The Michigan-Ohio State rivalry never really cools off, but the offseason gives fans plenty of room to relive the grudges. With Ohio State supporters celebrating the departure of Michigan AD Warde Manuel at the end of the year, the Buckeyes’ 0-4 record against Michigan from 2021 to 2024 still sits there untouched. And no amount of arguing about Jim Tressel’s improper benefits, or Maurice Clarett’s line about “half the team,” changes what happened in 2002 or in the years that followed.
The back-and-forth will keep rolling, and so will the debate over which players ended up on the wrong side of this rivalry. Here are three Buckeyes who should have been Wolverines instead.
- C.J. Stroud
Stroud’s Michigan case starts with one obvious name: Aidan Hutchinson. He was the one who wrecked Stroud’s Heisman push, and it’s hard not to imagine a different path if Stroud had landed in Ann Arbor.
At Michigan, Stroud might have seen the field in 2020, which would have kept him away from the disaster that season became. Then the 2021 Wolverines would have been better positioned for a title run, while J.J. McCarthy could have waited another year before taking over in 2023 and 2024.
That alternate timeline could have produced a long stretch of top-tier quarterback play. Stroud put up huge numbers at Ohio State, but he never beat Michigan and never won a championship. In Ann Arbor, that story might have looked very different.
- Zach Harrison
Harrison arrived in Columbus as a five-star recruit in the 2019 class, but the fit never really matched the billing.
Over four seasons, the future third-round pick finished with 13 sacks. Hutchinson had 14 in 2021 alone and went on to become the No. 2 pick. That’s the kind of production a five-star EDGE is supposed to deliver, and Harrison just never reached that level.
If he had gone to Michigan and been developed in the trenches there, the argument goes, his college résumé would have been stronger and his NFL ceiling might have been higher too.
Instead, the record is what it is. Harrison went 1-2 against Michigan and was outplayed by Michigan recruits ranked well below him. He also got embarrassed twice in “The Game,” as part of a defense that gave up 45 and 42 points in back-to-back losses to the Wolverines.
- David Boston
Boston’s Ohio State career is remembered as one of the emptier star turns in school history, a perfect snapshot of the John Cooper era: loads of talent, but not much to show for it beyond the receiving numbers.
He led the Big Ten in receiving yards in 1998, the only season in which Ohio State beat Michigan during his career. That win helped the Buckeyes share the conference title with Michigan in a three-way tie.
Outside of that, Boston was on the wrong end of two top-5 losses to the Wolverines. And in the end, he will always sit behind Charles Woodson, who beat him in 1997, won “The Game,” won the matchup, won the fight, added a national title and the Heisman, and had the better pro career too.
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