The Buckeyes Have It
What would Bo have said? One day. I leave you guys alone for one lousy day, and you forget everything I taught you.
Bo Schembechler would not have expressed his displeasure to his Michigan Wolverines, who rallied repeatedly and courageously last Saturday before bowing to Ohio State for the third straight season and the fifth time in six years.Rather, the former Michigan coach (page 46), who died the day before the second-ranked Wolverines scored 39 points but gave up 42 to the top-ranked Buckeyes, would have expressed incredulity to both teams, who combined for 900 yards of total offense.
This annual matchup, known in the heartland as The Game, was never more heated than during the so-called Ten Year War (1969--78), when Bo clashed with WoodyHayes, his Ohio State bête noir. In that decade The Game featured all of eight touchdown passes. On Saturday in the Horseshoe there were six—four by Buckeyes quarterback Troy Smith, who should feel free to begin composing his Heisman acceptance speech. Michigan, which came into the game boasting the nation's stoutest run defense, was gashed for 187 rushing yards. Ohio State, which had led the nation in scoring defense (7.8 points per game), gave up five touchdowns and a field goal. Expecting a pitchers' duel, the 105,708 fans jammed into Ohio Stadium got Boise State–Hawaii instead.
This One versus Two matchup, which doubled as the Big Ten title game and a play-in to the national championship game, was saturated with significance and import before Schembechler's death. The loss of the single most beloved figure in the 127-year history of Michigan football introduced an X factor to a matchup that had already been exhaustively dissected and analyzed.
Having retired in 1990, Schembechler kept an office in the Wolverines' football complex, which bears his name. His death, a day after delivering a pep talk to the players, had to affect the team's equilibrium. "It affected me," said defensive end LaMarr Woodley, a frequent visitor to the old coach's office. "He coached me up Wednesday of this week," said the senior, "telling me how I need to get the defense going."
It was Schembechler who hired the current Michigan coach, Lloyd Carr, as an assistant in 1980. Carr, to his credit, declined to deliver a win-one-for-the-Gipper speech—to use the death of his friend and mentor "as a motivational deal. That would have been to dishonor him," said Carr, a notorious stoic who was nearly overcome by emotion in his postgame press conference. Instead, he told the Wolverines that the best way to honor Schembechler was "to play in away that would have made him proud."
They did that, those ghastly defensive statistics notwithstanding. Despite trailing 21–7, then 28–14, then 35–24, even 42–31, the visitors stubbornly refused to go away. Like Schembechler, who had his first heart attack on the eve of his first Rose Bowl 37 years ago and was fortunate, according to his physician, to have made it to his 77th birthday, they would not go gentle into that good night.This game was not decided until Ohio State wideout Ted Ginn Jr. gathered in Michigan's onside kickoff with 2:16 left.
It took the Buckeyes three snaps to drain the clock and begin a celebration so raucous that it was easy to forget that they still need one more victory, on Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz., to clinch the team's second national title in five seasons. The question now becomes, Who takes the field against them?
News of Schembechler's death went public around noon eastern time. At 1:30 that afternoon Ohio State coach Jim Tressel stood before his team, discussing the sad news. "I wanted to emphasize to them that Bo was a Buckeye" before he took the Michigan job, Tressel told SI. "He was born in this state, coached here under Woody, got his master's degree here. I wanted them to fully understand his ties" to OSU.
After a moment of silence at the Horseshoe, the crowd on Saturday remained standing for a gracious tribute. "The Big Ten has lost a legend and icon," intoned the P.A. announcer. "Ohio State has lost an alumnus and friend."
The desire to pay respects to this "icon" wrong-footed some Buckeyes fans, who are in the habit of decanting anti-Wolverines bile at this time of year. They were also quieted by the crisp, seven-play, 80-yard scoring drive directed by Michigan quarterback Chad Henne on the game's opening possession. This was our first clue that the Wolverines' game plan was not an homage to Bo: Henne passed on four of his first six snaps.
Then, the deluge. Using the pass to set up the run, Ohio State did what no team had done all season, mulching the proud Michigan defense and scoring touchdowns on four of its five first-half possessions.
"Our film study showed us that we might have our best chance if we spread them out," said Buckeyes wideout Anthony Gonzalez, whose eight-yard touchdown grab gave his team its 28–14 lead just before halftime.
On that play and many others, OSU lined up in a five-receiver set. Such formations are thought to be risky. Not, says Buckeyes right tackle Kirk Barton, if your quarterback is Troy Smith. "We just have to block the five most dangerous [rushers]," Barton, holding an unlit Cuban cigar, said afterward. Yes, that often leaves a sixth rusher unblocked. Then it's up to Smith to unload the ball before the defender unloads on him. For the third straight year the senior was masterly against Michigan, completing 29 of 41 passes for 316 yards and those four scores.
Smith was sacked once and hit hard half a dozen times. On Ohio State's first drive he was leveled by Woodley, after which the two had a spirited exchange. On the next play, a third-and-16, Smith made a different statement, snapping off a 27-yard rope to wideout Roy Hall, who also caught the one-yard TD pass that capped the drive.
Some years the Heisman ceremony packs drama and suspense. This is not one of those years. Smith had the trophy wrapped up by halftime, at which point he'd completed 21 of 26 passes for 241 yards and three scores. Even more jaw-dropping were the Buckeyes' rushing numbers. Against a unit that had held Notre Dame to four yards on the ground; that had bullied Penn State into the humiliating realm of negative integers (the Nittany Lions ran for minus-14 yards); that had yielded 29.9 rushing yards per game, Ohio State netted those 187 yards.
On its heels on account of Smith's aerial assault, the defense surrendered touchdown runs of 52 and 56 yards. On the first of those, said Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel, freshman Chris Wells "broke a tackle at the line, and everyone else was blocked." The 56-yarder was the work of junior Antonio Pittman, who zoomed behind, pulling left guard Steve Rehring, a 6'8", 329-pound sophomore who noticed, upon hitting the hole, that "it was already wide enough for four of me to fit in, so I knew Pitt was going to get through."
The Wolverines weren't finished. Trailing by two touchdowns at halftime, the team that had spent this season watching vignettes from Cinderella Man lifted itself off the canvas. With a little help from the home team. Michigan converted a pair of third-quarter takeaways by Alan Branch (the junior defensive tackle intercepted a pass, then recovered a muffed snap) into 10 points. Suddenly, with 14:41 left, it was a game—The Game—again.
A second botched snap gave the Wolverines, down 35–31, a chance to take the lead. Instead, they went three-and-out. Smith responded by directing an 11-play drive that ended with the game-clinching touchdown.
That scoring pass went to sophomore wideout Brian Robiskie, who struck a storklike pose while making sure he got one foot down in the end zone on the 13-yard reception. One of the key moments in the drive had come nine plays earlier. During a stoppage in play, Buckeyes coaches decided to heed the advice of Bebe.
Every three months or so, Tressel told SI after the game, "I get a nice letter from an older lady from Akron. Her name is Bebe." In her most recent missive Bebe wondered, according to Tressel, "what ever happened to that Statue of Liberty play," which Ohio State had run with such success last season.
What indeed? At last Thursday's staff meeting Tressel mentioned the letter, and he asked, "What if we got the Statue of Liberty in this week?"
On first-and-10 at his own 28, Smith whirled to his left, cocked his arm and followed through, but where was the ball? It had been plucked from his hand by Pittman, who went 26 yards around right end.
It is an image the popular, populist Tressel enjoys cultivating: that he is a mere steward of a program that belongs to all Ohioans. The truth, of course, is that he can be a ruthless micromanager—a trait he shares with virtually every other great coach. Tressel's biggest accomplishment this season may have been taking the troupe of stars he has on offense and persuading them to share. They have followed the lead of Smith, who, when answering questions about the Heisman or his record against Michigan, defaults into a mode that Ohio State beat writers refer to as RoboTroy. The Heisman? "It's a team award." His record against the Wolverines? "I'm not 3–0 against them," he said after the game. "The team is."
Smith spent the week before the game giving props to everyone from the scout team to the program's academic counselors. He upped the ante afterward, declaring, "I love every one of my teammates with the deepest passion you can feel for another person."
While the Buckeyes shared the depth of his passion, they had no such strong feelings about whom they should face in Glendale. "I could care less," said Gonzalez.
Should USC lose to Notre Dame this Saturday—or fail to beat the Irish as convincingly as Michigan did on Sept. 16 (the final was 47–21)—the Wolverines will argue, with some plausibility, that they deserve another crack at Ohio State. They will meet resistance from some pollsters, who would be bored by a rematch, and Buckeyes backers, who will counter, with justification, that forcing their players to strap it on for a rematch with their most bitter rival is less than fair.
That said, it's tough to see anybody beating this Ohio State team. That's what college fans everywhere can take away from last weekend, when a great light of the sport was extinguished, and a young and rising star glowed brighter still.