That we’re so down on Ohio State reveals how high the bar is in Columbus. Trends point toward Michigan, but Ohio State is still very good, and there are still matchups for the Buckeyes to exploit. As good as UM had looked for most of the time since its Week 1 loss to Notre Dame, Ohio State was still a top-10 team according to both the polls and the computers. Michigan was only listed as about a four- to five-point favorite, both in terms of the Vegas line and S&P+ projections. Instead, it was reinforced: the Buckeyes still own the Wolverines.įrom the start, we were going a little too far in proclaiming the Wolverines’ superiority. This was supposed to be the week the Michigan-Ohio State narrative changed. In early Saturday action, meanwhile, Ohio State beat Michigan for the seventh straight time, the ninth straight at home. WVU’s entire Big 12 existence), and Chris Petersen’s Washington shut down Mike Leach’s Washington State for the fifth straight, all after Virginia Tech beat Virginia for the 15th year in a row. On Black Friday, Oklahoma beat West Virginia for the seventh straight year (a.k.a. These guys are all good players.In the most “everything is the same as ever” college football season in recent memory, Rivalry Week has served as one long reminder that, well, everything is the same as ever. Only one is still on the team this season. All of them were on the MSU football team. “I had four roommates in a house last school year. It seemed like I was the biggest guy when I was in class, but the guys on the football team were much bigger than I am. He said he bulked up to 230 pounds when he was on the MSU football team so he could have a fighting chance to battle in the trenches after he snapped the ball. It’s insane,” he said.Ĭhudler is normally a 6-foot, 195-pounder. “I wish I could describe the difference between high school football and Division I football. There’s a chance - he labels it at 40% - that he’ll enter the NCAA transfer portal after he graduates from MSU and see if he can latch on with another college football program.īeing in a Division I college football program was an eye-opening experience for Chudler, a football and wrestling standout at Orchard Lake St. He wants to go into medical device sales after earning a master’s degree, specializing in spinal devices. He still did an internship in a West Bloomfield insurance office, starting the part-time job three weeks after the surgery.Ĭhudler plans to graduate from MSU next spring. Recovering from back surgery didn’t squash all of Chudler’s summer plans. “My right side is still numb, but that’s slowly getting better. But I am doing some weightlifting,” he said. He’s a little more than three months into a six-month recovery period. The surgery was delayed for more than a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.Ĭhudler said doctors went in through his right side and installed tethers and eight screws in his spine. And I met so many people through playing football for MSU.” Nick Chudler MSUĬhudler had specialized spinal fusion back surgery May 3 at a hospital in New Jersey, one of a few hospitals in the country where the surgery is done. I did it with my spine at a 50-degree angle.
“A very, very low percentage of high school football players go on to play Division I college football at a Power 5 conference. “I’m a little disappointed because I worked so hard at long-snapping for a long time and never got a chance to show everyone at MSU what I could do, but everything happens for a reason,” he said. He didn’t get into any games during those two seasons, but he went with the Spartans to the 2018 Redbox Bowl in Santa Clara, Calif., where MSU lost 7-6 to Oregon.Ī bad back and new coaching staff hired in 2020 brought an end to Chudler’s MSU football career after the 2019 season, but the 21-year-old MSU senior from Novi is happy he went to East Lansing and turned down chances to play football at smaller schools. He made the team as a preferred walk-on in 2018 and was on the roster that season and in 2019. Nick Chudler didn’t live his dream, but he came mighty close.Ĭhudler wanted to be the long-snapper for the Michigan State University football team.
(MSU) Nick Chudler made the Michigan State football team as a preferred walk-on in 2018 and was on the roster that season and in 2019. Michigan State’s Nick Chudler works on his long-snapping before a 2018 game against Michigan at Spartan Stadium.