Did Selection Committee Truly Reward Ohio State?

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

It's kind of weird how Dick Vitale seldom speaks critically of players or coaches, rarely voices a strong opinion during his excessive ESPN air time for four months, then always comes on the tube every Selection Sunday and drops the hammer on the NCAA Selection Committee. You can count on it every March, like St. Patrick's Day.

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But even in that criticism his logic is rooted in weak rah-rah fandom. To Vitale, it's all about how sad the kids from two or three wrongfully left-out teams must feel. Aw, poor kids.

The Selection Committee's job isn't to appease 20-year-old boys; it's about choosing the best 37 at-large teams and arranging the full 68-team field in such a way that teams deserving of rewards get those rewards. I expect the Committee to pull a surprise or two every year, and sometimes those decisions are justified a few days later. I don't really care about the poor kids.

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Deja Vu: Unblemished No. 1 OSU Visits Wisconsin

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

We all know what happened the last time Ohio State took an undefeated and top-ranked team to Wisconsin.

It was just four months ago that the Buckeyes staggered home from Madison, battered, bruised and, most notably, beaten. OSU's singular loss last fall cost it a chance to compete for college football's national championship.

Fortunately, this is college basketball, where perfection is nice and all, but falling short of it neither deems a season a failure nor eliminates a team from championship contention.

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No-Spin Zone: A Loss Is Not Good For Any Team

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

The only people who say a loss would be helpful are those who aren't coaching or playing for the team with the perfect record.

Would you ever expect to hear Thad Matta or Jared Sullinger or David Lighty say they're hoping to lose a game or two?

Analysts — many of whom were once called journalists — love to dig beneath the surfaces of things, hoping to unearth a morsel of logic that maybe someone else hasn't turned into a column just yet. The hourglass runs quickly, as it's only a matter of moments before an online writer or an expert from the 24-hour cable network suggests the minority opinion. In the modern media culture that values news analysis over news, opinions are the cleavage and facts are merely the turtleneck. Translation? Guessing is welcome.

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Will Thin Bench Be OSU's Undoing ... Again?

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

A common refrain among college basketball observers this year has been some variation of "it's not often you lose the national Player of the Year and actually get better the next season."

Experts have been saying that the last eight weeks about Ohio State, which lost Evan Turner to the NBA after his junior season ended in a slightly surprising Sweet 16 loss to Tennessee in last year's NCAA Tournament.

But incoming freshman Jared Sullinger has been the best first-year player in America, and in the opinions of some, the best player in the country period. Exhibit A? Check the tape of his 27-point, 16-rebound effort in a nationally televised win at Illinois Saturday.

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Steady seniors like David Lighty and Jon Diebler have another year of experience under their belts, as do William Buford and Dallas Lauderdale. Freshmen Aaron Craft and Deshaun Thomas have been splendid additions as well.

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Rest Easy, SEC Fans; Your Conference Will Be OK

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Don't look now, but that Ohio State team that can't win on the big stage just won its second straight BCS bowl game.

The Buckeyes held on to beat SEC West runner-up Arkansas in a thrilling Sugar Bowl Tuesday night in New Orleans, 31-26.

OSU, long a target of SEC bloggers and that hurtful-words forum known as Twitter, raced to a 28-7 lead over the high-octane Razorbacks, then held on despite a Helter Skelter finish.

SEC fans will spin it this way: Ohio State almost choked the game away, the Buckeyes suited up a bunch of NCAA violators, they got lucky because Arkansas' receivers kept dropping passes, the Big Ten still sucks.

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Enough With The Judgments Of Pryor, His OSU Pals

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Money hasn't really grown much on the Wise family tree over the years. While we've been rich in laughter and happiness, we've long been broke in the bank accounts.

Mom worked hard to get me the proper spoils for when I became the first of her children to graduate from college. Among the gifts was an expensive Cartier watch for which she started saving the very day I left the nest. Good thing it took me six years to finish school.

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OGS Spotlight Game Of The Week: Ohio State At Wisconsin

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Terrelle Pryor as an X factor?

Yes, that's exactly what he'll be in Ohio State's first road test this season at Wisconsin Saturday night.

Usually, the X factor is a lesser-known player or an inconsistent element about a particular team, not a high-profile Heisman candidate.

For example, you might hear something as specific as "Their kickoff coverage will be the X factor" to describe a squad that's allowed too many big plays on special teams as it prepares to face an opponent whose roster boasts some dangerous return specialists.

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College Football Notebook: Martinez v Robinson, OSU Is Still Good & Players Pinched For Pot

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

ESPN College GameDay's Desmond Howard made a good point Friday about the difference between star quarterbacks Taylor Martinez and Denard Robinson.

Martinez, who led Nebraska's rout of Kansas State with 369 total yards and accounted for five touchdowns Thursday night, might have a clearer path to the Heisman Trophy than Robinson. Howard opined that Nebraska's redshirt freshman sensation doesn't need to press too hard to lead his team to victories because the Huskers defense is lights out.

Robinson, on the other hand, will continue to find

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College Football Notebook: Jersey Switch, Locker Talk & Pryor's Groupies

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Though Boston College suffered a 31-13 throttling at the hands of Notre Dame over the weekend, there was still some good to report from the Eagles' camp Saturday.

Alex Albright, a Cincinnati St. Xavier graduate now playing defensive end for Boston College, switched jersey numbers, from 98 to 78, to honor the late Matt James.

James was the St. X senior who died when he fell from a fifth-floor balcony at a Florida hotel last spring. He had signed to play on the offensive line for Brian Kelly at Notre Dame a month earlier.

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Oregon Is Better Than Ohio State Right Now

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Oregon will be my No. 2-ranked team in the country when this week's OGS poll comes out Monday, and I want to tell you exactly why right here.

A handful of times in the Jim Tressel era at Ohio State — currently ranked No. 2 — the Buckeyes have gone into a game against a team with a high-flying offense that experts have incorrectly predicted would run all over the supposedly slower scarlet and gray.

Two notable examples are the 2002 championship game against Miami, and last year's

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OU Mascot Planned Brutus Attack Last Year

Man Inside "Rufus" Costume
Told Pals To Watch Out For Gag

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Ohio University mascot Brandon Hanning is now known as the former Ohio University mascot after a pre-game stunt during which he tackled Ohio State's beloved Brutus twice when the Buckeyes took the field before thrashing the Bobcats in Columbus Saturday.

Hanning's had a pretty busy Monday: first, he read on ESPN.com that he'd lost the gig, then spent some time on the phone with OGS answering questions about his last day on the job as Rufus. If only there could be a way to work Sara Saco or Ines Sainz into this story, then perhaps he'd get an invite to New York to do the morning-show circuit.

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Who Will Lose First: Alabama Or Ohio State?

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Everyone seems to agree that in college football in 2010, it's Alabama and Ohio State and everybody else.

But it rarely happens that the top two preseason teams skate through their schedules unscathed and meet in the championship game as predicted. This is college football. There may be a script, but it's rarely followed.

So if one of the aforementioned teams doesn't make it to Glendale, which one will it be and why?

My answer: Alabama, because after a light jog at Duke this weekend, its next three games are at No. 12 Arkansas, vs. No. 10 Florida and at No. 13 South Carolina.

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College Football Notebook: Week 1 Review

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

Here are a few takeaways from the first weekend of college football:

+ Don't get me wrong; I absolutely adore the Mark Herzlich story. So great to see the Boston College linebacker suited up and flying around on Saturday. But do you think his story would get as much attention if he was, say, a Miami wideout?

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College Football Notebook: OSU, Miami Shine In Tune-Ups

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

The first night of college football games is in the books, and here are my thoughts:

+ Ohio State's Terrelle Pryor helped his Heisman bid with a splendid performance in a blowout win over Marshall. But his passing mechanics still looked a tad gimpy on a couple of plays, and I'll be surprised if he enjoys similar success next week against Miami if he doesn't adjust. He threw one of his three touchdown passes from his back foot and heaved up some unusual third-and-long prayer that was nearly picked. Overall, though, he was close to excellent and it was nice to see Jim Tressel open things up slightly and call 25 passing plays for Pryor in barely more than three quarters' work. If it's true that players and teams make their largest improvements between Week 1 and Week 2, then Pryor and the Buckeyes should look pretty solid against Miami on Sept. 11.

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Terrelle Pryor: Why He Won't Win The Heisman

By JOHN P.‪ WISE
One Great Season

Just hours before Terrelle Pryor's Ohio State Buckeyes begin their quest for a national championship Thursday night against Marshall, I've re-evaluated my take on the quarterback's Heisman candidacy.

Pryor, who's somehow spent fall camp going from mere Heisman contender to frontrunner in the eyes of experts, definitely will not win college football's highest honor come December.

During his freshman and sophomore seasons, writers often referred to him as a dual-threat quarterback, but that gave him twice as much credit as he deserved. Just because a quarterback was able to beat you with his feet doesn't make him doubly dangerous. In order to fit that description, he still has to beat you with his arm, and Pryor seldom did that in 2008-09.

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