Normally, when a head coach talks about focusing on every game of the season as it comes, fans would be overjoyed. Taking each game in stride is what most fans want to hear from their coaches, well, except for Michigan and Ohio State fans.
When it comes to looking at the season as a whole, fans on both sides of the rivalry zero in on the final game of the regular season, the biggest game of the regular season. The Game.
So, when asked about how he is preparing for that game at Big Ten Media Days, it felt like Kyle Whittingham was downplaying it more than fans would want him to.
"It's a great importance to both sides obviously, but I'm an old-school coach," Whittingham said. "We got 11 games that we play before that, so we're not going to get ahead of ourselves."
That is not really the 'out for blood' mentality that usually comes with this rivalry. Normally, when this rivalry is talked about, it has a crushing-the-other-team, sending them home in tears type of feeling to it, but Whittingham isn't really that kind of coach.
Michigan fans shouldn't freak out just yet about Kyle Whittingham's comments on The Game
Now, Whittingham is totally downplaying this rivalry; he knows the stakes. He knows this is one of the fiercest rivalries in college football; he just hasn't seen it firsthand. He knows it from the standpoint of being in the world of Urban Meyer and seeing the intensity through his eyes, but now he has a front-row seat to it, and if he doesn't perform, fans on both sides won't let him hear the end of it.
Whittingham's later comments about the rivalry and hoping it ends up being the game that makes or breaks things in the Big Ten should have the Wolverines sighing with some relief. There is nothing better than the season coming down to the Wire and a rivalry game being played for all the marbles.
"Make no mistake, I understand the implications that it has,” Whittingham said. “Friend of mine, Urban Meyer, he was at the other place for a few years, and we would talk about The Game over the course of that time span."
"Very well-versed in what it means, the intensity of it, the national allure that it has, and our players are the same. Everybody knows that that game is looming out there," Whittingham said. "The best-case scenario, it comes down to that 12th game, and that’s for all the marbles in the Big Ten. I think that would be ideal. Hopefully that happens.”
Ultimately, Whittingham won't fully grasp the importance of The Game until he is in the middle of it with Ohio State fans screaming at him from their seats. It's one of, if not the most heated, rivalries in all of college football, and it's hard not to understand the intensity of it.
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