I've seen every Ohio State-Michigan game since 1973 when I was five, so I have quite a few memories that stand out..
In that 1973 game that saw both teams enter the game undefeated and finish in a 10-10 tie, my big memory was that I instantly became a Buckeye for life when the team came up and tore down the M club banner (Hey, they shouldn't have put the damn thing in front of the Buckeye entrance)
The 10-10 game that I didn't see for years until my friend Brandon Siefken sent me a copy wasn't all that exciting, but it featured all the physical smash mouth football you can take.
This is the game that gave us Bo Schembechler's whining about being "Bitterly Bitterly Disappointed" when his 10-0-1 Wolverines lost the Big 10 vote to go to the Rose Bowl to the 10-0-1 Buckeyes in the days of only one team making a bowl.
The 1974 game was memorable for Tom Klaban's four field goals in a 12-10 OSU win, but I remember the 1975 game more for the pair of late interceptions by Ray Griffin and Craig Cassady of Michigan quarterback and future major league baseball player Rick Leach to preserve the win.
That win in Ann Arbor would be the final time that the Buckeyes would win this game under Woody Hayes as Michigan under Leach would win next three years.
The 1979 game saw Ohio State win and move to the Rose Bowl off of what Sports Illustrated called the Buckeye Block Party with Todd Bell recovering a blocked punt for what proved to be the winning score in an 18-15 win.
I had the SI picture of Bell celebrating the score on the wall for years after that.
The win under Earle Bruce in his first season seemed to show things were on the way up, but under Bruce, the series trended pretty evenly.
Bruce, however, became noted as 9-3 Earle and was fired before the Michigan game in 1987.
Bruce poked fun at his image of being a rumpled coach with a suit and fedora for the game and was rewarded by his players when he was carried off the field after a Buckeye team that was a strong underdog pulled off the upset.
The John Cooper years were noted for their Michigan failures more than their successes.
Few memories stand out more than All-American corner Shawn Springs slipping to the grass out of his break resulting in a long touchdown pass to Michigan's Tai Streets in a 13-9 loss that was the only loss of the season for the second-ranked Buckeyes.
Cooper also gave us losses from an then unknown runner named Tim Biakabutuka and a 28-0 shellacking in Ann Arbor entering both games undefeated and leaving Buckeye fans deflated beyond belief, but besides the Springs slip, the Cooper era brought us more grief.
That Desmond Howard Heisman pose that we see constantly during the season?
Against Cooper's Buckeyes.
It was under Cooper that I know exactly how Michigan has felt against OSU (Michigan has won just twice since 2001, one of those a meaningless win over interim coach Luke Fickel) because that's how inept Cooper teams was against Michigan and his 2-10-1 was worse because unlike the Wolverines of late, Cooper most of the time had the better team and still lost.
I know the feeling and I don't want it again.
When I hear about the rivalry being better when the teams are equal, I'm OK with that-a win means that much more!
I planned on more memories, but an unexpected issue at the road office has made time short.
I'll look at the good times of the Tressel/Meyer years before next years game!
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