Inside Rivalry Week: Can Michigan, Oklahoma State end seemingly never-ending losing streaks?

Bill Connelly is a staff writer for ESPN.com.

Two things are inevitably true about losing streaks:

1. They feel like they’re never going to end.
2. They end.

By the time they kick off on Saturday, it will have been 3,654 and 2,548 days, respectively, since Michigan defeated Ohio State and Oklahoma State defeated Oklahoma. In the past 18 years, the Wolverines have only taken down their biggest rivals once; the Cowboys twice.

Now would be a particularly good time to end these streaks. The Michigan-Ohio State game winner will find itself one win from the College Football Playoff, and while Saturday night’s Bedlam winner will need a little bit of help to reach the top four, they could get awfully close.

The stakes are always high for Rivalry Week, but they are particularly high in Ann Arbor and Stillwater. Let’s talk about this and the week’s other big games and storylines. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

How does Michigan actually beat Ohio State?

No. 2 Ohio State at No. 5 Michigan (Saturday, noon ET, Fox)

There’s a recipe for beating every team. Granted, for some it’s basically “Butter the bread, place in skillet, put cheese on each slice,” and for others it’s the most complicated dessert in “Mary Berry’s Baking Bible.” But a recipe exists all the same.

We explored the Beating Georgia recipe a couple of weeks ago, and since Ohio State’s domination of Michigan State last week made the Buckeyes feel inevitable — and since most recent OSU-Michigan games have left us with the same feeling — it’s time to do the same for the Buckeyes.

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