Michigan football vs. Ohio State Buckeyes RIVALS documentary

What is a rivalry? A new series seeks out to answer that.

No, not just which teams are rivals, but why do rivals exist? What are the sociological underpinnings that create such a concept?

Back in 2008, HBO tackled the Michigan football vs. Ohio State rivalry, A.K.A. ‘The Game,’ but we’ve since had 13 years since that was released. While it did dig into how much each program loathes the other, along with a lot of the traditions that go along with The Game, RIVALS digs a lot deeper.

Rife with familiar faces, and lots of entertaining set pieces, the series kicks off exploring The Game. It delves deep, with plenty of historical footage, but is enormously entertaining as it’s narrated by Michigan native and OSU fanatic J.K. Simmons. It also features Rich Eisen, Joel Klatt, John U. Bacon, Angelique Chengelis, Bill Rabinowitz, Tim May, Nick Baumgardner, Dan Dierdorf, Jack Park, Archie Griffin, Stephen Means, Michael Rosenberg, David Briggs, Sam Webb, Keith Byars, Devin Gardner and Bruce Madej.

Each school gets significant time to dig into the individual program lore, but it starts with the Buckeyes, especially the Woody Hayes era, but shifts quickly to Bo Schembechler’s tenure leading the Wolverines.

However, even as it takes a look at the ‘Ten Year War,’ it also delves into the sociology about how each team made the other better. But it shifts more between the sociological underpinnings than it follows along with chronology.

This documentary does feature much of the already well-known trivia, but it is rather comprehensive. It certainly doesn’t cover everything, but it offers something much different than previous iterations.

What certainly makes this documentary different is that it does feature more modern elements. Yes, it does significantly address ‘the spot,’ as well as Jim Harbaugh and Urban Meyer taking over the helms at each institution. And it also covers the 2021 win by Michigan.

RIVALS runs for nearly 90 minutes, and you’ll be glued to…