The Buckeyes are Dunzo

Yesterday's Ohio State 28-21 loss at home to Illinois was described to me by one of my boys as "extremely disappointing." I grew up in Buckeye country, but I never got into the whole Buckeye love thing. In fact, this is not going to be a popular stance in this part of the country, but I find their fan base to be almost as annoying as Red Sox nation. I do love coach Jim Tressel and everything he is about. I love that he owns Michigan. I love the Senatorial way about him and the sweater-vest. The problem is that since Tressel took over for John Cooper, there is a wild pack of insufferable bandwagon Buckeye supporters.

I had several friends head down to Phoenix (or should I say very far west of Phoenix) for the national title game last year. Both Buckeye fans and Florida fans alike, the overwhelming sentiment was that Buckeye fans as a whole were lowest common denominator, drunken buffoons who do nothing other than yell "O-H" at the top of their lungs and didn't know Beanie Wells from David Wells. Now again, I am not talking about every Buckeye fan (this means you Ags), as their is a section of diehard, know what they are talking about, realistic Buckeye fans out there, but they seem to be in the minority. And as I've said on several occasions in the past, the Hang On Sloopy O-H-I-O chant is THE WORST. I lived here for the first 18 years of my life and never heard this chant once until about three years ago. It's like fingernails on the chalkboard to me.

I can't say that I'm all that upset that they lost yesterday, although it would have meant much more had they been undefeated going into Ann Arbor next week on the one year anniversary of Bo Schembechler's death. To me, Illinois did Ohio State a favor. Even if they would have won next week in Ann Arbor, why do the Buckeyes want to go back to the National Title game only to get spanked by an LSU or an Oregon who has much more speed on both sides of the ball? Florida proved it last year, another team would have this year. As my boy Ags put it, the Big Ten is like "The National League." The way the conference is, you can get out undefeated and get to the title game, then get spanked, just like the Colorado Rockies did in the World Series.

So in the meantime, LSU and Oregon will be atop the BCS standings with one loss each, Kansas will be right behind them as the only remaining undefeated BCS school. Hopefully this is the year the BCS gets blown up with seven one-loss teams. If Kansas loses, there will eight. This system is the worst and this is why it's so hard for me to get into a sport where the National Champion isn't always decided on the field.