Several sports outlet talking heads and writing hands have made the obvious observation over the past couple of days that Buckeye fans have probably “never devoted so much time to obsessing over someone else’s foot” since Chris Wells dropped to the Ohio Stadium turf in pain after a mysterious injury to one of his giant getaway sticks. Maybe that’s the case for the majority, but it’s not the case for me. A quick story –
Several years ago on a humid Chicago summer afternoon, a friend of mine was walking down Belmont Ave near his apartment when a totally ordinary-looking stranger stopped him to ask where he bought his sandals, and that he was looking to buy a similar pair. He answered him, and figured that was that, until the stranger quickly complimented him on his “beautiful feet” and before my buddy could respond, the guy offered to wash them. Now, I know what you’re thinking – “sweet, a free foot wash” – but surprisingly, my buddy’s instincts were to respectfully decline and quickly use those beauties to get as far away as possible. So while Beanie’s foot has been on my mind too, there are just some foot incidents that you cannot unhear or unremember.
Yeah, so prior to l’affair du pied it was business as usual against the Penguins, whose financially-driven presence in Ohio Stadium served as valuable preparation for those Big Ten or Southern California teams coming up on the schedule that are stocked with I-AA talent or a new quarterback running a completely foreign scheme…wait a second, that might actually come in handy this year. Beanie’s first touchdown ended with a Usain Bolt like slowing as he crossed the finish line. It was a long run made possible by giant holes created by the offensive line, not too dissimilar from the beginning of the LSU game. The subsequent drive was derailed in the red zone by a false start, resulting in a field goal, also not too dissimilar from the beginning of the LSU game. Then ultimately the best weapon on the team was taken out of the game by an inexplicable injury, which was right out of what transpired just following the only palatable portion of the Glendale molesting. Some of you have moved on; I just wish I had the strength.
Apparently, the folks that brought you no instant replays for several years on the world’s largest useless video monitor have mercifully decided that it is in the home team’s best interest – as well as the average, interested fan with a working aptitude of football – to finally show footage of plays after they are run. This has been a long time coming and gives many of us one less thing to gripe about. Before we get too congratulatory, it is also worth pointing out that often in life, you cannot take a step forward without taking one or two back, and with that it must be mentioned that the PA announcer’s new and repeated use of, “…and that’s another Ohio State…FIRST DOWN!” is better suited for stadiums where the home team gaining ten yards is an unexpected novelty, like in South Bend. It immediately jumps into the top ten dumbest things one can experience in a Big Ten stadium, falling between Penn State’s crackly lion roar and Northwestern’s crackly wildcat roar – both of which sound a lot more like toilet flushes than animal sounds.
Ohio State does not need that kind of high school stupidity in its stadium; there’s more than enough of it vomiting in alleys around campus. This facetiously jovial announcement is totally unwarranted, sort of like your grandfather listening to R. Kelly or the Pope wearing a nose ring. It has got to go, but if its departure means the loss of replays, then I guess, “that’s another…THING WE’LL LEARN TO LIVE WITH!” Look at it this way, Ohio State already owns a pretend radio play-by-play paycheck collector in Paul Keels (did you catch Aaron Pryor enter the game on multiple occasions Saturday?) and now the program of Woody Hayes, Chic Harley, Hopalong Cassady, Eddie George and Jim Tressel is borrowing crowd noise boosting tactics from the Indiana Hoosiers.
What is there to say about the actual game, really? Who looked good, bad, new wrinkles, formations, that mysterious Pryor kid whom Keels repeatedly confused for the old boxer from his hometown? The Buckeyes played against a bunch of blocking sleds interspersed with marginally talented players. There was nothing to gain from this game except for a sunburn and the feeling that you should have just written a $62 check directly to Youngstown State University with “you’re welcome, love Jim” in the memo line.
On the positive, this Saturday’s gimme with Ohio U (I do embrace playing one in-state team annually, preferably of the same football division) is for victory number 800, all-time. There would be a lot of appropriate opponents for this landmark victory, but there’s something special about having it happen in Ohio Stadium and against Ohio U, the culprits behind the notorious “The” riding shotgun in front of “Ohio State University.” That win will put the Buckeyes in rarified air with the likes of Notre Dame, Texas and other legendary programs with a history of ringers on their schedules. The Bobcats will provide one final opportunity for the Buckeyes to firmly establish remdedial football familiarity before heading to California to play the most consistent big game team of the century, a title that was previously held but then relinquished by Ohio State in Glendale, AZ.
Back to Michigan, heading into the season there were a lot of things known about this team, under new management for the first time since 1969: We knew there would be a massive learning curve at QB (check). We knew they would run the spread (check). We knew they would not scare anybody with their running game (check). We knew they would struggle against mobile quarterbacks (hey, it’s still Michigan – check). What we did not expect was there to be any issue in regard to conditioning; as the legend of Mike Barwis played out all summer, leading anyone who noticed to believe that Michigan football was going to be younger, but leaner and faster, immediately. The good news for Michigan is that they made great adjustments at halftime and essentially shut down Utah in the second half. The bad news is that even the announcers in the press box noted, in the second quarter: “You’ve got to question the conditioning of the Michigan front four.” The worst news is that they lost at home in Game One to another non-BCS school for the second year in a row.
Final thing – football is mercifully back, which also means the return of the SEC chant after any Southeastern Conference victory, whether it is against our beloveds nine damned, dirty times in bowl games, versus paper tiger Clemson in Atlanta or after victories over any of the hyphenated colleges that routinely dote its teams pre-conference schedules. Is there a more pathetic public display of insecurity in American sports today that this? It is the stadium equivalent of “O’Doyle Rules” and one of these days, one of these bowl games, I’d love to have the opportunity to give it a try under the right circumstances. But until then…these feet ain’t gonna wash themselves. Time to get crackin’.
Ramzy
Ohio Highlight Film
