Many Ohio State fans are disappointed by Saturday’s 28-21 defeat at Columbus to Illinois. It’s time to look past that because this week it’s the renewal of college football’s greatest rivalry, Ohio State vs. Michigan. It’s so important that HBO devoted one of its sports documentaries to it, debuting it last night. Although I understand a little luster is off the game since both schools lost last weekend, it’s still a happening.
Even though the Buckeyes’ national championship hopes most likely went away with the loss last weekend, they still will go to the Rose Bowl with a win against the Wolverines in the Big House. This is just another reason to hate the BCS, it has made a trip to Pasadena a disappointment. Until this ridiculous system of deciding a national champ was enacted, going to the “Granddaddy of Them All” was the goal of every Ohio State football player.
Ohio State has had a very good season in 2007. If at the beginning of the year, you were told the Bucks would finish the regular season 11-1 and go to the Rose Bowl, you would have accepted that. Troy Smith and the highflying offense were gone, and OSU would have to depend on its defense to win this season. Remember, they started the season ranked anywhere from 12th to 15th in the polls, so they weren’t supposed to compete for a spot in the BCS Championship Game. But, from the middle of the season until last Saturday, that’s exactly what they were doing.
QB Todd Boeckman has taken criticism for last week’s loss and granted, he did not play well. I even heard some talk show hosts saying it was a shame coach Jim Tressel has not developed another signal caller, because he had no alternative when Boeckman struggled. I guess it’s what have you done for me lately with these morons. Boeckman led the team to a 10-0 record, and the first time he plays poorly you are looking to bench him? It’s not like the Buckeyes lost by three touchdowns, they lost by seven points. And Boeckman wasn’t on the field when Illinois ran the last eight minutes of the game off the clock.
It’s also not like OSU lost to Minnesota or Indiana, Illinois is a very good football team. Ron Zook and Tressel are the only coaches in the Big Ten who understand that speed wins in today’s college football, not strength. Zook built his team in Florida on that premise, and he has followed suit with the Illini. So Tressel and Ohio State’s biggest advantage in the league was nullified because the opponent was built similarly to the Buckeyes.
It just seems like everyone thinks Ohio State let them down instead of looking forward to another possible victory over Michigan. This is what college football is all about: Back to back Big Ten titles, a win over your hated rival, a chance to send Lloyd Carr into retirement with four straight losses to the scarlet and gray, A Rose Bowl berth, and a third straight BCS Bowl game. That’s not anything to be disappointed about.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 
what really stinks is the double-standard the bcs rankings have done to the buckeyes following their first loss as compared to other teams. case in point, when then undefeated and # 2 ranked lsu lost their first game, they only fell from 2nd to 4th in back of just the 3 remaining undefeated teams and in front of all the other 1-loss teams, but when osu lost, they fell all the way from 1st all the way down to 7th behind all the other 1-loss teams. why is that??? you can’t tell me that teams like west virginia and missouri are better than osu. west virginia plays in the big east which is nowhere near a better league than the big ten and missouri plays in the big 12 which is at best on par with the big ten and if it wasn’t for oklahoma, they would be an even worse conference. after all, look at all the patsies that conference has like nebraska. it was nice to see oregon lose so the bucks will certainly move up at least one spot and if anybody else loses, they might just get back in the bcs hunt. we can only hope.