Paul Finebaum didn’t mince words when Michigan came up, and Ohio State fans are going to love every second of it.
Speaking with Brooks Austin on The Film Guy, the ESPN college football analyst unloaded on Michigan fans and made his stance crystal clear.
“Michigan fans, they’re not worth the time. They think college football revolves around them, and they’ve won, I think, two-and-a-half national championships in 70 years, and they cheated to get the last one.”
That’s about as direct as it gets, and it lands squarely in the middle of the long-running Ohio State-Michigan hostility. Buckeye fans have spent plenty of time celebrating anything that makes life harder for Michigan, especially after the program was forced to fire Sherrone Moore following his scandal. The source of the frustration runs deeper than one bad year, too, with Michigan still trying to talk like it owns the sport’s spotlight.
Finebaum’s comments also arrive at a time when Michigan’s standing is being questioned from multiple angles. The source notes that Kyle Whittingham is expected to have the Wolverines right back in title contention, even though Bryce Underwood has looked bad so far. It’s the kind of optimism Finebaum clearly has no interest in entertaining.
Ohio State, meanwhile, has its own recent bragging rights. The Buckeyes won the 2024 national championship without controversy, riding one of the greatest four-game runs in college football history.
That’s part of why the Michigan chatter rings so hollow to Ohio State supporters. From their perspective, the Buckeyes earned theirs the hard way while Michigan is still acting like the Big Ten belongs to them.
The conference picture, at least according to the source, looks a lot different right now. Indiana is the defending Big Ten and national champ, which makes them the current standard-bearer. Michigan, by comparison, is expected to get a harsh reality check when it takes on Oklahoma for the second straight season, a matchup the source says will likely end in a home loss.
There’s also a bigger endgame for Ohio State fans to dream about. Another blowout in the regular-season finale could, as the source puts it, crush Michigan for good.
With a new AD on the way and the program trying to hide the depths of its misdeeds, winning on the field is all Michigan has left. That point is sharpened even further now that Dusty May is gone.
And if Ohio State is as strong as expected, the Buckeyes should be in position to make that final meeting painful. They’re one of the favorites to win the national title, so a home win over Michigan in the last game of the year would not be a surprise. The source even says Ohio State should be favored by double digits.
Still, this rivalry doesn’t lose its edge just because one side feels confident. Michigan has beaten Ohio State three times in the last four years, and two of those wins were likely helped by the cheating scandal, according to the source. That’s why the Buckeyes won’t take anything for granted.
Finebaum’s message matched the way many Ohio State fans already feel: Michigan has had enough smoke blown its way. Now the rest of the country is being told exactly what Buckeye fans think they’ve known all along.
In Other News...
Ohio States New Receiver Is Forcing His Way Into The Conversation
Kyle Parker arrives in Columbus with a rsum that already gives him a different kind of edge than a typical newcomer. The LSU transfer has logged multiple seasons in college football, including time in the SEC, and he comes in with a built-in familiarity with Ohio State wide receivers coach Cortez Hankton that should help him settle into a new room quickly. In a spring where the Buckeyes have been sorting through fresh faces on offense, Parker has been the kind of addition that naturally draws attention.
The bigger question is how that experience translates once the offense starts asking him to operate within Arthur Smiths pro-style system. There should be chances for a receiver with Parkers background to carve out a role, but opportunities in this setup may come in a different shape than the steady volume some pass catchers prefer. For now, he is one of the more intriguing names in the mix, and the early buzz around his fit is only part of the story. [Read more 🡒]
Ohio State Has A Real Plan For Legend Bey This Season
Legend Beys first spring at Ohio State offered a glimpse of why the Buckeyes were willing to keep finding ways to get him involved. The freshman running back, who arrived after originally signing with Tennessee as a high school quarterback, flashed enough promise in practice to make him a real part of the conversation as the offense starts to take shape under new coordinator Arthur Smith.
Assistant coach Carlos Locklyn has made it clear Bey is not just a developmental piece tucked away for later. Ohio State is planning specific offensive packages to put him on the field, a sign the Buckeyes want to tap into his versatility while leaning into a more physical run game this season. The only real question now is how quickly that role expands once the games start to count. [Read more 🡒]
What Was Said About Ohio States Five Star Miss Says Plenty
Ohio State spent a long stretch treating David Gabriel Georges like a centerpiece in its running back recruiting plan, and the Buckeyes were not alone in seeing the appeal. The five-star prospect became one of the most closely watched names in the cycle, with Tennessee ultimately landing his commitment instead of Columbus, a result that stings all the more because of how much time and attention Ohio State poured into the pursuit.
What makes the miss harder to shake is the sense that the Buckeyes may have been chasing a player who never fully embraced the idea of being in their program. When a recruitment goes on that long and ends with that kind of disappointment, it raises the obvious question for Ohio State: whether all that investment was ever going to produce the return it hoped for, or whether the real edge in this race was something the Buckeyes could not match. [Read more 🡒]