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Ryan Day speaks during Big Ten Media Days July 23 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor

Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh said Ohio State is on top of the perch in the Big Ten Conference.

Harbaugh added “somebody’s got to knock [the Buckeyes] off that perch,” and rhetorically asked why shouldn’t the Wolverines be the ones to do so during the Big Ten Media Days Thursday. While Michigan hasn’t defeated Ohio State on the gridiron since 2011, Harbaugh said the Wolverines will do everything in their power to change that fortune.

“I’m here before you, enthusiastic and excited as I ever am, always am, even more, to have at it,” Harbaugh said. “To win the championship, to beat Ohio [State], our rivals Michigan State, everybody. That’s what we want to do, and we’re gonna do it or die trying.”

Harbaugh wasn’t the only Big Ten football coach to acknowledge where the Buckeyes are in the conference pecking order.

“Well, they are the gold standard, and that is who we’re chasing,” Indiana head coach Tom Allen said.

Ohio State has won the Big Ten Championship each of the last four years and lost just seven games since its National Championship victory in 2014.

Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day said Ohio State has had a target on its back for a long time — and that it’s a good thing. But with great expectations comes great responsibility.

“This is a hard conference, some really good coaches and some really good teams, and so you got to bring it week in and week out here,” Day said. “If you don’t, you put yourself at risk. We definitely feel that and this year is gonna be no different.”

Speculation has arisen about the level of emphasis Michigan has put into the rivalry against Ohio State, and Harbaugh’s comments appear that the Wolverines are re-upping their commitment to beating the Buckeyes.

Senior tight end Jeremy Ruckert said he and the rest of the Buckeyes heard Harbaugh’s comments, and he respects them and everything that comes with the storied rivalry between Ohio State and Michigan. With the level of passion surrounding the yearly edition of ‘The Game,’ Ruckert said it isn’t uncommon for people to say things fueled by the intensity of the rivalry, but it’s important to focus on the respect ingrained in the rivalry game itself.

“I think everybody in our building, they really respect the rivalry. We don’t take it for granted,” Ruckert said. “Anybody can win any game at any given moment, especially in games like that with highly competitive teams, two traditional teams that really go way back to hundreds of years. We don’t look past that, we don’t look past any game.”

Senior offensive lineman Thayer Munford said he wasn’t all too surprised to hear Harbaugh’s comments, and that he feels Michigan hasn’t shied away from treating the rivalry as what he described as “one of the greatest rivalries ever.”

On a wider scale, Munford said the Buckeyes have been taught since they were freshmen that they will have a bullseye on their chests, and because of that, they’ve trained like they’ve always trained and practiced like each day will be their last.

The Buckeye mentality toward ‘The Game’ has long been revered, from yearly hype videos to crossing out any sight of the letter ‘M’ on campus to the countdown clock in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.

Junior defensive end Zach Harrison said the Buckeye culture involves living through that mentality everyday. But, not only is the Ohio State and Michigan rivalry game circled on the calendars of all Buckeyes, Harrison said the team cannot focus on what comes after ‘The Game’ until the final whistle blows.

“When you live something every day and it’s always on your mind, you think about it every single day. There’s no way that you can get complacent with it because that’s our first goal,” Harrison said. “Our No. 1 goal of the season is to beat the team up north. Nothing else happens after the season unless we beat the team up north.”