MIchigan State gives Ohio State fans another night to forget -- if only they could.
INDIANAPOLIS -- There is a dark place in the soul of every Ohio State fan, a place where everything that got away has gone.
There resides the memory of Roy Hall Jr. rolling Ted Ginn Jr.'s ankle, not that it mattered. Florida was far better that night.
There, everything that went wrong down on the bayou against LSU, all the mindless penalties before halftime, is going wrong again, and John Cooper's teams are somehow slipping on a maize-colored banana peel.
There, Charles White is running that Student Body Directional play time and again against Earle Bruce's first and best team, and even Woody Hayes is leaving plenty of baubles and trophies uncollected.
What happened in a 34-24 loss to Michigan State in the Big Ten Championship Game Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium -- under the exposed steel girders, of the retractable dome, beneath the huge windows that let you see but not feel the snowy winter scape outside -- will have to serve as the summation of this flawed team. The heavily partisan Ohio State crowd, even safe inside, certainly felt the chill.
The defeat, the first after 24 straight wins under coach Urban Meyer, as well as the circumstances for it, will mean the final word, given the aspirations the Buckeyes held, is "disappointing." Also "overrated." And maybe, as was typical of Luke Fickell's defense this season, "unacceptable" and perhaps "inexcusable."
Simply put, you cannot count on winning by scores of 40-30, 52-34, 60-35, or 42-41.
Actually, Auburn, which now certainly will move to the BCS national championship stage against another sunshine and nice days team, Florida State, beat Missouri, 59-42, in the SEC Championship Game Saturday.
This, however, will not be considered evidence of a porous defense. The national media will say the Southern football machine is so all-fired powerful that it cannot even be stopped by its own. (Although, you know, Missouri is actually a Midwestern state.)
Ohio State lost despite overcoming the biggest deficit a Meyer team had ever faced at any of his career stops, 17-0, to reel off 24 in a row.
Ohio State is new to this conference championship game format, but it should have been clear that the Buckeyes needed to be ready, that they should not commit dumb pass interference penalties or rough a player making a fair catch, or just generally misplace their field awareness and poise.
Quarterback Braxton Miller got the Buckeyes going with a 48-yard scramble. Nobody glues the pieces of a broken play together and turns them into a heirloom any better than Miller. No wonder Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio calls him "a magician."
But that surge seemed to be the anomaly. Michigan State would score the final 17 points. The confusion and ineffectiveness of the defense, repeated on offense when Ohio State most needed to be sharp, was the image that will last.
When a team has bigger plans than regional dominance, when it has just gotten the ball beyond midfield after a 19-yard punt that was deflected by Ryan Shazier, when it is midway through the fourth quarter and it is winning time, down by only a field goal, 27-24 -- then that team will either take over the game or its chances will be swallowed in a black hole.
Ohio State did not even make a first down on its last chance. One for 10 on third downs in the game, OSU finished 0-for-two on fourth down when Miller, running a sweep, came up one yard short on fourth-and-2 at the Michigan State 39.
"My call," said Meyer. "I wanted to put it in the hands of our best player."
It
was predictable and predictably sad. There was no balance to the offense,
because Miller's erratic arm lamed the passing game. There was only some
spread-formation variation of Ice Age Woody, bulling his running backs into a
stone wall.
Scratch Miller from many Heisman ballots, and he had been as high as second in my estimation. Stunningly, Walsh Jesuit's Connor Cook, the game's Most Valuable Player, was better than Miller. Few saw that coming, except perhaps Dantonio.
Scratch Ohio State from Pasadena, either in the title game or the Rose Bowl game.
Buckeye fans can scratch everything but where it hurts.
What is left now for Ohio State?
It is probably an Orange Bowl bid. There is a line out there about taking their talents to Miami, but that is just another joke that fell as flat as the Buckeyes.