THIS IS ONLY A TEST
Is The Grind a self-fulfilling prophecy?
It's right up there with
It's impossible for me to lose weight and
I'm totally going to bomb the biology mid-term and
George Lucas will find a way to ruin the new Star Wars movie with extremely punchable CGI characters specifically created to sell action figures to 6-year olds. Maybe it's a grind only because they said it would be.
The Chase begged for a sequel even though the original was without peer. The intact and completed 2014 season was perfect; arguably better than an imaginary undefeated version of it - so perhaps replacing that banner and battle cry with an entirely new one was unnecessary.
The Chase was the best football movie you've ever seen in your life.
Zeke was grinding in 2014.
This year he's chasing.
The best movie-movie ever made was the sequel to
The Godfather. You remember what they called it?
The Godfather II. Coppola harnessed all of the energy and most of the players from the first one and somehow upgraded the story. Maybe isolating
The Chase and forcefully removing its magic from the follow-up with so many of the same actors was an exercise in squandered inertia.
The Chase II might not have eliminated all of the growing pains for a team that had to win a national title to earn the burden of becoming self-aware, but it could have made this journey less awkward.
Super Sophomores is a courteous way of saying
nouveau riche. They were too good, too soon to know better last year.
Winning it all made it impossible to keep them young, dumb and full of fun. They now know too much. Tension and strain are best left to self-loathing adults, which is what all of us turned into the second the 2015 Buckeyes revealed they would not be scoring over 60 points per game.
The Grind describes what's inflicted weekly on defending champions when they fail to win 20 games in a row in the precise manner everyone thinks they should.
Entire article:
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2015/10/61810/this-is-only-a-test
THE GRIND: END OF THE BEGINNING
We're still waiting for the team that doesn't exist to arrive.
It's the one that piles up gaudy statistics with former 3rd-string quarterbacks throwing darts to wide-open two-time Silver Football winners. This team scores 35 points per half regardless of the opponent. It eats the giant target defending champions wear on their backs for breakfast. Through a straw.
It doesn't sleep. It never punts. Touchdowns are routine. Field goals are for the weak.
The Grind included a pedestrian 26-pt win over WMU.
We're still waiting for that Ohio State team to arrive, as if it has ever existed before in history. Sure, the 1998 team lit up the scoreboard and never allowed 20 points in a game - except for that one time when it lost to a 6-6 team. The 2006 edition didn't allow an opponent to score 18 points until it gave up 39 to Michigan prior to embarking on a 51-day awards banquet circuit that siphoned away its legacy. Neither of those teams were
that team either.
The one-loss defending national champions were also not that team, even in hindsight. The 2014 Buckeyes faced only four ranked squads and devoured all four of them. It's your own damn fault those games are all you choose to remember from last season. There were a dozen others but most of them were far less exciting - and even worse, there weren't any shiny trophies or high stakes attached to them.
Fortunately this charade all ends Saturday afternoon.
The Grind has only one game left.
Illinois has the distinction of serving as the grand finale for this two-and-a-half month Parade of Average, the Cavalcade of the Unranked, that March of the Mediocre - whatever you would like to label these Ten Games That Aren't Against Michigan State or Michigan. The grinding part of
The Grind mercifully concludes Saturday.
Don't be surprised if it ends up being the hardest one.
.
.
.
After Saturday it's nothing but heavyweights for the rest of the season. This is what you've been waiting for ever since Blacksburg, when you were excited for that team that doesn't exist to lay waste to nine more pushovers with the urgency and vigor it reserved for last season's marquee showdowns.
One more week. One more Saturday. One more unranked opponent the Buckeyes know they should be able to beat on their worst day. One more opportunity to be disappointed by the quality of a victory. Then we'll see if
that team makes a few timely cameo appearances for the second straight season.
Either way we'll never stop waiting for it to arrive. And that's our own damn fault.
Entire article:
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2015/11/62928/end-of-the-beginning
