Big Ten championship or Rose Bowl. Those are your options, Buckeye fans. Given this wacky college football world we now live in, you can have one but not both. Which do want?
A better time to ask that question might have been before Penn State fell from the unbeaten ranks Saturday at Iowa.
Instead of toasting that upset so heartily, put down the adult beverage and put your lips around this sobering truth: While the Buckeyes have regained a share of the Big Ten lead, the Lions did Ohio State no favors by losing.
Not if the Buckeyes were planning to play in the best consolation bowl out there, the one in Pasadena.
Eliminated from BCS title game contention two weeks ago by Penn State, OSU’s best shot of rebounding into the Rose Bowl required that Joe Paterno and Co. go 12-0, win the Big Ten outright and land in the national championship.
That would have opened the door for the Buckeyes to head to SoCal and keep the traditional Big Ten-Pac 10 showdown intact.
Now, despite Saturday’s uplifting 45-10 romp over Northwestern, Ohio State’s chances of playing in its first Rose Bowl since 1996 are pretty much kaput.
We’ve got three teams tied in the loss column at the top of the Big Ten standings. Penn State (9-1) and Ohio State (8-2) are 5-1 in the league. Michigan State (8-2), off this week, is 6-1.
Let’s operate under the premise that Ohio State’s flameouts in the last two BCS title games removes a one-loss Penn State from national championship consideration. If Penn State and Ohio State tie for the conference title, the Lions smell Roses thanks to the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The only way there can be a three-way tie for the Big Ten title is if the co-leaders each finish with two losses. For that to happen, Penn State would have to lose at home Saturday to awful Indiana and then turn around and beat Michigan State. The Spartans would still win the tiebreaker because, unlike Ohio State and Penn State, they had too much pride to play a Football Championship Subdivision (formerly 1-AA) team.
Only slightly more plausible than the three-way scenario is Ohio State and Michigan State sharing the title. The Buckeyes would be Rose Bowl-bound thanks to their 45-7 win in East Lansing, but it’s hard to imagine the Spartans winning in Happy Valley with so much at stake.
So where does that leave the Buckeyes? Finish 10-2 and they’re still headed for a BCS bowl. ESPN projects the Buckeyes and current No. 1 Alabama squaring off in the Sugar Bowl (presumably after the Crimson Tide loses in the SEC title game).
It would mark the second straight year Jim Tressel took his team to New Orleans and the second time in three years he was matched against another former Earle Bruce disciple, and we all know how those bowls turned out. In fact, we’re painfully aware of how all eight post-season affairs with SEC foes have turned out.
But after the way Terrelle Pryor performed Saturday, fearlessly keeping plays alive with his legs and throwing downfield in terribly raw and windy conditions, wouldn’t you be intrigued enough to lift your blindfold and watch with one eye?
Wherever they land, the Buckeyes will draw high national ratings because of Pryor.
Unlike the confidence-shaken senior he replaced seven games ago, Pryor commands our attention, whether he’s loping downfield on a broken field run, high-stepping out of a sack to throw a strike or trying to turn a quarterback sneak into a home run.
Dave Pasch, who handled the play-by-play on Saturday’s ESPN2 telecast, compared Pryor to another Buckeye state celeb, LeBron James. It was, indeed, like watching LeBron, the way Pryor resoundingly beat the triple team in Evanston.
Not wind, nor Wildcats, nor wildcatting teammates could put Pryor down.
If he wasn’t fighting 25 mph breezes or a stacked deck of defenders, Pryor was overcoming adversities created by his teammates’ penchant for personal fouls (I stopped counting at four) and fighting through repeated third-and-long predicaments.
Taking a big step toward atoning for his game-turning fumble against Penn State, Pryor averaged 22 yards on his nine completions and was practically unstoppable on third down, completing five of six passes for 135 yards. On one drive, he converted a pair of third-and-longs with his feet, setting up the first of his three touchdown passes.
“I love moving the chains; I love playing that way,”
he said, sounding nothing like the despondent youngster who could barely lift his head after the loss to Penn State. “I love just getting the other crowd hyped up and then shoving it down their mouth.”
If not this year, Pryor will surely get his chance to incite a Rose Bowl crowd. Perhaps on Jan.7, 2010, when Pasadena hosts more than just the best consolation game.
