The Buckeye Blog

“Around the Oval” posted some good Ohio State links tonight but a sure winner has to be Double Deuce’s PSU vs OSU drinking game (not that a Ohio State fan needs any extra encouragement).
A couple of key penalties:

Drink once: Everytime they play highlights from PSU’s victory over OSU last year.

Drink again: When they make any reference to the “White Out”.

2 drinks: When the camera zooms in on Joe Paterno

Chug: When the graphic about how long Joe Pa has been coaching is displayed
(You know it’s coming)

Although that alone would be enough to put most under the table, I would like to add few more:

Do a…ahem…shot: Every time the name Maurice Clarette is mentioned, (this is ESPN so it may get rough)

Pass a shot to the person sitting next to you: Every time a comparison is made between Troy Smith and Brady Quinn.

Drink 2 shots: Every time Herbstreet hides his true loyalities to Ohio State

and finally:

Everybody Drink: Every time the College Gameday crew tries to make it look like this will actually be a close game.

According to The Ozone, Ohio State offensive linesman T.J. Downing has asked for payback for last year’s Whiteout at Penn State. The plan is for “The Sea of Scarlet” to take over Ohio Stadium.

This is all well and good but every weekend is a Sea of Scarlet, it won’t have the impact of those white shirts and it isn’t very original.

There is no question that paybacks are in order but I don’t know what it is. It may just be having to play in the Shoe. Regardless of what t-shirt fans have on, Ohio Stadium needs to rock.

That, however, shouldn’t be a problem. .

Discuss it in The Buckeye Forum.

I write to you tonight from deep within enemy territory and at the moment, an unsettling quite has come over the normally outspoken Penn State fans. Normally confident, even the staunchest of the Litany Lions remain ill at ease and even seem to concede the coming defeat which is at hand.

Last year was good for Penn State. Students camped outside the stadium in the rain for a week leading up to the game. JoPa was so impressed with the support that he was sending pizza to the tent city that had formed. This of course culminated in what I will grant was one of the greatest demonstrations of home field advantage in college football history, and something I hope to never see again, “The Whiteout.”

Last year, the cards were stacked right for Penn. Penn had an exciting quarterback, a rejuvenated JoPa and most important, the above mentioned “whiteout.”

This year however, there will be no Whiteout. There will be no students camped out in the rain. The new quarterback hasn’t met expectations and JoPa is again, looking like the coach that stayed on a few years too many.

Also, they will be playing in the Shoe where Penn has an 0-6 record since joining the Big Ten.

Talk to the Penn State fans, read their websites and they seem lost. Notre Dame absolutely pounded them leaving them only with the consolation that it was early in the season and they had lost to the number 2 ranked team. Michigan, however, shook what little confidence was left as showed the world how overrated Notre Dame really was.

They did beat up on Youngstown State if that could amount to any sort of confidence boost.
If JoPa has any hope of beating Ohio State, he needs to spend every waking hour this week studying the films from last week’s OSU/Cinci game. As expected, Ohio State was playing down coming off the big win against Texas and looking forward a game to Penn. However, Cinci did give them a good first half.

If anyone knows how to play the Buckeyes, it’s Cinci coach, and former OSU defensive coach Mark Dantonio. Dantonio was able to capitalize at first but eventually, Ohio State adjusted, woke up and it wasn’t much of a match.

When JoPa isn’t studying film, he needs to figure out how to wake his players up. The Shoe is going to be a tough place to play, and with revenge in mind, it will be tougher than usual. Penn State is young, they will be out gunned by the the Smith/Ginn/Gonzo/Tressel/whoever show.

Bottom line, it will take inspired playing/coaching to beat the Buckeyes this weekend. This year, the national championship is Ohio State’s to lose and Tressel isn’t about to let that happen, at home, against Penn State.

So I get this email yesterday from the producer of Channel 10 Columbus “Wall to Wall  Sports” telling me they are “using my email tonight” and that I should contact friends and family so they can set the VCRs. (I sent them a link to this earlier post.)

Since I no longer live in Columbus, I faithfully called Mom and Dad and proudly explained that yes, The Buckeye Blog was making it bigtime.

If you haven’t seen “Wall to Wall Sports” it seems to fit a pretty basic formula for locally produced sports shows. You get a bunch of guys together on a set that looks like a sports bar, feed them pizza and talk sports smack for half an hour.

No problem, at least they will put up a link and it may generate some traffic.

From what I understand, they flashed my prediction of #1 OSU vs #2 UM in Nov. up on the screen but didn’t even give me the benefit of a plug. At least guide your Sunday night, beer drinking, pizza eating audience (not that there’s anything wrong with that) to the web page so they can read the full analysis.

Looking at this week’s poll, I wasn’t too far off.

(Looking for tickets? Try: Ticket Solutions Click Here or:
Stubhub for a wide selection of Ohio State/Michigan Tickets.)

I am going to say it here now and I will claim bragging rights in Nov. if it all comes true. We will see a second regular season game between the number 1 and number 2 ranked schools this year. Ohio State will be ranked 1 when they play Michigan who will be ranked 2.

While they may not make it into the top 5 on Monday, they should be considered. Herbstreet predicts Michigan moving to three but it will be hard.

In order for a historic matchup in Nov., Mich needs to win the rest and win big. They need to prove that they are that good. They also need Notre Dame to play big the rest of the season to prove that they are really the team many said they were.

At this point, I still think that Notre Dame (and especially Quinn) was overrated. Yes, they looked good last year and I still think they beat USC (how often does a fumble turn out to be a game winning play). While they played well in the Fiesta Bowl, they did lose. I don’t know what everyone saw in the off season that created the hype.

Unless of course, you consider that it is Notre Dame and whenever there is an opportunity for hype, Notre Dame will be at the center of it. (Have you seen the deal they get out of the new BCS format?)

In order to prove that Notre Dame is not the overrated team I am claiming them to be, they need to beat USC. Like I said before, they did it last year, this year they need to make it count.

As for USC’s number 4 (or 2) ranking, you can’t tell me that doesn’t have a big heap of last year’s leftovers in it. So far, USC does not look like the team the USC of past years. Yes, they are winning but what have they done so far to earn the top five spot? They ran the score on an unranked team and beat a 19th ranked Nebraska.

USC/Notre Dame will be a tough game and Notre Dame will be away (and we all know how much they love their beloved stadium..I know, an OSU fan should talk) but as long as they can bounce back from today’s loss and play like many say they can, they should be able to give USC a run for their money.

Next to deal with is Auburn. With their win over LSU today, Auburn should move into second place. Although I didn’t see the game, what a defensive slugfest that must have been. They have two big games left with Florida and Georgia. Georgia put up a good game opener against Notre Dame and Fl barely squeaked by Tenn today. I am not convinced that either game tells us much at this point.

Michigan will jump in the polls ahead of Texas this week. It doesn’t matter how many points Texas puts on the board against Rice. Fifty point games may become a rather pathetic pattern for Texas as they try to salvage BCS hopes.

That leaves West Virginia and Louisville. At this point, I’m going to predict that Louisville will come out of that one a winner. It is still a ways off and the season is still young. Louisville had the bus in high gear today and they drove Miami to school. I personally think that Michigan should jump ahead of at least West Virginia if not both. I doubt it will happen though. Both WV and Louisville put up big points this weekend.

Did I mention that Ohio State will need to do their part and win out the rest of their games? I don’t think they need to win big, they just need to win. They already beat the number two ranked team. An undeafted OSU is not a given in any way but the number 1 spot is theirs to lose. Unlike the others, OSU is in complete control of their destiny.

Finally, if Michigan is ranked third, maybe even fourth, and has a good games coming into the OSU matchup, you can’t tell me that the polls won’t give them a little bump just to create what could be called the game of the century? Never in the history of this historic matchup have the teams been ranked 1 and 2 at the kickoff.

So there it is. You heard it here first. If you’re really impressed, I would be glad to be your guest in the Shoe in Nov. (that is if you’ve got the tickets).

Want to add your two cents? Check out the discussion at The Buckeye Forum.

What is a Buckeye fan to do. The past year has been a build up to the rematch that was last weekend. The hype, the intensity, the concern, the national attention…it kind of leaves you hanging doesn’t it.

That brings us to this Sat. when the Buckeye’s take on Cinci. Mentally, this could be a tough game to get up for. The Bucks are coming off what may be the biggest win of the season and meet Penn State in two weekends. And don’t forget, Cinci gave us quite a scare in 02 almost ending our National Championship run.
As much as I want to say this will be a good game, it won’t. Yes, Cinci has former OSU defensive coach Mark Dantonio and he helped invent Tressleball. However, the Smith/Ginn/Gonzo/whoever will be too much for the Cinci Defense.

I wouldn’t look for a run of the scoreboard but everyone should get some playing time.

Unfortunately, I don’t even think the game is on out here in MD. But hey, there are other good games this weekend.

Let me ask, is it possible for both Notre Dame and Michigan to lose?