COLUMBUS, Ohio — X marks the spot. Actually, red X's mark thousands of spots at The Ohio State University.
Students are keeping alive an annual tradition to obliterate the thirteenth letter of the alphabet from signs all over campus leading up to the historic rivalry game with "The Team Up North."
"I've never seen them actually cross them out," Ohio State sophomore Owen Jeffries said. "So it's funny they just stay crossed out, like even the high-up ones."
Not long after the Indiana game on Saturday, people got to work covering as many M's as possible with X's made of red tape.
"And those students, if it's students, are really good because you go out one day and you come back the next and they're all crossed off. It's a pretty cool tradition," Dave Isaacs with Ohio State media relations said.
The Buckeyes' rivalry with TTUN even has students donating blood in the Blood Battle blood drive between the two universities.
"Oh yeah, it was scarlet. I bleed scarlet," sophomore Isabella Blum said.
The students are managing to learn and the professors to teach during a week with a 25-letter alphabet, minus the M.
"We work our way around it," Isaacs joked. "It's not impossible, just this week."
A special week of Buckeye bonding and sticking it to their biggest rival.
"I love walking to class and seeing all my class buildings with the red M's," Blum said. "I think the people who do it are so dedicated. It's so cool."
"It's such a fun way to get the community together and to see everybody rallying against one thing," senior Devon Kuchta said. "It's just so much fun. There's nothing else like it."
The Buckeyes are looking to break their three-year losing streak against "That Team Up North" with this year's game at the 'Shoe.