Here's a Thought: How about avoiding that Capital One Bowl?

Let’s knock this one out of here real fast: the Buckeyes aren’t going to play for the national championship this year.

Did the loss to Illinois stink? Absolutely. Am I going to complain about the coaching staff’s inexplicable failure to challenge an obvious fumble and thereby avert a touchdown? No. How about three interceptions thrown at inopportune moments, or a defense that had more holes than a grunge band’s wardrobe? No and no.

Why, you ask? Because I tried that, and it didn’t work.

Three hours after the game, all of my venting hadn’t changed a thing. And then it occurred to me…we Buckeye fans have become a bit spoiled. Somewhere beneath the scarlet and gray film glazed over my brain, I seem to recall that this was supposed to be a rebuilding year. Yet here we were ranked number one again.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but we need to maintain some perspective here. There’s still a Big Ten championship at stake, and a berth in the Rose Bowl. When those are the consolation prizes for a rebuilding year, things are in pretty good shape for the Buckeye Nation.

Now here’s the catch: all we have to do to get those consolation prizes is beat our archrival.

Oh, and that archrival? They’re pissed. They just lost, too. In fact, one could almost say they purposefully lost. Or if they didn’t purposefully lose, exactly, they certainly didn’t put a lot of effort into winning. Can anyone tell me why Mike Hart, the Big Ten’s leading rusher, would be sitting on the sidelines watching his team lose to Wisconsin after he had been cleared by doctors to play? Or why Chad Henne came out of the game so quickly to join Hart on the sidelines for the remaining three quarters? I have a theory. It runs something along the lines of: “Wisconsin, Shmisconsin. We want to whoop Ohio State.”

So that’s what we’re up against this week. A team looking to bury the memory of a humiliating September by climbing over the Buckeyes into the Rose Bowl. A bunch of seniors who want to define their collegiate careers by finally getting that elusive win over their archrival. A coach who needs to toss a certain monkey in a Brutus suit off his back before his career comes to an almost certain close at the end of the season.

All I can say is, “ain’t it great?” If the thought of denying the Wolverines such pleasures can’t get the Buckeyes up for this game, somebody needs to check some pulses.

This is the grudge match with an edge. With the national championship no longer an issue, one could almost make the case that Michigan has the most at stake, which bodes well when considering the “team who has the most to lose usually does” tradition. Then again, history may not have much to offer in the way of predictions this year. For the first time since the Eisenhower administration, both teams will enter The Game licking wounds from a loss the previous week.

So what’s going to happen this Saturday?

Hell if I know. Though I will go so far as to make three predictions: 1) a car is going to get turned over and set on fire somewhere (Detroit doesn’t count. That’s just normal crime.), 2) Mike Hart will make an obnoxiously immature comment in the postgame interview, win or lose, and 3) the scarlet and gray film on my brain, aided considerably by several pints of Guinness, will at some point induce me to attempt Script Ohio with a handful of my friends in the living room.

Other than that, all bets are off.