Rivalry weak, Part Deux

There were an armful of rivalry games in college football yesterday, and some of them were worth the name and some of them weren't, and some of them left you with the sort of nostalgic ache those of us with a few miles on the tires sometimes feel for 8-track tapes and that wonder of the age, the Video Display Terminal.

Ah, the VDT, spawn of a dozen seventh-grade-boy jokes involving sexually transmitted diseases. Who doesn't recall that with a sort of nerd fondness?

It's how we tend to look at rivalry games that just go through the motions these days, pretending they still matter or in any way retain even the faintest echoes of Back In The Day. Which is to say, who knew we'd see a day like Saturday, when the best rivalry game in the Big Ten happened in West Lafayette, Indiana, and not Ann Arbor, Michigan?

No one was playin' for anything but a beat-up old water bucket in West Lafayette, but my God did they play for it. Indiana was already locked into a bowl, Purdue was locked into getting ready for next season. But both of them kept pulling crazy heroics out of the cold damp November gray as if life itself depended on it.

Indiana, on its way to its best season in 26 years, went up 28-10. Then a cement block with feet named Zander Horvath started knocking over Hoosiers like tenpins, and a fourth-string walk-on  named Aidan O'Connell start throwing and this winged sprite named David Bell started catching, and suddenly it was 31-31 and going to overtime.

Indiana finally won after one last burst of heroics from Peyton Ramsey, the more-than-a-backup backup QB, and both fan bases finally exhaled. People who'd been going to Bucket games for 60 years said it was the best one they'd ever seen, and no one was inclined to dispute that. If there was a better game played in college football Saturday outside of  Auburn's insane 11-lead-change upset of Alabama -- another rivalry game worth the name -- no one stepped forward to claim it.

But back to the VDT and all that empty nostalgic longing. Back to Ann Arbor.

Where Ohio State beat Michigan like a dozen egg whites, 56-27, and we all paused to light a candle to Bo and Woody and the days when Ohio State-Michigan was an actual rivalry. It is  not anymore, sadly, unless you think Ohio State-Akron is a rivalry. Or perhaps Alabama-Whatsamatta U., a regular feature these days on the Crimson Tide schedule.

In any case, the Buckeyes rolled the Wolverines again, and have outscored Jim Harbaugh's legions 118-37 in their last two meetings. Harbaugh is now 0-for-5 against the team Michigan most yearns to beat, and yet somehow retains an aura that escaped, say, Brady Hoke, who was 1-3 vs. the Buckeyes and lost the three by five, one and 14 points, respectively.

That one win, by the way, happened nine meetings ago, and is the only win for Michigan against the Buckeyes in the last 16 years. So, yes: Ohio State-Akron, 'Bama-Whatsamatta, Hammer-Nail.

But at least we've still got the Old Oaken Bucket, on Thanksgiving weekend. At least we've got that.