Below The Beltway

To this year’s version of the college football game of the century:

NEW YORK — The game everybody’s been waiting and waiting and waiting for is finally a reality.

No. 1 Ohio State against No. 2 Michigan next Saturday in Columbus for a spot in the BCS national title game.

The Big Ten rivals will meet in a 1 vs. 2 matchup for the first time, and it will mark the first time there are two 1-2 games in the same regular season. Earlier, the top-ranked Buckeyes played at No. 2 Texas.

If the Buckeyes beat Michigan, they’ll become the first team to play in three 1 vs. 2 matchups in a single season when they play for the national championship on Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz.

The anticipation for Ohio State-Michigan has been building for more than a month as they marched through the soft parts of their schedules. The Buckeyes and Wolverines had easy times improving to 11-0 Saturday.

Easy is an understatement. The Wolverines beat Indiana 34-3 while the Buckeyes trounced Northwestern 54-10. The OSU-Michigan rivalry has a history all its own, but this will be one for the record books. It all starts 3:30pm on Saturday in a little place called Columbus.

Meanwhile, this hasn’t been such a good week for the rest of the BCS Top 10. Starting with Thursday’s Rutgers triumph over Louisville, things just sort of went downhill: (hyperlinks mine)

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — You wanted a BCS shakeup? You got it. In terms of postseason ramifications, I can only think of one Saturday in the BCS era that rivaled this one — and that was the last day of the season in 1998, when undefeated UCLA and Kansas State went down.

Auburn? Out. Cal? Done. Texas? Sayonara.

Florida? Still alive ? but very badly burned. Ditto Boise State’s at-large hopes.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out when the rankings come out.