John U. Bacon

Just a few years ago, ESPN’s viewers called the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry the best. Not just in college football, or all football. But in all sports. Period.

Everyone knew this year’s game wouldn’t go down as one of the best. Michigan entered the game with a 9-2 record and a No. 17 ranking, but the Buckeyes hobbled into their annual finale dragging a 6-5 record behind them, their worst record since the 1990s.

But that just made the stakes for Michigan that much higher.

The Wolverines hadn’t beaten the Buckeyes since 2003, but the Buckeyes entered last week’s game reeling from just about every problem a major program can have – from an ongoing NCAA investigation, to coach Jim Tressel being fired last spring in disgrace, to their star quarterback Terrelle Pryor departing a year early for the NFL.

This Buckeye team was led by a freshman quarterback, Braxton Miller, and an interim coach named Luke Fickell. Making matters worse for the Buckeyes, just days before the game, reports surfaced that Urban Meyer would be named the permanent head coach after the game – which he was.

All this only put more pressure on the Wolverines. If they couldn’t beat the Buckeyes at their baddest, when could they?

Lose, and critics would wonder if Michigan’s renaissance was just a mirage. How would the Wolverines do any better in 2012, when the schedule gets a whole lot tougher?

But win this game, and the Wolverines would have 10 wins for the first time in five years. They would be going to a big-time bowl game. And they would have the monkey – scratch that, the fully-grown gorilla – off their backs. There would be no do-or-die games for Michigan’s new coaching staff.

The Buckeyes scored on their first possession to go up 7-0. But Michigan fought back, hanging on to a 37-34 lead late in the game.

On second down from the five-yard line, Michigan running back Fitzgerald Toussaint broke through the line and appeared to score, which would have given Michigan a very comfortable 10-point lead.

But no. The modern game is determined not by the players, or even the refs on the field, but by some invisible official in a video replay booth hundreds of feet above. The mystery man made a mysterious call, declaring Toussaint hadn’t scored a touchdown after all.

No big deal, right? Just do it again. But on the next play the refs called the Wolverines not just for holding but also a personal foul. Think those guys weren’t feeling the pressure?

The Wolverines had to settle for a long field goal, something they rarely made the year before. But the Buckeyes still had enough time to score a touchdown – and if they did, the upset would be theirs.

When Ohio State wide receiver DeVier Posey slipped past Michigan’s defender, making himself wide open with nothing between him and the endzone, a hundred thousand Michigan fans held their breath. But the freshman quarterback panicked, threw it too far, and the Wolverines survived.

Well, survived is not quite the right word. They went crazy – fueled by joy and relief and the secure feeling that no one could take this away from them.

The students rushed the field to join the players in a scene now being replayed on thousands of Facebook message boards, a picture of pure salvation. The losing streak was over.

This week, the Big Ten rightly awarded Brady Hoke Coach of the Year honors. If his defensive coordinator, Greg Mattison – who took a 110th-ranked defense and turned it into one of the nation’s best – isn’t voted the nation’s top assistant coach, Michigan should demand a recount.

One thing I discovered from my miniature coaching career: When you beat your arch-rival by a point, all everybody can talk about is what you did right. But when you lose by a point, all they can talk about is what you did wrong.

Winning, I learned, is better.

Just ask the teary-eyed players hugging the students on Saturday.

No, it wasn’t one of the best Michigan-Ohio State games of all time. But for Michigan, it was one of the most important.

About the author: John U. Bacon is the author of “Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football,” currently on sale in bookstores. The book was recently No. 6 on the New York Times bestseller list.

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John U. Bacon

Ten years ago, ESPN viewers voted the Michigan-Ohio State football game the best rivalry in the nation. Not just in college football, or football in general, but in all sports. Since 1935, it’s held a privileged spot as the last game of the Big Ten season. More college football fans have seen this rivalry, in person and on TV, than any other.

HBO has produced dozens of sports documentaries, but only one on college football: the Michigan-Ohio State game. They titled it simply, “The Rivalry.” They did not feel they had to explain it.

But when the Big Ten added Nebraska, everything seemed up in the air, including the Michigan-Ohio State game. Next fall the Big Ten will have 12 teams, playing in two divisions, culminating in a title game – all new.

So that raised a few possibilities – not to mention plenty of rumors and fears.

If they kept Michigan and Ohio State in the same division, the teams could never meet in the title game. But if they put them in different divisions, they might have to play again in the title game just one week later. One rumor had them moving the game from its traditional date at the end of the season – or even interrupting the rivalry, instead of playing every year.

The fans, former players and reporters – including me – responded with their “usual level of cool maturity,” as Dave Barry would say, “similar to the way Moe reacts when he is poked in the eyeballs by Larry and Curly.” One Ohio politician even went so far as to introduce a resolution demanding the game never be moved.

Rob Lytle, an Ohio native turned Michigan All-American, said, “Bo would have hated this. I’m glad he and Woody don’t have to go through it. They’re probably marching around throwing tantrums right now.” He was probably right.

College football is famous for fixing what ain’t broken, but the idea of moving or even interrupting the greatest rivalry in sports would have been the dumbest idea since New Coke. Actually, that’s not fair – because no one made you drink New Coke.

Fans expect to see the Rose Bowl in January, the Super Bowl in February, and March Madness in, yes, March. And they expect to see Michigan play Ohio State in late November. If they moved it, it would be no better than, say, Tennessee-Florida, or Oregon-Southern Cal. Those are not classics, just games, and no one cares when they play them. Not so The Rivalry.

Besides, the odds of a championship rematch are actually pretty small. In the last 22 years, the two rivals have finished first and second only four times – less than twice a decade. And on those rare occasions when there is a rematch, it won’t dampen interest, but ignite it.

Take the most recent example: in 2006, Michigan was undefeated, and ranked second in the country. Ohio State was undefeated, and ranked first. The Wolverines’ comeback attempt fell just short, and they lost, 42-39. But the game was so good, almost half the country wanted them to meet again for the national title. So who wouldn’t watch them tee it up a week later for the Big Ten title? The ratings would be astronomical.

So what’d the Big Ten honchos finally decide? They stunned everyone – including me – and came up with a format that’s intelligent, even elegant. They listened to their constituents and left the Michigan-Ohio State game at the end of the season, right where it belongs.

There’s only one downside: I had written my commentary a few days ago blasting away in anticipation of the sporting world’s dumbest decision, and instead I have to close this by saying: “You fooled me. Well done.”

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism; and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

John U. Bacon

Michigan plays Ohio State tomorrow, for the 106th time. The Buckeyes have already wrapped up the Rose Bowl, while the Wolverines are fighting to secure a bowl bid. But ESPN viewers still consider this rivalry the greatest in American sports. What most sports fans don’t know is, this one goes back before football even existed.

In 1833, Michigan was still a territory, while Ohio had already been a state for three decades. When Michigan started making its pitch for statehood, the surveyors had to figure out exactly where Michigan ended, and Ohio began. They soon discovered they’d gotten it wrong the first time: Toledo should have belonged to Michigan all along.

No big deal, you say? Well, don’t forget: at that time, the main thoroughfare between the Northeast and the Midwest was the Erie Canal – and Toledo was a major stop.

When Michigan claimed it for its own, Ohio blocked Michigan’s bid for statehood. Former president John Adams, who had returned to Congress, wrote, “Never in the course of my life have I known a controversy of which all the right was so clearly on one side and all the power so overwhelmingly on the other.”

So, Michigan was right – but weak. What recourse did the Wolverines, as they were called, really have?

And thus began the War of Toledo. More than half a million dollars were raised for troops on both sides. They marched into the city, and then… nothing happened, except for a few bar fights. That’s when Monroe County Deputy Sheriff Joseph Wood decided to travel south to do him some arrestin’.

This is where things get a little murky. Some say Wood rode to Perrysburg to arrest Benjamin Franklin Stickney for the treasonous act of voting in an Ohio election. Others say he traveled to a Toledo tavern to arrest one of Stickney’s sons – creatively named, I’m not kidding, One Stickney, and Two Stickney. Well, that’s one way to keep track of your kids, I suppose – and to bolster stereotypes.

One thing all historians agree on: when Wood stepped forward to arrest one of the Stickneys, Two Stickney stuck him – right in the thigh, with a pen knife. And that marked the only casualty of the great Toledo War.

President Andrew Jackson, tired of the silliness, offered Michigan a deal: If you guys give Toledo back to Ohio, we’ll give you statehood. And we’ll even throw in the Upper Peninsula to boot. They took it, but one Michigan politician complained: “I wonder why they didn’t give us a slice of the moon? It would have been more valuable.”

Their attitude toward the UP changed a few decades later when they discovered iron and copper – but their attitude toward Ohio did not.

The differences between them deepened during the migration to both states. Michigan was settled by upstate New York industrialists. Ohio was settled by Virginia farmers – two very distinct groups of people, which only adds to the differences between the schools. Ah, the conceit of small differences.

How do you handle such hostility? With a good old-fashioned football game, that’s how. Michigan started playing Ohio State in 1897, but it didn’t count for much. Michigan won or tied all of the first 14 games, and Ohio State wasn’t even in the Big Ten anyway.

But things started getting interesting in 1907, the year Michigan left the Big Ten over a rules dispute. Ohio State took Michigan’s place in 1912, so when Michigan returned to the league in 1918, the rivalry was for real.

Since then, the Wolverines have beaten Ohio State 45 times, and the Buckeyes have returned the favor 42 times – about as close as you can get.

No matter who wins tomorrow, there will be blood, sweat and tears – but it still beats taking a pen knife in your thigh.

About the author: John U. Bacon lives in Ann Arbor and has written for Time, the New York Times, and ESPN Magazine, among others. His most recent book is “Bo’s Lasting Lessons,” a New York Times and Wall Street Journal business bestseller. Bacon teaches at Miami of Ohio, Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and the University of Michigan, where the students awarded him the Golden Apple Award for 2009. This commentary originally aired on Michigan Radio.

Joel Goldberg

Eat your heart out, John U. Bacon. While the football Wolverines plummet weakly toward the depths of the Big Ten, a very different Michigan eleven just beat up big time on its arch-rivals from Ohio.

This squad doesn’t strut its talents in the Big House or cavernous Crisler. Its slightly smaller – but decidedly more refined – field of combat lies a couple of miles north on Main Street, around a crystal-bedecked tasting table at Vinology Wine Bar.

Earlier this week, the second annual Ohio vs. Michigan Wine Clash turned into a rout, as eleven of Michigan’s finest wines drubbed a like number of Buckeyes during back-to-back judgings in both Ann Arbor and Columbus.

It wasn’t really a fair fight with the amazing red wines from Michigan’s 2007 vintage, the finest in the state’s history. The lopsided results: the best wine overall, and four of the top five, were proudly Wolverine – though Ohio provided the lone bargain among the bunch.

Wine Clash logo

The Clash is the brainchild of Ohioan Andrew Hall, and sponsored by Slow Food Columbus. The event was designed to promote “drink local” and coincide with the annual release of air-shipped French Beaujolais Nouveau and the UM-OSU football game – last year’s Chronicle article detailed its origins.

Last Sunday, I sat down with four other Michigan judges to taste from 22 bottles cloaked in brown paper bags – half from Michigan, half from Ohio. A few days earlier, a team of Ohio judges went through the same exercise in Columbus.

Our host, and one of the judges: Vinology owner Kristin Jonna. Other local tasters included Master Sommelier Claudia Tyagi, Rochester Hills collector Errol Kovitch, and Wyncroft Winery owner/winemaker Jim Lester.

(For an Ohio view of Clash results, see the article by Dayton Daily News wine writer Mark Fisher, who judged at the Columbus tasting.)

A word about prices: flying in the face of both recession and flagging market demand for ultra-premium wines, price tags among Michigan’s best producers have skyrocketed in the last couple of years. Top 2007 reds sell for $35 to $50, while medal-winning ice wines can fetch $60 to $90 – for a half-bottle.

As with limited-production wines elsewhere, these prices can reflect not only the very real quality inside the bottle and added costs of hand-crafting tiny batches – often under 100 cases – but also an indeterminate “scarcity value.”

So who came out on top at the Clash?

#1: MICHIGAN: 2007 “Winter Ice” – Longview Winery, Leelanau Peninsula. $60 (375 ml bottle)

The Clash’s top dog came from Longview Winery – located in the off-the-beaten-track Leelanau Peninsula town of Cedar – where owner Alan Eaker and consulting winemaker Shawn Walters teamed to create Michigan’s first-ever ice wine from the Cayuga grape, a hybrid developed at Cornell for its cold-weather hardiness.

Ice wine originates with ripe grapes left to hang on the vine and slowly desiccate, long past normal harvest season, when the leaves drop and the vine enters its winter hibernation. When nighttime temperatures hit the 15- to 20-degree range and freeze the grapes solid – think: small marbleized pellets – they’re picked and pressed while frozen, preferably at 6 a.m. on an absurdly cold December morning.

Wine Clash organizer Andrew Hall, behind a gaggle of paper-bagged wines. (Photo by the writer.)

In the interim, just about anything can go wrong. Grapes can turn moldy or otherwise rot on the vine, fall to the ground, or become the dish-of-the-day for birds and animals. Even when things go right, each pellet yields just a couple of drops of ultra-concentrated juice. That accounts for ice wine’s tiny quantities and typical stratospheric pricing.

But why Cayuga? Call it a leap of faith on Eaker’s part.

“I noticed it hangs well,” he told me. “The grapes don’t break down after the leaves come off the vine. And there’s a good acid-to-sugar balance. I felt I could gamble a row.”

So he left a single row of Cayuga vines unpicked – at the front of the vineyard, as he explained, “so I could take the snow blower and blow off the fruit.”

Eaker got that right. If your idea of ice wine revolves around thick syrup and an unadulterated sugar rush, get ready for a surprise. Cayuga grapes yield an ice wine that’s lighter in body and alcohol, with intense honeydew flavor and enough acidity to provide a mouth-puckering counterpoint to all that sweetness.

In addition to its Clash victory, Longview’s Winter Ice scored a double gold medal at last August’s Michigan Wine Competition. You’ll have to decide for yourself about the quality-to-price ratio: it’ll set you back $60 for a half-bottle, from the 65 cases produced.

#2: MICHIGAN: 2007 Reserve Cabernet Franc – 2 Lads Winery, Old Mission Peninsula. $40

2 Lads is Michigan’s hot winery du jour, with streams of tourists trekking north through Old Mission to its industrial-design facility overlooking the east arm of Grand Traverse Bay.

Winemaker Cornel Olivier calls Cab Franc his signature grape, and this marks the second time his flagship red played runner-up; it also nabbed second place, among 24 wines, at the Harding’s Cup Cabernet Franc Challenge last summer.

Be forewarned: this brooding, ultra-concentrated tannic beast isn’t your grandpa’s idea of Michigan red wine. But it is indicative of the best that the state produced in the unique 2007 vintage – especially if you give it license to improve in the cellar for up to a decade.

#3: OHIO: 2007 Cabernet Franc – Kinkead Ridge, Ohio River Valley. $18

The only repeat-winner winery in either state from last year’s Clash, Kinkead Ridge makes its home southeast of Cincinnati, near the Ohio River.

They scored this time with the lone under-$30 wine among the top five. It provides the yang to 2 Lads’ yin; instead of a hulking bottle to lay down for years, you’ll be hard-pressed to keep your hands off this, with a berry nose that jumps from the glass and silky, fruit-driven palate that seduces your taste buds with a serious “yum” factor.

Top 5 Wine Clash bottles. (Photo by Andrew Hall)

Co-owner and winemaker Ron Barrett – who formerly owned a winery in Oregon – explains his pricing as “part of our philosophy. Our whole objective is to show we can be competitive in the marketplace. If we priced higher, we’d still sell out – but at the same time we’d turn off some people to our wine.”

Unfortunately, you can’t find Kinkead Ridge in Michigan – and the winery doesn’t have a shipping license, since it sells almost exclusively through Ohio retailers. But the other co-owner, managing partner Nancy Bentley, says that if you email her she’ll try to get you a few bottles from the mere 40 cases that remain. At the price, it’s a steal.

#4: MICHIGAN: 2007 Cabernet Franc/Merlot, Gill’s Pier, Leelanau Peninsula. $35

No surprise in this top-five finish. Gill’s Pier, another out-of-the-way Leelanau winery just north of Leland, took home the Best Dry Red trophy at the Michigan Wine Competition with this wine, from grapes grown in its lakeside vineyard, adjacent to the winery.

Bryan Ulbrich, who makes wine for Gill’s Pier owners Kris and Ryan Sterkenburg, is better-known for the trophy-winning whites he’s crafted at Peninsula Cellars and his own Left Foot Charley. But this highly-extracted youthful red exudes blackcherry fruit and massive tannins in equal parts. Again, stash it away for several years for maximum enjoyment.

Michigan judges Kristin Jonna of Vinology and Jim Lester of Wyncroft Winery. (Photo by the writer.)

#5: MICHIGAN: 2007 Pinot Noir – Avonlea Vineyard, Wyncroft, Lake Michigan Shore. $45

Tiny, high-end Wyncroft Winery, from the equally small southwest Michigan town of Buchanan, makes wines more talked-about than tasted. With no retail distribution or on-site tasting room, you’ll find its wares only through its website and mailing list.

Don’t expect an ultra-ripe fruit-bomb; while Wyncroft is known for highly-concentrated wines, the style here is dark and focused, the Pinot fruit more like Burgundy than California. As with the 2 Lads, it’ll be lots better if you can put it away for a while.

Yes, Wyncroft’s Jim Lester was one of the Michigan judges. While it’s fair to presume that he recognized his own wine during the tasting – and may even have ranked it highly – all the other judges who put it in the top five tasted and scored it blind.

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Next month, the Vinous Posse will sniff, sip and spit its way through a roundup of bubblies from around the globe, designed not to bust your holiday budget. If we didn’t taste your favorite under-$25 sparkler in last year’s assortment but you think it coulda been a contender, let us know by email: bubbles@michwine.com.

About the author: Joel Goldberg, an Ann Arbor area resident, edits the MichWine website and tweets @MichWine. His Arbor Vinous column for The Chronicle is published on the first Saturday of the month.