It’s Western-Central Week. There’s Some History ‘Tween These Two

Maybe it's not Ohio State- Michigan but it's certainly more than Tigers-Diamondbacks, The annual battle between two of Michigan's other Division I schools is this weekend. I love the term "directional schools"; like they teach students not to get lost?

Western hosts Central this Saturday at Waldo Stadium at High Noon. (TV: CBSSN) High Noon because it's an annual showdown, in fact, since 1973, played every year.

The rivalry goes back over 110 years, to 1906. Western leads it by about a dozen wins. Since 2008, there's a Victory Cannon awarded to the winning team.

But there's more to it than that. It's about the kids that can't get into Western, having to go to Michigan, Michigan State, and...er, Central.

To be fair, even though Western leads the all-time series 49–38–2, since the early 70's Central has been putting up wins in bunches against the Broncos. But when the Broncos broke the Chips 5 year win streak in 2011, since then, Western has won six of the last eight games.

And then there's the rioting. Alcohol and what not enters the picture in the celebration of these games, and things have been known to get ugly. The good news, it's overtime pay for the extra local constables needed to keep the peace.

The weather should be pretty good on Saturday. Let's hope things don't get out of hand. And remember, you're average CMU fan probably doesn't want to hear about Antonio Brown. (see the above paragraph)