Welcome to the week that defines the entire year.

If you’re employed, hopefully you have a light week of work ahead of you. If you’re unemployed, hopefully you can give yourself a break from that arduous job search. If you’re a student, hopefully your exams heading into Thanksgiving break are manageable without too much effort or concentration. And if you’re retired, I’m most envious of you this week out of all the others, because this is the week to get nothing of consequence accomplished. It’s a week to see just how unproductive you can possibly be on company time. It’s a week to be unceasingly hateful, constantly nervous and invariably anxious about this coming Saturday.

This little diatribe is half-historic but also half-instructive as a public service to the Ohio State fan base: This is not a week to bemoan the overly conservative manner in which the Buckeyes sealed up their fifth consecutive Big Ten title. This is not a week to bitch about play calling, the depth at left tackle or what might have transpired had Beanie Wells not gone pro. You’ve got 51 other, less important weeks out of the year to mentally masturbate over all of that make-believe Buckeye pornography (actually this year you have 52) but this is the one week where history, tradition, heritage, culture, mythology, customs, axioms and the celebration of Ohio State playing Michigan in football supersedes your inherent right to free speech. During the sacred week in which over 110,000 people and several thousand more ghosts will fill Michigan Stadium to the brim to give witness to the most important thing in the world, your complaining should take a holiday. For Michigan fans, their doubts about Rich Rodriguez should go on leave until next week, when they’ll be very busy not making bowl preparations. This week and this game are so much bigger than the insignificant details of this season. It deserves to be elevated above anyone’s opinion of play calling tactics or the varying narratives of the current Ohio State campaign (more on this in a bit). The Game is a entire season unto itself. The first 11 games leading up to it are separate and exclusive to its outcome.

For the second year in a row, Hail to the Victors is less of a declaration or fight song and more of a desperate plea to alter reality in the same vein that Huey Lewis once sang that it’s Hip to be Square (for you younger readers, a “square” is old slang for someone who is “not cool” from a bygone era back when Michigan was competitive in the rivalry). They’re the Victors in song title only. At 1-6 in conference and staring the five-time Big Ten champions in the face, their best case scenario is 2-6 with a December date in Detroit. Making matters worse, this year’s Michigan defense is among the most deficient in school history; you’d have to go all the way back to 2008 to find a defense nearly as lousy as this year’s Wolverines. They’ve been the figurative free space on the Bingo card for Big Ten offenses, especially in November. Sure, anything can happen in The Game, but it doesn’t mean that it will or that it should, especially since it currently involves a steward whose coaching legacy is defined by his success in this rivalry.

Now, it seems silly to have to lecture on the importance of respecting the greatest rivalry in sports, but especially after the gnashing of teeth following just about every game this season it seems warranted. Collectively it’s like a woman who cannot enjoy a simple dish of ice cream without spoiling it with running complaints about the high calories and her ruthlessly expanding ass. Too many Ohio State fans have been incapable of devouring the joy that should come with a Big Ten title and a Rose Bowl birth, all because this past weekend, while clinging to another late lead, Jim Tressel instructed his offense to curl into a figurative ball and whimper until the game ended. It was cowardly, it was painful, it was agonizing. Yet Ohio State won. (But they might have lost!) But they won. (But they almost blew the game, the conference title and the Rose Bowl!) But they didn’t. You’re going to have to find it within yourself to get over it. Get over what did not happen. (But Gregg Doyel said...) Gregg Doyel is an idiot.

Tressel didn’t run the play-action bootleg that you yelled at your television for him to call during that fourth quarter. He didn’t roll Pryor and force Iowa to guard both the pass and the run. He didn’t change up the tempo or the snap count or anything else that could have caught Iowa off guard. Instead, he dove right into an orgy of straight I-formation Dave runs that very predictably ran little clock that produced a fourth and long on three consecutive, identical plays. The timid (not conservative - timid) tactics failed miserably, as they did against USC back in September. The overall strategy still prevailed, as it has the past five seasons in a row. That’s a Big Ten championship and a Rose Bowl birth clinched prior to the Michigan game for only the fourth time ever.

That all being said, we actually now have some science suggesting that fear and negativity make the game more exciting. So for recreational purposes only, here are some consequences of Ohio State choking this Saturday (not losing - choking) to make The Game more enjoyable for you:

If Ohio State loses at Michigan on Saturday it will be the only thing you ever remember about the 2009 season.

If Ohio State loses at Michigan on Saturday it will be the biggest win for the Wolverines in six full seasons.

If Ohio State loses at Michigan on Saturday they will be granted bowl eligibility, three extra weeks of practice and actual football activities for their December recruiting visitors to observe.

If Ohio State loses at Michigan on Saturday you won’t be able to check your email or read anything on the Internet for at least a month without wanting to kill yourself.

If Ohio State loses at Michigan on Saturday you won’t be able to peacefully watch any college football games leading up to the Rose Bowl.

If Ohio State loses at Michigan on Saturday we will be denied of a third consecutive senior class at Michigan leaving Ann Arbor with an 0-4 record in the game that matters the most.

If Ohio State loses at Michigan on Saturday we’ll be denied of another frustrated, stammering Rich Rodriguez press conference.

If Ohio State loses at Michigan on Saturday the wholly unnecessary and completely despicable Tate Forcier hype machine will be unmercifully resuscitated.

If Ohio State loses at Michigan on Saturday it will mark 25 full seasons since Ohio State went to the Rose Bowl following a win over the Wolverines.

What is unique this season is that The Game has no bearing on determining the Big Ten champion. Michigan kindly excused itself from contention back in early October while the Buckeyes sealed up a share of the title last week. There is still much more than just beating another lousy Michigan team at stake this weekend; if you’re the type that thrives on positivity then here are your prizes that would accompany what the Buckeyes should be able to deliver over the weekend:

If Ohio State wins at Michigan on Saturday the legacy of John Cooper’s failure in The Game will almost be mathematically erased as the series will be tied going back to 1989.

If Ohio State wins at Michigan on Saturday the series will be all tied up over the past 90 years, which cuts deep into Fielding Yost era when Ohio State football was still in its infancy and where Michigan collected its overall advantage.

If Ohio State wins at Michigan on Saturday it will be the first time the Buckeyes have ever beating the Wolverines after having already clinched the conference title prior to The Game.

If Ohio State wins at Michigan on Saturday it will be the first time the Buckeyes have beaten Michigan since Tressel’s first year without having either of the two most notorious Wolverine slayers in history - Troy Smith or Chris Wells - on the roster.

In a snapshot of the 2009 season story, there are exactly two things at stake on Saturday: 1) Winning the biggest game on the schedule, and 2) Claiming the outright, unshared, undistributed and whole Big Ten title. Within the context of the the single season and the relatively less important national implications, Saturday will produce the least important Ohio State/Michigan game since 2004. There’s a very distinguishing characteristic about The Game though; an element that magnifies its importance during seasons in which the balance of football power in the Midwest is not determined by its outcome: Even when it’s not the most important game in America, it’s still the most important thing in the world.

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