Not too many years ago, former Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh announced that he would beat arch-rival Ohio State or die trying.

People laughed at him. The Wolverines had been unable to beat the hated Buckeyes for many years. Until they reeled off four consecutive wins in The Game after Harbaugh’s war cry.

As an obsessive Michigan fan, I adopt Harbaugh’s do-or-die proposition. I’m not trying to win at ball. Instead, I’m a plucky writer trying to sell my latest screenplay, publish it as a novel or die trying.

In TODAY’S ISSUE, we switch the focus from screenwriting to the greatest rivalry in sports. Go Blue!

Today is The Game.

The Ohio State Suckeyes square off against the mighty Michigan Wolverines in a momentous football game that could send the winner to the college football playoff.

The stakes are high. Drama hanging thick in the hair like gunpowder.

Which is where we segway to screenwriting.

Which movie antagonists do these hateful rivals resemble?

My money is on film’s greatest sociopath, Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem, squaring off against Josh Brolin’s feisty Llewelyn Moss in the Coen Brothers’ 2007 neo-western No Country for Old Men.

Both men are war veterans and killers. Both teams have bludgeoned their way to the top of their B1G conference rankings.

One man kills without conscience. A supernaturally calm sadist. 

The F*cknuts have stomped every opponent except their Week 1 opponent when their lethal but young second-year quarterback was still getting his legs under him.

The other man kills with a conscience. Reluctantly. 

Big Blue, mighty young, has had an uneven season, struggling to beat the lowly dregs of the B1G. Led by their true freshman quarterback, Michigan had five turnovers against Northwestern and STILL won.

Ohio State is Chigurh.

Having killed several innocent people with a nozzled tank that hurls a metal ball forcefully into a cow’s skull, ending the animal efficiently without blood, Chigurh enters a gas station and asks the owner to flip a coin.

If he calls it right, the sociopath won’t kill him.

Chigurh has a weird hairdo, the ugliest in the history of cinema.

Isn’t OSU coach Ryan Day and his jet-black Just For Men beard just as offensive?

The Maize & Blue are Moss. Resourceful but chaotic. Allergic to taking a man’s life without remorse.

At the beginning of the movie, Moss stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong in the Texas desert. Finds the satchel of cash but also denies water to a cartel soldier dying in his truck.

Later, Moss wakes up in the middle of the night, conscious stirring. 

Goes back to the crime scene. Brings the gangbanger water. Gets spotted by the rival killers looking for the drug money. Flees and the inciting incident kicks the story into gear.

Michigan IS remorseful. 

Last year, we upset the Bucknuts with a walk-on cancer survivor as quarterback and planted a flag in the middle of their field in celebration.

A brawl ensued.

Michigan vowed never to plant its flag in the toilet seat stadium again.

In No Country for Old Men, the cold-blooded Chigurh emerges victorious.

Will Ohio State win today?

You can flip a coin on it.

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