Both sides scrambled their militias to the area around the Toledo river. Although no shots were fired at each other, there was much trash talking across the waters, much like there will be on Saturday afternoon.

Then President of the United States Jackson stepped in on the conflict, offering a compromise to the people of Michigan.

In exchange for Michigan ceding the land to Ohio, the Michigan territory would be granted statehood as the 26th state. They would also be entitled to most of what is now known as the Upper Peninsula, which at the time belonged to the Wisconsin Territory. While this seems like a grand idea, it took two meetings of delegates in Michigan to approve the treaty.

The exchange at the time was seen as a loss for Michigan until copper was discovered in the UP and they were better able to take advantage of the timber prevalent in the region.

So what does this have to do with football? Well, it seems only appropriate that the winner was Ohio, the #1 team and favorite in Saturday's game. The loser, Michigan got a piece of land that's true value wasn't seen until later, much like they might if they lose on Saturday. A likely trip to the Rose Bowl is nothing to sneeze at, and won't be appreciated until much later. And even better, in the treaty, Michigan got to get a little of Wisconsin's goat. Wisconsin, the #3 team in the Big Ten conference lost to Michigan earlier this year, 27-13, their only loss of the season.

Seems like history has a chance to repeat itself one more time.

Credit to Ivan Maisel and Beano Cook for the lead on this story from their weekly ESPN podcast.

Ben Miraski writes for MRISports.com and is a featured blogger on FanIQ. Readers can contact Ben at bmiraski@mrisports.com