Not so little sisters

The scenario is a common one. A college football team gains some respectability, but has not quite broken into the sport’s top echelon. They go through their season undefeated, although critics maintain that their schedule is weak. Despite their record, they are not invited to the championship game.

Sound like Boise State? TCU? Try Colgate in 1932.

Not only did the Red Raiders go undefeated that year, they did not allow a point—which no Division I team has done since 1939, and would be inconceivable in today’s college football world. Nevertheless, they were not invited to the Rose Bowl (the de facto college championship at that time), which instead chose twice-tied Pitt, which was blown out by USC.

To use one of writing’s worst (if often appropriate) clichés, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

For all the talk about the BCS system, it hasn’t changed anything. Every year, questions and controversy surround the champion.

Now comes E. Gordon Gee, president of The Ohio State University, and his remark that teams such as Boise State and TCU don’t deserve to play in the BCS Championship Game, implying that they play “Little Sisters of the Poor.”

While Boise State and TCU play in conferences that are, generally, a step below the Big Ten/11/12 or whatever you want to call it now or the SEC, I would be hard-pressed to call any of their opponents “Little Sisters of the Poor.” One reason for their weaker schedules is that the big boys don’t want to play these schools.

Why? Ask Virginia Tech, beaten by Boise State earlier this year at FedEx Field—neutral, but much closer to Blacksburg than to the Broncos’ blue (do not adjust your set) turf.

Ask Oklahoma, beaten by Boise State in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.

And, while I am an OSU fan who will be cheering them on as they destroy Michigan Saturday, let’s talk about the Buckeyes’ “Little Sisters” for a minute.

The scheduling of non-conference mid-majors early in the season amounts to an Ohio State tradition. Note that the following teams have been on the Buckeyes’ recent past and future schedules:

2008: Youngstown State, Ohio U., and Troy.
2009: New Mexico State
2010: Marshall, Ohio U., Eastern Michigan
2011: Akron, Toledo
2012: Miami (Ohio), Alabama-Birmingham

None of these schools are literally “Little Sisters of the Poor,” but they are mid-major programs similar to those played by Boise State and TCU. The Buckeyes have the additional advantage of playing all of them in Ohio Stadium (except Toledo, which will be played in Cleveland). Not sure why, but I imagine it has to do with logistics—the opponents’ stadiums would have trouble handling the size of a crowd that the Buckeyes would attract.

Gee is certainly smart enough to know who’s paying him to make statements such as this—but “Little Sisters of the Poor”? Even a Buckeye fan like me has to give him 15 yards for piling on.

Our honor defend, we will fight to the end

The quote is attributed to Jesus: “A prophet is not without honor save in his own country.”

I doubt if he was thinking of the Ohio State Buckeyes, but that idea could have easily applied to them as far as my family is concerned, for the team has been held in much higher esteem by my brothers and me since we all left Ohio.

If you live in Columbus, it is hard to escape the long shadow cast by the Buckeyes, even if you could care less about football. Every fall, the place goes football crazy. I don’t know if it’s because there were no major-league professional sports in Columbus until 2000, but every Saturday in the fall, the town’s eyes are on the Buckeyes.

Such was the case in my house when I was growing up, although we were fans in the loosest sense of the word. We followed the Buckeyes not because of any great loyalty to The Ohio State University (only two of five kids were OSU graduates), but because the team happened to be in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, it was hard not to be caught up in the spirit of a town that was coated in scarlet and gray. I remember listening to a show called the Byers Buckeye Bandwagon on Saturday mornings, which was basically one long ad for a local car dealer interspersed with numbers from the OSU Marching Band. Nothing like hearing that brass echoing “The Buckeye Battle Cry” as it could only on AM radio. The first time I really understood how much the Buckeyes meant to the town was when I saw the 1974 OSU-Michigan game on TV, when Michigan missed a field goal for the win and the crowd stormed the field.

While we cheered when they won, the losses were actually good for a few laughs. No figure was—and is—more associated with the Buckeyes than Coach Wayne Woodrow “Woody” Hayes. He was one of the greatest college football coaches in history, with five national titles and 13 Big Ten championships to his credit. But he was often the subject of ridicule in our house for his conservative play-calling and the violent temper that led to his downfall. I remember the 1977 Ohio State-Michigan game where he charged an ABC cameraman following an interception. The camera zoomed in on Woody, he ran towards it, and the next thing you saw was several seconds of sky.

Then there was The Punch that ended his career at the 1978 Gator Bowl. My brother Mike owned the first VCR I ever saw, and he caught The Punch on tape during a newscast. One night, burned out on tapes of horse races, we played The Punch repeatedly and laughed ourselves silly.

Not that we were the Buckeyes’ only critics. Then, as now, few college football teams come under more scrutiny from their fans. Columbus radio call-in shows following a loss to Michigan are unique in their criticism of coaches, players and anything else you’ve got. It doesn’t matter if the Bucks won every other game that season—you lose to Michigan and your job is in jeopardy. The Buckeye faithful never warmed up to former coach John Cooper, mainly because he declared that the Michigan game was “just another game.”

Now that each of us has moved to a different state, we are much bigger Buckeye fans. Whether that’s ironic or appropriate, I’ll let you decide.

It was incredible to listen to my brothers talk about the Buckeyes when we met in Florida for our nephew’s wedding last year. We sat in a restaurant watching OSU play Wisconsin as they analyzed the team’s strengths and weaknesses at every position and talked seriously about how they could win it all. Hard to believe these guys used to call them the “Choke-eyes.”

Why the difference? Because the Buckeyes are not just the local team anymore. They represent something bigger—our family, our roots, and the things that made us who we are today. As John Mellencamp once put it so eloquently, “I cannot forget from where it is that I come from.”

GO BUCKS! BEAT TEXAS!