COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State football coach Ryan Day will walk across the Michigan Stadium playing surface Saturday afternoon and shake the hand of a Wolverines football coach.

Not the Michigan football coach, though. Jim Harbaugh will probably watch The Game the same way you will — on a couch, eating Thanksgiving leftovers and yelling at the television. His second suspension of the season, for separate NCAA investigations, makes him a very engaged spectator for the biggest game in the sport.

That three-game banishment by Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti deprived Harbaugh of the chance to, perhaps, celebrate another historic victory on the field with his team. It deprived Day of the chance to, perhaps, use his body language to say everything his voice has not since the Michigan sign-stealing scheme was uncovered.

And oh man did it deprive the rest of us the perverse pleasure of watching these two men — their dislike for each palpable — converge for the most awkward sports moment of 2023.

Other than a stern rebuttal of Michigan’s accusation that OSU gave Purdue the Wolverines’ signs before last year’s Big Ten championship game, Day continues to pass up every chance to comment on anything even tangential to the scandal up north.

Yet it is difficult to imagine a more personal game thus far in Day’s career. Set aside for the moment whatever personal opinion he may have previously felt about Harbaugh. Those losses the past two seasons were analyzed, in the moment, through the lens of what Day had or had not done to prepare his program to win.

In 2021, it triggered wholesale changes to his coaching staff. Last season, it confirmed that a program at the top of the Big Ten when he inherited it had officially been bumped down a rung.

And then, over the past five weeks, details emerged that questioned whether those games took place on an even playing field. Is that why both of C.J. Stroud’s Heisman Trophy campaigns were derailed? Is that why Ohio State’s prolific 2021 offense did not get its shot at Georgia’s elite defense?

Day does not deny the personal nature of this gmae. He knows, though, the most certain path to a third straight loss in this rivalry would come from putting too much thought into the circumstances of the first two.

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“Not that it’s easy, but the only thing that matters is this game, is this team, is preparing — the rest of it doesn’t matter,” Day said. “So that’s what we have to do. We have got to stay disciplined enough to focus on that.

“Every year you learn more and more about this game and the preparation for it. So we’re not going to let any of that stuff get in our way. In terms of distractions, we’re just going to focus on this team this season and preparing the best we possibly can.”

Despite what the most irate portion of the fan base might tell you, Day is not coaching for his job on Saturday — or even to stay off of the proverbial hot seat.

This game should not be a referendum on his future at Ohio State. It is, though, a referendum on specific choices he made. Keeping play calling duties for himself rather than shifting to full executive mode. Doubling down on the status quo on special teams in the offseason. Fixing the offensive line issue that had been on the horizon for a full two years.

As this season began, Day faced significantly more pressure to win The Game than Harbaugh. Not anymore. Saturday he will walk the sideline while his counterpart watches from a remote location. When the Fox broadcast shows his face, it will not be in conjunction with words such as scandal or scheme.

Win or lose Saturday, Day will be asked about the Michigan allegations. How he believes the illegal scouting operation affected the 2021-22 games. What he thinks about Harbaugh now.

If Ohio State wins, he might say to us what he won’t be able to say to Harbaugh in that postgame handshake.