Restoring Credibility

Restoring Credibility

Through 12 games, the Buckeyes even had commentators debating where was the 2006 Ohio State team’s place in history – comparing the team to some of the all-time greats.

As it turned out, it didn’t take a great team – just great speed.

Ohio State fans don’t need a reminder of how bad last year’s Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game loss to Florida truly was. They remember all too well watching Chris Leak precisely pick apart the Buckeyes secondary. They remember watching Florida’s ultra-quick defense devouring Troy Smith and the vaunted Ohio State offense.

They blamed the rust on a 51-day layoff and Smith’s ridiculous quantity of social obligations after winning the Heisman Trophy although the 51-day layoff didn’t seem to bother the Buckeyes in 2002 when they upset Miami.

They also remember what ensued – commentators and experts declaring that the team once heralded as one of the all-time greats was a complete fraud. So, too, in the minds of many, was the Ohio State program.

The Buckeyes were too lethargic, too old school and too accustomed to slower Big Ten teams to compete with the best of the superior Southeastern Conference.

All of a sudden, Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel was charged with an impossible task – restoring credibility to a tattered reputation of a dominant football force.

Tressel might as well have consulted an identity theft expert. After someone steals a person’s identity, it takes time to prove that it wasn’t Joe Buckeye who racked up the fraudulent charges – just as America needed time to see last year’s title game was only one game and not a microcosm of what Ohio State football has become.

Throughout this season, Tressel warned his young team not to give voters an opportunity to bypass the Buckeyes because if there were any chance to discount what they accomplished, voters would pounce on it.

Tressel was correct.

Even when the Buckeyes climbed to the top of the polls, skeptics credited a pillowy-soft non-conference schedule and a Big Ten Conference living more on reputation than talent for their success. And when 10-0 Ohio State finally did lose, voters took their chance to pummel the Buckeyes, dropping them to seventh in the polls – approximately as far as pollsters could justify.

Seemingly, that ended any hopes of Ohio State returning to the championship game.

Little did they know, the Season of Upsets would continue. The top six teams in the country each lost and the Buckeyes slowly crawled back up the rankings.

Three weeks and one game after getting banished toward the bottom of the top 10, voters Ohio State was almost unanimously the top-ranked team in the country.

Even after losing several offensive starters from last season’s juggernaut team to the NFL, the Buckeyes were destined again for the title game and a shot at redemption. What’s more, as fate would have it, they get their opportunity against another SEC team – LSU.

And that’s where Ohio State finds itself now – almost exactly a year after it committed the egregious error of having its worst showing in years in last season’s championship game.

Don’t expect it to happen again.

Last year’s Ohio State team might have looked slow, but it’s not that slow. Plus, there’s a huge X-factor: the head coaches.

Tressel is too good of a coach to have 51 days and allow history to repeat itself. He will have an intricate game plan to neutralize any speed advantage the Tigers might have.

There won’t be Ohio State players taking LSU lightly.

Plus, if the game is close it will likely come down to coaching. LSU head coach Les Miles navigated his way into the championship game, but nearly captained his team – undeniably one of the country’s most talented – to a five-loss campaign.

It’s a marvel LSU fans didn’t pack Miles’ bags for a Michigan interview.

Tressel, on the other hand, is as good as they come – on a short list of the game’s top coaches along with Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops, USC’s Pete Carroll, Florida’s Urban Meyer and South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier.

If the game is determined by coaching, it’s a huge advantage for Ohio State.

The Buckeyes have already gone a long way toward restoring their shattered credibility. A win Monday night would prove last season’s embarrassment was an abomination and place Ohio State back in college football’s stratosphere and back on the elite platform from which it was knocked off a year ago.

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