Eleven Warriors

Johnny, this article has renewed my faith in OSU and everything about it. I didn't think a couple silly vids would put things back into perspective so quickly, but by Jove, you've done it.

WITCHCRAFT I SAY!!! Those UGA students merely disappeared into thin air while crossing the street!! They LOGICALLY weigh as much as a duck!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpMjakNhZTc

We will be that medicore Cap One team this year vs. the #2 SEC team. 

The real question is: Which coach would MR COOL ICE prefer?

i have been too upset to read anything in the wisco aftermath.  can someone give me cliffs on the rest of the season?

to win the B10 we need to win out and have iowa beat MSU and wisco?

to go to a BCS bowl other than the rose (assuming MSU is not in the MNC) we need to win out and have iowa beat either of them?

I can't imagine tressels's supposed most talented team ever not being in a BCS bowl at 11-1.  sucks we dont play sparty...we'd crush them

I can recall the Cooper years very, very distinctly.  I'm glad they are gone; but not because of the failures against Michigan, but because of the off-the-field stuff.   I can handle losses.  I can't handle shame.  Better look at that South Carolina loss, the last of Coop's if you want to feel ashamed of your Buckeyes.  I've never felt like that while Tress was coach.

Oh..and by the way, this isn't Tress' best squad.  That group was the one that beat down ND in the Fiesta....too bad they weren't fully together at the beginning of that season.

"That was a wicked googly! Watch as this backa droives roight inta that posh bastard before he releases tha futbol! He definitely deserves a red card penalty for that. Isn't that a load of bollocks Liam?"

"Last night as I tried to distance myself from the anguish of losing to the Badgers, my mind began to wonder.

I recalled the devastating, colossal losses of Jim Tressel's career: Michigan 2003, Iowa '04, Texas '05, Illinois '07, USC '08 & '09, and of course, Florida and LSU. Each year owns an epic failure of this kind, where, less these events, another trophy might be collecting dust in the Woody Hayes Center; where each is punctuated with a theme of either one-sidedness or a grasping at greatness, both only to end with devastation. Cut to Ryan Hamby bobbling a pass in the end zone. Without much effort, it is as if each was made anew.

It is easy to follow the familiar path of indignation to the size of the loss and the unaffected demeanor of Tressel. And further dissatisfaction with another national exhibition filed under "Overrated". Dissatisfied with the disparity between expectations and execution. 21-0, two minutes into the second quarter. The number ONE team in the country. That really says it all. If you can't handle this, you don't deserve a chance to embarrass the entire state of Ohio against Boise State in January.

But as reason sets in, I remember two coaches at mid-field—reminding me of so many other, similar exchanges. I remember the now fired Tim Brewster embarrassing himself after a blowout loss last week, a thrown headset in Tennessee, Butch Jones's red face in Cincinnati, a sputtering John L. Smith at half-time in 2005, the rantings of Lloyd Carr, and yes, even the scene of a Clemson player on the sidelines of the 1978 Gator Bowl. Coaches with a style and demeanor more synonymous with a drunken soccer fan than someone who may represent me, or my school, or my favorite team, or my state.

Cut to another scene, as Jim Tressel walks across a field to provide genuine congratulations to his counterpart, and then go single out his opponent's quarterback and congratulate him, and then go back to the locker room and pick up the pieces. Then pick up the pieces when he gets home to Columbus. And do it again on media day. Call another play. Run another practice. Play another game. Guide another season to its close.

Suddenly my dissatisfaction has faded. 11-1 and a bowl game. Beat Michigan. Share a Big Ten title, maybe. Maybe watch an old friend take Sparty to a title game. Get Pryor back next year and reload. If he stays, he breaks every offensive record at OSU. Maybe a Heisman. Maybe another shot at the title.

In any event, we’ll always have a dog in the fight. A light of constant strain, whose staying power is seldom questioned, and an image which transcends trite idioms like good sportsmanship, mostly because he embodies that quality to a degree that might convince you he invented it.

Krenzel, Smith, Pryor, Doss, Gamble, Hawk, whose face do you remember best? I remember a grey-haired, unassuming coach with a headset, vigorously chewing gum, and wearing something called a sweater-vest."

http://blog.dispatch.com/wholf/2010/10/the_reality_of_the_situation_1.shtml

First of all the USC 08 game was ours for the taking.  We were as good or better than USC even without Beanie.  To me that was a major realization that Tressel had some significant faults and his coordinators weren't all that amazing.  

Secondly, the Big Ten has sucked.  And I mean look at the coaching withing the conference and innovation.  That's where the SEC has had us beaten for the past 10 or so years, even the Pac-10 of the past 5-8 years (Carroll, Sarkisian, Riley, Kelly, Stoops).  Tressel has been good, but somewhat unchallenged.  Now, I don't mean to say that if he had been challenged more within the conference he'd have been given a pink slip by now, not at all.  What I mean is that if Tress's OSU teams of the past 5 years had been challenged more within the conference we would not have seen those humiliating losses to Florida, LSU and USC. 

I really think that Bama and Texas, etc, generally compete in more competitive conferences (at least they've had a goddamn championship game) and so losing a game within the conference is more easily accepted or understood.  Whereas when you hardly work up a sweat within your conference then totally shit the bed in a bowl or a big non-conference game it's becomes clear that something is amiss.