Judgement Day is here!

So, I sit here just an hour before the OSU-Michigam game, a.k.a. "Judgement Day". All day, I've been watching and reading analysts on the game, and have enjoyed watching features about the 103 year history of this rivalry which is IMO greatest in college football and perhaps greatest of all time. here is what is at stake:

1. First consensus #1 vs. #2 meeting in the rivalry's history
2. Big Ten Championship
3. National Championship (winner will go on to play for this)
   
4. Heisman Trophy (for troy Smith- if they win he will probably get it)
   
5. First team EVER to beat three #2 teams in one season (or for Michigan, two #2's and a #1)
6. Perhaps the biggest game in this rivalries history
7. Ensconcing Jim Tressel as the greatest coach in OSU's history, next to perhaps Woody Hayes

Yeah, yeah- so you are saying of course it is this big for me. I live right outside of Columbus. No, it's not just us locals that are a memeber of the Buckeye Nation:

Michigan-Ohio State frenzy reaching fever pitch

By Chris Fowler

In the Devanha Lounge in Bank Street, Aberdeen, Scotland, a group of perhaps 15 Buckeyes faithful will convene to celebrate the occasion. They will be joined by a few dozen Scots who have been enlisted in the Scarlet and Gray army. And though the locals might not be quite as emotionally invested in the outcome Saturday night, they will enjoy themselves immensely, doing the O-H-I-O chant throughout and singing traditional Buckeyes tunes "Hang On Sloopy" and "We Don't Give a Damn About the Whole State of Michigan" during the commercial breaks!

Similar scenes will play out in the Great Canadian Pub in the Saint-Michel area of Paris for three dozen UM alums, and at Shannon's Pub in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, a mixed group of about 30 fans is expected, with fans on the losing side picking up the bar tab for the winners. American Forces Network will beam the game to spots all over the world -- from a place called Fat Boys where Americans of all football loyalties gather in Brussels, Belgium, across a plaza from the European Union Parliament to military bases around the globe.

Ohio State versus Michigan is that big. It's global. Now more than ever.

But where will historians rank it? Well, in the BCS standings of great American milestones, it ranks just behind the surrender at Yorktown and the Emancipation Proclamation, but decimal points ahead of Neil Armstrong's walk and Luke and Laura's wedding (the first one, not the cheesy vows renewal plotline recycled recently on "General Hospital").

Because the schools claim more than 740,000 living alums between them, this historic collision will touch people in every city in almost every industrialized nation. For pockets of people tiny or significant sprinkled over the four corners of the world, nothing will be more pressing than what two college football teams do in Ohio Stadium. Can Troy Smith haunt Michigan again? Does Jim Tressel own Lloyd Carr? Were the Maize and Blue underrated all year? For people a long way from home with lots on their minds, these topics will make them feel a little closer, a little more connected.

My thanks to "College GameDay" contributor John Lukacs for excellent work contacting these fans worldwide.

Then there is the problem of the people who are plenty connected already.

Kirk Herbstreit told me he has been so wound-up waiting for this collision that he has been up all hours watching ESPN Classic replay old-time Wolverines-Buckeyes games. By the time he hits the sack, he is unable to get any sleep! Another ex-Buck, Chris Spielman, told me much the same thing. His head was exploding from rivalry overload, so he had to retreat to a Christian bookstore the other day to purchase some reading material that made absolutely no mention of anyone named Hart, Pittman, Manningham or Ginn. He said the relief was only temporary.

I am sure it's not any different for guys who wore the Maize and Blue back in the day. Desmond Howard will be bookending our GameDay set Saturday -- UM on screen left and Herbie on screen right. Ol' 21's pulse will be revved-up, too. Objective? I don't think so.

Lee Corso is going to be vibrating with even more nervous energy than normal when we come on the air. I will be surrounded by mental cases. Ought to be fun.

As for me, it is a beautiful luxury to be free of any concern about who wins the game. It means plenty for me just to be there to enjoy every second of the final countdown and the game itself and witness a game that might resonate for years and years without having the slightest rooting interest whatsoever. I have the same wishes I always have for events like this: Let the drama equal half the hype, let the players decide it without undue interference from the officials, and let the aftermath be as free of car-burning civil unrest as possible. At least, don't set my rental car on fire!

As for the Columbus cops, speaking as an innocent bystander at the postgame pepper-spray fest in 2002's meeting, please just lighten up -- and if a party is unfolding on the field … let it.

Oh, and one more thing. Saturday's game is an elimination game. Winner earns the longest layoff in college history (51 days) before swaggering into the Cardinals' new state-of-the-art stadium as the solid favorite in the BCS title game. Loser gets the granddaddy of all consolation presents: the Rose Bowl.

No rematch, please. The only scenarios I think make sense for one are if Ohio State loses a close game and USC, Florida, and Arkansas all stumble or if Michigan loses and the other surviving once-beaten is Notre Dame. How can the Wolverines be voted below the Irish?

Courtesy ESPN.Com

Get the point? See ya in five hours with first impressions.