How former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh’s toughness message broke Ohio State according to Rich Eisen

Coming into the final weekend of the college football regular season, it looked like a foregone conclusion that the Ohio State Buckeyes would be heading to Indianapolis to play the Oregon Ducks for the Big Ten Championship on Saturday December 7th. All Ryan Day’s Buckeyes had to do was hold off a 6-5 Michigan Wolverines squad that was a three touchdown underdog heading into Columbus.

That, as they say, turned out to be easier said than done.

In the exact sort of game that Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore would’ve hoped for, the Wolverines out-executed the Buckeyes in all three phases of the game and emerged with a hard-fought 13-10 win in which there were only 3 points scored in the entire 2nd half. If Michigan had any hope of upsetting the Buckeyes, the game had to be ugly, and the Wolverines needed to prove that they were the tougher team… just as Jim Harbaugh said they were a few years back.

On Monday morning, Michigan alums Rich Eisen and Charles Woodson broke down the game on The Rich Eisen Show, and talked about how what Harbaugh had preached for years about his biggest rival ended up being the deciding factor in this past Saturday’s matchup.

“Harbaugh saying years ago and Sherrone Moore backing it up, that Ohio State’s not tough enough. They are not tough enough, Ryan Day’s not tough enough in the trenches, they’re not tough enough in the run game just messed with their heads so much that they’re we’ll prove how tough we are. Then they run right into the teeth of exactly our strength.”

The questions of Ohio State’s toughness, or lack thereof, came to light in 2021 after Harbaugh and the Wolverines beat the Buckeyes for the first time since 2011. Michigan dominated the game from a physical perspective, starting a trend that continued over the next three years, culminating this past Saturday afternoon when Ryan Day’s squad was held to a season-low 10 points at home against Sherrone Moore’s Wolverines, who entered the game barely bowl eligible.

Since that point when Michigan got off the schneid in 2021, it’s been as if Ryan Day and the Buckeyes have been hell-bent on proving that this notion was a fabrication, and that they could beat the more “physical” teams in the country, potentially losing sight of what has made Ohio State so successful since Urban Meyer took over the program in 2012.

“Not only that, I think Lou Holtz said it as well about his team and then Ohio State won a game against Notre Dame,” Woodson replied, citing a matchup between the two schools in September 2023. “Then Ryan Day said, ‘Oh we’re a tough team.’ You can’t prove it to us by talking about it, you’ve got to go do it.”

For the Buckeyes, there’s a chance for redemption. Ohio State will almost certainly still make the College Football Playoff and have a chance to compete for a National Title. But in Ann Arbor, despite a letdown season after winning the National Title last year, coming away with a fourth straight win over Ohio State is something close to a proper send-off.