Expectations remain as high as ever for Michigan heading into Jim Harbaugh’s fourth season as head coach with the program, and every game is crucial if the Wolverines want to make a run at the College Football Playoff. However, Charles Woodson thinks the team needs to remember how important one particular matchup is.
Woodson, one of the greatest players in Michigan history, said over the weekend that he feels like the Wolverines have been taking their annual rivalry game with Ohio State too lightly.
“You know what, to be quite honest, I really feel like in recent years there hasn’t been the emphasis I’m used to being put on that game,” Woodson said at The ChadTough Foundation’s gala in Ann Arbor, according to Nick Baumgardner of the Detroit Free Press. “Every game has been put on the same level as that game. That’s not the way we were brought up. Not the way we were raised around here.
“We had no shame in saying (we were going to beat Ohio State). And every time I watch our teams in recent years, it’s ‘Oh, it’s another game.’ It’s not.”
Ohio State has dominated the Wolverines in recent years, with Michigan winning just one contest since 2003. That win did not come under Harbaugh, and Woodson feels it’s never too early for players to circle that game on their calendars.
“The time is now. We ain’t waiting anymore. … That’s it. That’s the game,” he said. “With us, we talked about it all the time. We could go 0-10 but if we won that game, it was a good season. We wanted to win every game, but we all knew that was the big fish.
“And we didn’t mind saying it (to the media). When’s the last time you guys have heard that? So you get the picture.”
Harbaugh has faced criticism from rival players recently, and beating Ohio State would be one way to quiet some of that talk. Coaches are always trying to get their teams to focus only on their upcoming opponent, but Woodson believes that is not working at Michigan.
