Michigan State fans take pride in their hatred of Michigan. I think we're pretty damn good at hating the Wolverines of Ann Arbor Community College, but man, I have to admit that Ohio State fans hate Michigan more than we do.

This exchange between a Buckeye and a Wolverine on Slate is hysterical. If you have some time, go give the whole thing a read. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

Aaron (the Michigan fan): In many ways we are alike, but we are different in one critical respect: Ohio State fans are insane hooligans. Not all of them, of course. Not even most. But enough of them.

So, the interesting sociological question is: Why are Buckeye fans so insane?

I have two theories. The first is that the Michigan-Ohio State game is more important to Ohio State. Michigan has secondary rivalries with Notre Dame and Michigan State, and these drain some of the focus that Ohio State fans reserve entirely for Michigan. OSU players get a special gold trinket if they beat Michigan. The team has a sign asking, "What Have You Done to Beat Michigan Today?" in its weight room, year-round. One of OSU's most popular school songs is titled "We Don't Give a Damn for the Whole State of Michigan." When a Buckeye coach is fired, it is generally for failing to beat Michigan, regardless of how well he has done overall. I don't think any of these things have a parallel in Ann Arbor.

My second theory is that OSU, unlike most campuses, is located in a major city, one lacking in professional sports teams. Therefore, the whole city is wrapped up in Ohio State football, and you get a working-class fan base that's absent in most college towns. Professional sports fans tend to be angrier and drunker than college ones. (In my youth, I took many trips to watch the Detroit Tigers, and for a $4 bleacher seat you could watch not only the game but shirtless, mullet-wearing ruffians hurling racial insults at the other team's outfielders and, occasionally, beating the crap out of each other.)

The irony is that most Michigan fans respect Ohio State more than any other rival. Most of us root for OSU to win all its games leading up to The Game and consider our southern neighbors a worthy foe. And indeed, most Buckeye fans I've met are nonviolent, sober, and generally act nothing like a protest mob in Damascus. So, why do you think your side has such a sizeable crazed fringe? Can't we all get along?

Jonathan (the OSU fan): No, we can't. I might be inclined to believe what you're saying about the mental state of Ohio State fans, except for the fact that I've personally attended the Ohio State-Michigan game in Ann Arbor three times. In 2003, I sat in the Michigan student section dressed entirely in OSU garb and was subject to vivid, profanity-laced tirades. I was also physically threatened enough times that I felt I would surely experience the end of the game from the inside of an ambulance.

You are right about one thing: Ohio State fans care more about The Game than Michigan fans. The gold pants, the song, the "What Have You Done to Beat Michigan Today" sign—guilty on all counts. What you fail to recognize is that this is completely rational. First, Ohioans care more about football than people anywhere else in the known football universe. (Sit down, Texas.) There are small towns here where your eternal worth is defined by how well your high-school team did your senior year. Plus, there are no other big-time college-football programs in Ohio. As a consequence, there are tons of Buckeye fans across the state who didn't go to OSU. (I went to Ohio University in Athens, for example, but as a Columbus native, I consider the third Saturday in November a high holiday.) The lack of worthy state schools also means that we have to look across the border to find a legitimate rival. Do you know how hard it is to get up for games against Cincinnati and Toledo?

I also don't think that the working-class roots of the Ohio State fan base has anything to do with the bitterness of the rivalry. It's more about geography and history. We hate Michigan because they wanted to fight in 1835 over a sliver of turf that the Michigan Territory and the state of Ohio had competing claims on. No shots were fired in the Toledo War, but Michigan and Ohio militias did get close enough to lob insults back and forth for several days. And then there is the more recent history of near-misses for Ohio State in Michigan games where we had everything on the line. Buckeye DB Shawn Springs falls down one year. Michigan running back Tim Biakabutuka runs for 313 yards against our vaunted defense. Kiss two national titles bye-bye.

I agree that the 10 Year War between Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler made this rivalry larger than life, but I don't think it really had that much to do with that Buckeye castoff Bo. Woody gave this rivalry its real passion—tearing up yard-line markers one year, refusing to let the almost-out-of-gas team bus stop in Michigan. And then there's the time Woody went for a two-point conversion in 1968 when Ohio State was up 48-14. When someone asked why he did it, Hayes said, "Because I couldn't go for three." Ohio State fans whisper that to their first-born sons when they place them in their cribs at night.

That last little bit about Woody is priceless. "Because I couldn't go for three." Man, that's hatred.

This article was a lot of fun to read, but it also makes me feel kinda left out. Aside from a few blips on the radar at the end of the 80s and 90s, the MSU football program has been at the bottom of the heap for most of the last four decades. The "rivalry" with Michigan is still near and dear to every Spartans' heart, but let's be honest, it hasn't been competitive for well over a decade. When it comes to basketball, the opposite is true -- MSU has been dominant for the last twelve years (in reality, it's even longer, since the successes of the "fab five" have been stricken from the record books). Hockey is really the only major sport where both teams are still pretty evenly matched, but as a game, hockey isn't nearly as prominent as it was even ten years ago.

It's painfully obvious that our rivalry with Michigan doesn't carry the same weight that it once did.

I guess my point is that the massive buildup to this monumental game on Saturday just reminds me that it's not my team playing. Sure, I have an emotional investment in this one, since I would love to see the Buckeyes deliver a painful beating to the Wolverines, but it's pretty pathetic that this tragic season of ours will be ending in the shadow of such an historic match-up between Ohio State and Michigan.

But hey, there's always next year, Spartan fans...

(hangs head)