By the end of the day on Saturday, the Michigan Wolverines had heard quite enough about their shortcomings. They lost to the Michigan State Spartans, losing yet another game against one of their biggest rivals under head coach Jim Harbaugh. If such indignity wasn’t enough, Michigan also had to endure their most hated enemy of all telling them how to get to the most undignified place on Sesame Street.
One week after Michigan’s marching band performed a “beer pong” skit where an Ohio State ball missed the cup while a Michigan ball landed in it, the Ohio State University Marching Band took a vicious shot at Michigan during a Sesame Street-themed halftime skit. Playing a game of “One of these things is not like the other”, the band singled out a Michigan logo, which they then handed to Oscar the Grouch and placed in a trashcan.
Oscar, surely, loved it because it was trash. The Ohio State crowd loved it too on a night that was already emotionally-charged given their matchup with the Penn State Nittany Lions. But for Michigan, it was one more indignity on a day that marked their first loss of the season as well as the defining trend of the Harbaugh era.
Since Jim Harbaugh took over as Michigan head coach in 2015, his teams have gone just 3-9 in games against either Ohio State or Michigan State, the program’s two biggest rivals. Saturday’s loss was especially painful for the Wolverines given that it had marked the first time that both them and the Spartans had entered the game as top 10 teams since all the way back in 1964. The Spartans rallied in the second half of the game to defeat Michigan by a score of 37-33.
