This rivalry is starting look as lopsided as the Iron Bowl. Almost no one expects Michigan to pull this off against Ohio State. But the shocking upset from two years stands proof that no win is guaranteed. Even though Michigan’s new head coach is downplaying the rivalry, Jeremiah Smith refuses to be complacent, especially since this could be his last time playing in The Game.

Big Ten Media Days usually feature diplomatic coach speak, and Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham delivered just that. He called the storied rivalry between the Wolverines and the Buckeyes intense, but insisted it was never personal.

But it was always different down in Columbus. A year ago, Ohio State star wide receiver Jeremiah Smith embodied that senitment. For the young Buckeye phenom, this legendary rivalry is as personal as it gets.

To contrast how the two sides approach this rivalry, an older interview piece from Jeremiah Smith was uploaded again where he was speaking to Urban Meyer. He was asked what pops into his head when he hears about “the team up north,” and without skipping a beat, Smith shook his head and delivered the exact opposite of what Kyle Whittingham claims.

“Hate,” Jeremiah Smith said on The Triple Option Podcast. “You know, with everything in me, I hate them.” That had Urban Meyer and co-host and former NFL superstar Mark Ingram chuckling for a full minute.

During the same interview, Smith had explained that this intense feeling was taught to him early. As a top high school recruit visiting Columbus, he accidentally showed up wearing a dark blue shirt. Buckeye staffers stopped him right at the facility door and made him change clothes on the spot.

They told him he had to change immediately because those colors are strictly forbidden on campus. That was the exact moment Smith realized just how serious this rivalry really is.

He also has a personal chip on his shoulder after what happened during his freshman season. Even though he had an impressive year on the field, recording over 1,300 yards and 15 touchdowns, Ohio State still lost a painful 13-10 game to Michigan.

That loss clearly stung, and it is the main reason he is carrying so much ill will towards the Wolverines. In fact, Smith was so mad about that loss that he had already made a massive promise to the media and the fans. The WR publicly guaranteed that he would never lose to Michigan again for the rest of his college career.

Though Smith has since had time to avenge this loss, there is no love lost between him and Michigan. He is surely going to attack their defense with the same intensity that he had during the snow covered battle last year.

As for Michigan fans, considering they are coming off from Sherrone Moore, any result that isn’t a humiliating loss would be considered an improvement. This is a team with nowhere to go but up. But the Buckeyes won’t care. There is no space for sympathy in this rivalry, and no amount of diplomatic statement from their new head coach is going to change that narrative in Columbus.

The Buckeyes need to win and they need to win with conviction so that Michigan fans cannot claim that their loss last year was due to the fiasco going on with their head coach and his infidelity. This year, there will be no excuses.

Meanwhile, Urban Meyer laughing it off makes perfect sense when you look at how he ran things in Columbus. When Meyer was the head coach, he famously banned the color blue from the football facility and wouldn’t even let people say the word “Michigan.”

The former Buckeyes head coach spent his entire career building a culture of pure obsession over this one game. So seeing Smith adopt that same mindset probably made him proud.

Although Ohio State fans are absolutely loving Smith’s bold energy, you can bet the folks up in Michigan are taking notes. This kind of trash talk is perfect bulletin-board material for the Wolverines’ locker room, making their next game against each other even more intense.

It is clear that the bad blood between these two teams isn’t going away anytime soon.