Michigan Football has lost to Ohio State eight times in a row — a new approach is necessary to beat the Goliath in the conference.
While Michigan has made Ohio State a point of emphasis in the past, the awareness of that rivalry has heightened since the 2020 season ended.
“We change and adjust things every single offseason, and that’s one thing we did is just to put more of that emphasis on Ohio State and that’s because of coach Harbaugh,” defensive end Aidan Hutchinson said at Big Ten Media Days.
When asked how Michigan is going about making OSU more of an emphasis, Hutchinson alluded to the team doing so in a multitude of ways. “We have a lot of things, whether that be signs, whether that be other things that remind us of Ohio State,” Hutchinson said. “We’ve never done some of the things we’ve done.”
Going along with the pattern that Hutchinson described, Michigan brought in former kicker Jay Feely, who won a National Championship at Michigan and went on to have a 14 year NFL career, to talk to the team.
Feely called it an honor to come back and speak.
What an honor to come back to Michigan and get to speak to the @UMichFootball team
— Jay Feely (@jayfeely) August 10, 2021
Got to bring Coach Carr with me and my roommate all 4 yrs at Michigan Kraig Baker. Thanks @CoachJim4UM #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/G8xv75btln
Former Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr was on hand for Feely’s talk, one that discussed Ohio State. In the photo of the speech (above right) it says “What Are You Doing To Beat Ohio State Today?”
Feely was a teammate with the likes of Heisman winner Charles Woodson, who just was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame over the weekend. Feely was there for Woodson’s 78-yard punt return that helped propel Michigan to a 20-14 win over OSU in 1997 on their way to a National Championship. In short, Feely knows how it feels to beat Ohio State, knows what a winning environment is, and what it takes to reach that level of cohesion.
As we sit here in August, the date of November 27 will soon linger nearer and nearer — what Michigan does now will greatly impact their fate on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving. And on this day, part of it involved listening to someone who’s been around and seen a few things, one of which was Michigan’s last National Championship.