Many college football teams annually save their rivalry games for last—The Game, the Iron Bowl, Bedlam, and the Apple Cup, just to name a few. There are exceptions, but conferences often put the most heated rivalries last in the regular season schedule.
In years past, successful teams had several weeks to recover from the emotional toll of that final rivalry and prepare for a bowl game. In today’s college football landscape, those rivalry games are sometimes only the beginning. Ohio State survived a challenge from archrival Michigan at the Horseshoe last season and immediately had to start preparing for a conference title game match-up against Wisconsin in Indianapolis.