Article published October 19, 2008
Buckeyes expose MSU as frauds
EAST LANSING, Mich. - It is that time of year when, historically, Ohio State starts to nail it down and Michigan State starts to mail it in.
Yesterday's game at Spartan Stadium didn't figure to follow that long-established trend because the Buckeyes had been looking like anything but a long-established power. And the Spartans, with a string of six wins and the nation's best runner, were supposed to be different this time around. Tougher. More determined. Not frauds. Not the same six-week wonders that end up in the Champs Sports Bowl, or some such place, wondering where it all went wrong.
Well, here's where it all went wrong:
Terrelle Pryor. Beanie Wells. An Ohio State offensive line that hadn't been itself and knew it had to prove otherwise.
The Buckeyes' 45-7 win, by far their most impressive to date, sets up the biggest game of the season next Saturday when Penn State comes to Ohio Stadium for a meeting of the Big Ten's only unbeaten teams.
"This sure feels better than last week," OSU coach Jim Tressel said, referring to a 16-3 sleep-walk past Purdue. "But we can't walk out of here with our heads in the clouds because that team coming in next week is good. I don't know exactly where our team is, but we'll find out next Saturday night against the Nittany Lions. We've got a long way to go and only have until next Saturday to get there."Do you get the impression that Tress has Penn State on his mind?
Well, it's not like Sparty preyed on his mind for long. It was 21-0 by the end of the first quarter. Pryor ran 18 yards for the first score, he threw to
Brian Robiskie for the second, and Wells went one yard for the third after a 56-yard hookup between Pryor and Brian Hartline, who made a marvelous catch between two defenders, was foiled just short of the end zone. Another Wells run made it 28-0 at halftime, by which time the Bucks had 274 total yards and the Frauds had 60 yards and two of their eventual five turnovers.
Just when people were questioning the capability of OSU's offense, the Buckeyes played breakout while the Spartans, with running back Javon Ringer held to season lows in attempts (16) and yards (67), played wipeout.
Tressel may have suspected for some 24 hours how this game was going to play out. Before the team left Columbus on Friday, Pryor knocked on the coach's office door and said, "If I don't move the ball down the field, you should bench me."
Tressel said he had never before had a player suggest such a thing. It's possible he has never before had a player like Pryor, who showed in the first half, especially, just how dangerous he is with an option package, how shifty he can be in reading his blockers and how explosive he is on the edges.
Pryor, who obviously set his bar high, finished with 188 yards of total offense. Wells rushed 31 times for 140 yards. The numbers would have been even bigger and even better, perhaps, if the big early lead had not caused Tressel to employ what some media members like to call his "prevent offense." Remember, he and MSU coach Mark Dantonio are close friends.
Before he buttoned it up, though, the Buckeyes had made their points.
And the offensive line was especially outspoken.
A week ago, as the story goes, after watching film of the game against Purdue, tight end Rory Nicol told his linemates that "we played like girls."
The Buckeyes were far more masculine yesterday.
"We had to prove that wasn't us," center/guard Jim Cordle said. "That was our mindset. I guess we just realized we weren't playing as well as we can and certainly not good enough to win the Big Ten. We had to come out and get emotional and pick up some momentum for the rest of the schedule. We are a great team but we hadn't showed it. We had to prove it.
"Javon Ringer said that in a perfect world he'd like to beat the Buckeyes by 30. Well, our world is the Big Ten. Now, we'll find out whose world it really is, ours' or Penn State's."
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