OSUBasketballJunkie
Never Forget 31-0
Dispatch
Dispatch
Dispatch
Wisdom of playing Texas now in question
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
BOB HUNTER
</IMG>
Is it a good idea for Ohio State to play Texas?
Before you give yourself an acute case of whiplash by nodding your head at the speed of light, remember that’s a lot different than asking whether you’re "excited" that the Buckeyes are playing Texas. It’s not the same as asking if you’re "happy" about it, or even as asking if this game won’t be a lot more "fun" than watching just about any game besides OSUMichigan.
The question isn’t whether you’re glad they’re playing the Longhorns, but whether it’s smart given the ridiculous system that the Bowl Championship Series folks use to crown their national champion.
This year, it actually might be, given that the Buckeyes started the season No. 1 and aren’t likely to fall completely out of the national championship picture unless Texas hammers them into submission. But remember, these games are scheduled years in advance.
If the Buckeyes were starting the season, say, No. 8, and lost to Texas in the second game of the season, any chance of landing a top-two spot at the end would pretty much be over.
That was the feeling tackle Kirk Barton described yesterday when he spoke of what it was like for him after the 25-22 loss to Texas last season in Ohio Stadium.
"The feeling of being in the locker room after the Texas game and taking your jersey off, I mean it’s like you got hit by a car or something and you’re done," Barton said. "I mean, you’re done. Because last year we really had very high expectations and week two, they were kind of bashed. We finished well, but it wasn’t what we wanted."
Before we go too far down this road, it’s important to make this clear: Barton is glad OSU is playing Texas. OSU coach Jim Tressel is glad the Buckeyes are playing Texas. Just about everybody around here, including me, is glad that former OSU athletic director Andy Geiger wasn’t shy about scheduling mammoth intersectional matchups such as this one.
At the moment, it might be impossible to find anyone who wishes the Buckeyes were lining up against Akron or Toledo on Saturday instead of Texas with the possible exception of a mid-major athletic director who’s having trouble paying his bills.
It’s just that the Buckeyes, from a commen sense perspective, could probably dine on a nice mid-major pork chop this week, run the table in the Big Ten and make it to the national championship game, without taking this risk.
Tressel, to his credit, said he doesn’t care.
"We’re also always going to be part of a marquee intersectional matchup … Those things about running the table and having risks and all that, shoot, we’ve got a good league," he said. "There’s not too many people that have run the table in our league lately. So absolutely I like being a part of this."
But again, and I know this is getting old, just about everyone "likes" it. It helped Texas coach Mack Brown win a national championship last season, and he still doesn’t sound sure that it’s a wise move.
"There’s a huge risk-reward," Brown said. "The way it worked out, if we had lost that (Ohio State) game we could not have played for the national championship, probably. … What I’d like to see, if these two schools are doing it (playing each other), I’d like to see other teams do it as well, so there’s not so much risk in playing outside your conference."
It’s obvious that lots of other people are scared, for just the reasons stated. In a system that ultimately gives only two teams a shot at winning it all, a team that is lucky to start No. 10 in the polls, can be out before the season has barely started.
Fun? Oh, yeah. Right now, you couldn’t remove all those smiles with a jackhammer.
"It doesn’t hurt that you know you’re the game," Barton said. "Saturday night … you’re the game … ABC … high definition. Everyone’s watching you. It’s your stage, and it will either make you or break you."
But is it a good idea to play a game that can make you or break you on Sept. 10?
It is if you win.
Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch
.
[email protected]
Dispatch
Tressel votes Texas No. 1
Motivation to beat Longhorns is not lacking after 2005
By Ken Gordon
The Columbus Dispatch
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
</IMG>FILE PHOTOJim Tressell, left, congratulated Texas head coach Mack Brown after the Longhorns' victory last year at Ohio Stadium.
Ric Flair and Jim Tressel think alike. Go figure.
The two men couldn't be more different. Flair is a professional wrestler, flamboyant and colorful, who in his heyday sported a flowing mane of blond hair.
Tressel is Ohio State's football coach, strait-laced and understated, whose short, graying hair lines up as neatly as hash marks.
But the two may share the same philosophy. This was apparent yesterday, when the coach of college football's top-ranked team revealed that he voted for OSU's opponent this week, Texas, as the No. 1 team on his poll ballot.
Never mind that 13 other coaches agreed with Tressel, putting the Longhorns a close second. They also are second in the Associated Press poll.
It seemed calculated, particularly because Tressel volunteered the information with no prompting. He wanted his team to know it.
"(They're) the defending champions, I've got them ranked No. 1 on our ballot because I think they deserve that," Tressel said. "I think they deserve that top to bottom. I think they deserve that from a program standpoint."
Told of this, Buckeyes offensive tackle Kirk Barton did not flinch.
"It doesn't bother me," Barton said. "Like Ric Flair said, 'If you want to be the man, you've got to beat the man.' "
Sure enough, that quote is the first thing that pops up on the home page of ricflair.com.
And Barton gets the point: "Right now, (the Longhorns are) 1-0, defending (national) champions, so it doesn't bother me at all."
Credit Tressel with another method of motivation. Last year, the coaching staff put signs up all over the OSU locker room prior to its game against Iowa. They reminded the Buckeyes of the 33-7 shellacking they took in Iowa City in 2004.
It worked as OSU cruised 31-6.
This year, the tactic was much more subtle, but the message wasn't lost on quarterback Troy Smith. After being around Tressel now for four-plus years, he's starting to recognize a ploy as well as he reads a Cover-2 defense.
"I think that's more of a subliminal thing," Smith said, chuckling softly. "There's something behind why he said that. He keeps you on your toes. He's going to stay a couple steps ahead of you regardless, but he said that and meant that for a reason."
The thing is, the Buckeyes don't need any extra motivation for this week. Many of them have spent a year wallowing in the misery of a 25-22 loss to Texas in Columbus last September.
Barton said he has watched the tape of that game "probably 50 times, because you want to remember that feeling. That's the feeling that motivates you."
Defensive end Jay Richardson also said he has watched the tape numerous times, sometimes turning it off before Longhorns receiver Limas Sweed caught the winning pass with 2:37 remaining.
"It just burns at you, eats at you," Richardson said. "All you want to do is play them right away and redeem yourself."
Defensive tackle Quinn Pitcock said there were no signs up in the locker room, although he added, "they may be putting stuff up there right now."
Probably not. Tressel has told his team they're No.. 2 in his book. That, plus the Buckeyes' almost visceral desire for revenge, should be plenty.
As safety Brandon Mitchell said, "It hurt so bad to lose to them last year, I just want to go down there. … and make them feel the same way that we felt."
Dispatch
OSU messed with Texas — and it hasn’t forgotten
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Todd Jones
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
</IMG> Texas fans reported poor behavior by Ohio State fans last year, but many expect the visitors to be shown Southern hospitality this time around.
AUSTIN, Texas — He wore a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Locked and Loaded" as he stood atop his burnt orange and white school bus, the one that cost $85,000 to remodel, the one with the 8-foot-wide steer horns mounted on the hood.
Below him were hundreds of University of Texas football fans tailgating on a city parking lot in the hot morning sun before the Longhorns played their seasonopener Saturday against North Texas.
"It is going to be chaos," Austin native Bobby Ugiansky said of the expected scene this Saturday when the Ohio State football team plays the defending national champion Texas Longhorns.
"We hope everybody understands tailgate etiquette. We don’t want any confrontations," Ugiansky said. "I would like to hope most Texas folks are polite folks."
The Austin chapter of the Ohio State University Alumni Association estimates as many as 40,000 OSU fans will come to Austin this week, even though the school was granted only 4,000 tickets for what many locals consider the mostanticipated Texas home game since the Longhorns began playing football in 1893.
So how will Texas rooters receive the expected invasion of OSU fans?
"These guys are real nice people," said OSU alum Jim Guy, of Dallas, mingling with Texas fans Saturday while wearing a Buckeyes golf shirt and hat. "I think they’ll have a great attitude and be very welcoming."
Ben Johnson, an OSU alum from Newark, echoed that sentiment.
"It’s a good party down here," he said. "They’re very friendly and welcoming. I thought I was going to get a lot of heckling, but they’ve been nice. They’ve been saying ‘Good luck’ and ‘Come drink with us.’ Everybody is inviting me back for (this) week’s tailgate."
Many Texas fans, however, are still upset about what they say they experienced last year in Columbus while attending the Longhorns’ 25-22 victory over Ohio State in the first-ever game between the two powerhouse programs.
"They were so rude," Texas student Amanda Brennan said. "I have never been anywhere like that. Even Arkansas fans weren’t that rude. We were walking to our car after the game and there was a chair that had been thrown through the windshield of a van with Texas plates."
"I had unprovoked cursing of my mother on High Street," Texas alum Chris McDermand said. "It made me feel really, really sorry for Michigan fans. If we got treated that poorly, I can only imagine how Michigan fans get treated. They’re nuts."
Texas coach Mack Brown has a different, nicer recollection of his team’s visit to Columbus last year.
"The Ohio State fans, their coaching staff and the (university) officials treated us very well," he said. "I didn’t have one bad word said to me."
OSU President Karen A. Holbrook, however, received several dozen complaints from Texas fans after last year’s game. She responded to the e-mails personally and made a public apology.
One of Holbrook’s responses ended up on a blog on the Austin American-Statesman newspaper’s Web site: "We have been working very hard to change a culture from one that is disrespectful to one that is welcoming. Obviously there is still much work to do."
OSU Athletics Director Gene Smith said last year that he received about a dozen e-mails from angry Texas fans complaining about foul-mouthed, violent, drunken OSU fans who harassed them, mostly after the night game.
Smith responded to the e-mails with apologies and said rude fans did not represent the majority of fans who attend Buckeyes games.
"I don’t think they’ll be received well here after last year," said Eric Kaelin, who took a radio job in Austin two years ago after working 12 years at WBNS-AM. "There is no love lost here for the reception they got up there. It’s all anybody talked about (on Austin radio) for weeks. They talked about what a horrible experience it was and how it wasn’t goodnatured."
"It was great until after the game," said Brett Ratliff, of Dallas. "We had a ball, but after the game the crowd turned nasty on us. We had to get out of there before we got beaten up. I was a little surprised myself. It was a little bit rough. As far as what happens after this game, who knows? "
Ratliff smiled after that comment. Others made light of the topic, too, when told that the OSU Alumni Association paid $10,000 to rent the 16,000-seat Erwin Center on the Texas campus, near the football stadium, for a pregame party Saturday afternoon.
"I think it’s a good thing. The Ohio State people will have somewhere to go where it’ll be safe for them," said Dee Dee Anderson, manager of Scholz Beer Garten, a historical landmark that opened in 1899 and a popular hangout a few blocks from Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
Upon arrival, OSU fans will see a 5-foot-by-10-foot banner above the escalator heading down to the baggage-claim area at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport: "Welcome, Texas and Visiting Fans! Texas Fans, Make Us Proud."
This year, UT kicked off a good-behavior campaign, with the theme "Texas fans make us proud" printed on T-shirts, cups and the stadium’s new scoreboard.
"This is an area we can be No. 1 in," Texas men’s athletics director DeLoss Dodds told the American-Statesman last month. "We’ve got Ohio State coming in. We need to show them how to handle this part of sport. They’ve got some great people coming in. There were some issues up there, obviously, and we don’t want issues in Austin, Texas. We want to do it the right way."
Indeed, Texas fans say they intend to make Ohio State fans feel at home — sort of.
"They’ll be received very well," said J.D. Turner, a Texas senior. "Texas hospitality is everything; that stereotype is true for a reason. There will be a few bad apples, but we’re cordial. It’s a good group of fans here." [email protected]
Upvote
0
What will you guys do when Xray is gone
We lost nine guys! What's the big deal?
