As I’ve stated recently, Uncle Crappy isn’t a sports blog. And that’s completely true … 51 weeks a year.

This week, however, is a little different. Because the Michigan game happens on Saturday.

Uncle Crappy veterans know what this means — a steady stream of football-related posts, stuff about the game, the history of the rivalry, perspective on what it means both in terms of football and of life in general.

I won’t be quite as over the top as I was a year ago, when the game was No. 1 vs. No. 2 for the first time ever and a trip to the national championship game was on the line. The loss to Illinois on Saturday ended that possibility for the Buckeyes, but there’s still plenty to play for: An outright Big Ten championship — what would be Ohio State’s first such back-to-back titles since 1955 — and trip to the Grandaddy of Them All, known by those who are not Keith Jackson as the Rose Bowl.

Not stuff to sneeze at.

To win this year’s game, we have to win in Ann Arbor, in The Big Hole:

I know Michigan people wax rhapsodic about their building — if you can call it that — but I’ve never found the experience to be all that pleasant. Michigan Stadium was built out, as opposed to up, so you’re either close enough that you’re straining to see over people on the field or far enough away that, well, you’re too far away to be able to see anything without binoculars.

I also found it a bit unpleasant because Ohio State lost the two times I’ve been up there for the game.

Michigan lost a valuable piece of home-field advantage when they dug their stadium this way. They routinely get close to 112,000 people in there, but the noise from all those people isn’t directed anywhere — it just sort of drifts away. When Ohio Stadium was renovated a few years ago, the changes made a loud building even louder — the field is lower, C-deck is higher and there’s a huge permanent concrete structure at the south end of the stadium where a rickety set of bleachers used to stand. Sound is trapped inside; it has nowhere to go, except inside the heads of the opposing team.

I’m not saying winning in Michigan Stadium isn’t hard. It always has been, and it will be again on Saturday.

But insurmountable?

No way.