Buckeye fans have a choice to make
If the system means winning with a spike in the rate of heart attacks, so be it. The operative word here is "winning." If the system means getting publicly flogged by a non-conference powerhouse in primetime, so be it. Nothing helps you get over three losses like 78 wins. You either love Ohio State football as it is, or you leave it where it is.
I reached an epiphany about the Ohio State football program while watching the Buckeyes last-minute victory at Wisconsin on Saturday. What we saw defines the Jim Tressel era. You can choose to love it or leave it.
Love it because you get to root for a clean program dripping with tradition that also happens to win a lot. Or leave it because the team causes unbearable amounts of stress while it wins too close or loses too big, the latter adding unhealthy amounts of sorrow and shame to the tension.
How many times have we seen what transpired in Camp Randall Stadium since Tressel took over? Since he was hired, Ohio State has had an almost mystical power over its Big Ten brethren. Every team in the conference has at least one tale of how it failed to slay a scarlet and gray dragon that looked like it was dead to rights.
This is how Tressel and his staff coach the game and this is how their squads play the game. Have for years, going back to Youngstown State. They will scheme to score and defend just enough to stay in the game until that moment in the fourth quarter when a big drive, play or stop is needed to win the game. More often than not, they make it.
Granted, the system isn't fool-proof.
For starters, it only seems to work against Big Ten programs. Elite teams from superior conferences are immune to the Tressel Trance. When the LSUs and USCs of the world play the Buckeyes, they make everything about the Ohio State football program look simplistic, slow and stupid.
Also, the system serves as a talent equalizer of sorts usually to the benefit of a lesser foe. So there will be several games a season birthing adjectives like "sloppy" and "lackluster" to describe Buckeye efforts. This in turn ignites the ritual railing against the play of the lines, offensive playcalling and defensive scheming from, well, everyone.
For more than 20 years this has been the Tressel way and it has served him and his programs well. No matter what you think, hear, hope or say, it's way past the point of change. Quit expecting it to "progress" or "evolve." It won't, which leads to the fork in the road for fans who finally lost it after the Upchuck at USC.
With their win total approaching 80 games at Ohio State, Tressel and Co. are just fine with the status quo. Fans may fuss and fret about the fact that a conference weakling full of no-names has scored more than the star-powered Ohio State Buckeyes this year (the answer is Iowa at 155, Ohio State at 154) but Tressel won't. He will look at the 5-1, 2-0 record and correctly conclude that points aren't everything.
If the system means winning with a spike in the rate of heart attacks, so be it. The operative word here is "winning." If the system means getting publicly flogged by a non-conference powerhouse in primetime, so be it. Nothing helps you get over three losses like 78 wins. You either love Ohio State football as it is, or you leave it where it is.
The system has also led to a national title, four conference championships and six victories against Michigan. Plus, no team in the conference can boast of a winning record against the Tressel-era Buckeyes.
There is nothing about this program that suggests the future will deviate much from the past. Ohio State will continue to win most of its Big Ten games, though it will not win in the dominating or proficient manner the fans prefer. In fact, many of these games will be nail-biters no matter how much talent the Buckeyes have on the field.
The Buckeyes will continue to beat Michigan losing only once in every three or four contests. Incidentally, this will also represent the average margin of victory.
Tressel and his staff will continue to run a good program the right way that inspires a sense of family and purpose in its players while alienating its fan base with his political behavior towards their representatives in the media.
Unfortunately, this also means that fans should avoid watching the Buckeyes when they play the aforementioned elite teams from superior conferences in primetime. After all, they are who you think they are, love them or leave them.