...and blog comments at their finest. Here's a bunch of encomia to Bo Schembechler, including a lot of classy ones from fans of other schools, including Ohio State:

Bo Schembechler not only revived college football's winningest program, he also revived this rivalry.

In the mid-sixties Michigan wasn't even the best team in the State of Michigan. Michigan State was the team that played "the game of the century in 1966, a 10-10 tie against Notre Dame. And the Nat'l Champion Buckeyes beat U-M 50-14 in Bump Elliott's final game.

Bo not only shocked the college football world a year later when his underdog Wolverines beat the heavily favored, unbeaten, and top-ranked Buckeyes 24-12 in his first try against Woody, he restored the winning tradition to Michigan Football and put the emotion back into what is now considered the sport's greatest rivalry.

He also ran an airtight program. No rules violations, no favors, no cheating. Period. And his teams were held to a much higher standard of sportsmanship than the norm. No trash-talking and no cheap shots by Michigan football players were tolerated.

Bo gets a bad rap on his bowl record. Bo always had a reputation for being such a tough guy that the nation never knew that he considered a bowl trip to be a reward for his players and thus didn't crack the whip for those games quite as hard. That, combined with the tougher competition led to a .500 bowl record.

Bo's stubborn, run-oriented offensive schemes may have cost him a few games, but that same stubbornness re-established and maintained a superior level of play on the field and conduct off the field that is the essence of Michigan Football.

And here's an example (and a sadly prophetic one) from a fan of tOSU:

Bo came to Ohio State and spoke at Woody's memorial at the OSU Stadium. His words of his love for Woody made me cry. Today I cried again at the news of his death.

Someone sent me an interview comment where Bo was asked what he would like the most and he said to watch the game with Woody. I guess he got his wish.

Rest in Peace Bo.

Go Buckeyes!

May be.

Jim Tressel has a hell of a job getting his players up for this game tomorrow. My advice to him for a pre-game speech:

Men, you know that with Coach Schembechler's death yesterday, those Wolverines are going to be even more fired up than they were before. They were already motivated, and now they're going to be even more so, to "win one for Bo."

There'll be more than one team on that field today who want to win one for Bo Schembechler. Let's go out there and do it for him.

[Update a few minutes later]

I hadn't thought about this, but as the 1968 Tigers healed a wounded Detroit, still reeling from the riots the year before, Bo also healed a war-torn and fractious late-sixties Ann Arbor (a place I knew, and loved, well, from visiting my sister who was attending college there at the time). John Papanek explains.

And for those who still don't understand the significance of this game to college football, here's some interesting trivia:

• It is true that the late Ohio State coach Woody Hayes, who did more to pump up the negative feelings in the rivalry than any man, refused to fill up his car in the state of Michigan.

"I'll tell you why we don't," Hayes said, according to the seminal book, "Woody Hayes and the 100-Yard War." "It's because I don't buy one goddam drop of gas in the state of Michigan. We'll coast and push this goddam car to the Ohio line before I give this state a nickel of my money!"

• It is true that Michigan, leading 55-0 late in the 1946 game, lined up and kicked a field goal.

• It is true that in 1950, the teams played through a blizzard with 29 inches of snow and more than 50,000 fans sat through it. Michigan's Chuck Ortmann punted 24 times, and the Wolverines won 9-3, despite failing to make a first down. Buckeyes coach Wes Fesler quit a few days later. Ohio State hired the little-known Hayes away from Miami (Ohio).

• It is true that in 1970, a local judge in Columbus dismissed a charge of obscenity against a defendant arrested for wearing a T-shirt that said, "F--- Michigan" because the message "accurately expressed" local feelings about the university and the state.

• It is true that Hayes sometimes bunked his team in Toledo on the night before a game in Ann Arbor so the Buckeyes could sleep on Ohio ground.

And I found this interesting, too, partly because I'd never thought about it:

Hayes turned the rivalry with Michigan into his personal, 365-day-a-year war. Nearly two decades after his death, Hayes' obsession with all things maize and blue has become his legacy to the state. Hayes rarely recruited in Michigan. In 1969, perhaps the most famous game in the rivalry before Saturday, Ohio State had no players on its roster from Michigan. The Wolverines had 21 players from Ohio.

It really is an asymmetrical relationship, and I think a large part of that is due to Woody. It's been often pointed out that Michigan doesn't have anywhere near the negative passion and animosity toward Columbus that tOSU fans do to Ann Arbor, and I suspect that Woody is a major reason why. His legacy, for good or ill, lives on. Perhaps Bo's death can ameliorate it, at least to a degree. At least for a day?

[Update at 8:30 EST]

Jeez, is this really a global event?

Also, read the "subplots":

• The stats might make you think Michigan is quite vulnerable to the pass: The Wolverines have allowed 11 TD passes and rank 65th in passing yards allowed (202 per game). That's a bit misleading. though. Because teams can't run at all against UM (fewer than 30 yards per game when all the sacks are factored in) and Michigan has had the lead almost the entire season, opponents have had no choice but to go up top often.

Michigan's best pass defense is obviously a strong rush from the front four, but it's not as if Leon Hall and the gang in the secondary are stiffs!

• Michigan has played with a chip on its shoulder this season. Ohio State has been the team on all the magazine covers -- almost wire-to-wire as a nearly unanimous No. 1. UM was picked between 10 and 18 in the preseason magazines I dug up this week. So, it's appropriate that an unbeaten team from mighty Michigan is arriving as an underdog (a bigger dog by the day, it seems). The Wolverines are very dangerous here.

OK, up to this point, I've made no prognostications on the outcome of the game. But now, with Bo's death, if I had money in the game, it would be on Michigan. And not just because I'm an alumnus.

So, when I was in high school, I was in the artsy stagey crowd. I wasn't a cheerleader, never dated a football player then - I know nothing of the subject.

But later in life I've known men who played the game and all of them speak with a fondness that borders on love for their coaches, especially their first coach. I even had a fling with a guy who'd played in the NFL, and started to understand that world a little, vicariously. I watch that new show Friday Night Lights, and I'm just beginning to get a glimmer of the nobility, the character forming aspects, and the majesty of a decent football program.

So, I get the idea that people care about this a great deal, and more to the point, that there's something to care about. So, as a memorial to Mr. Schembechler, I'll wear something in the appropriate colors and root for Michigan. My own school is facing ASU tomorrow, and it matters little to me, so I'll watch the other game.

Rest in peace, Bo. I think you touched the lives of many young men, and made them the better for it. Thanks.

Jane, this is why we love and respect you here, even though we often disagree politically. I'm surprised myself at my emotional reaction to these events.

Humans are strange things indeed. And if you want to understand the importance of football to American culture, read Camille's thoughts.

Thanks for the article link, Rand, and good luck tomorrow.

Jane,

You are the Jewish princess of our dreams!