their record and success because of what Stalions allegedly did.

That bothers McCarthy. Of course, it bothers him. It should bother him. His work and play are being questioned for something he didn’t do. That’s a lesson, too.

“Knowing how much blood, sweat and tears we put into this season and all the hours that we put in … (it’s) just being diluted by a scandal and all that,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but it’s out of our control, but we only focus on what we can control.”

McCarthy may be right that he and his teammates only focus on what they can control. And their coach, Harbaugh, and acting head coach, Sherrone Moore, have tried their best to keep them focused in that way.

Still, noise like this has a way of seeping through. You could hear it in McCarthy’s voice Monday.

“It’s just unfortunate that people think we don’t put in the work to get to where we are,” he said.

Harbaugh believes he has a battle-tested team. In most years, he’d be talking about the battles on the field. This year, he was not, he was talking about how his players have gone about things.

“I just think back over the last five, six weeks especially, it’s just been a high-pitched siren. Like a deafening, ear-piercing noise. After a while, you start to tolerate it. Before you know it, just block it out. Stay on course. That’s what our team has done.”

It’s hard to argue his team hasn’t. Look at the record. Consecutive road wins against solid teams without the head man on the sideline the last two weeks only bolsters his belief.

But Penn State and Maryland are not Ohio State.

Beat the Buckeyes and the noise will quiet a little more. Beat the Buckeyes and it shrinks the number of folks who wonder if Stalions’ illicit sign-stealing operation helped them beat Ohio State the previous two seasons.

Which means “The Game” isn’t just about “The Game” this Saturday, but the chance for these Wolverines to change how some think about what’s happened the last six weeks.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or [email protected]. Follow him @shawnwindsor.

Next up: Buckeyes

Matchup: No. 3 Michigan (11-0, 8-0 Big Ten) vs. No. 2 Ohio State (11-0, 8-0).

Kickoff: Noon Saturday; Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor.

TV: Fox

Line: Wolverines by 3½.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ohio State gives Michigan football a chance to prove it’s winning on its own merit