By: John Maher (STATESMAN.COM) —
It’s not only Terrell Owens and Chad “Ocho Cinco” Johnson who think more passes ought to come their way. Rory Nicol said that’s the way every receiver thinks, even if he happens to play tight end for Ohio State.

“A tight end is someone who catches the ball and blocks. When I’m more involved in the passing game, I play better as a blocker,” Nicol said. “That’s just the way it’s been.”

The upside about being a tight end in the Ohio State offense is that sometimes two of them get to play at once, as the 6-foot-5-inch Nicol and the 6-6 Jake Ballard might do against Texas in the Fiesta Bowl. The downside is that neither sees a lot of balls come his way.

Woody Hayes’ ground-bound teams threw to the tight end more than Jim Tressel’s squads do. When Tressel switched from senior drop-back quarterback Todd Boeckman to athletic freshman Terrelle Pryor after a lopsided loss to Southern California on Sept. 13, the tight ends pretty much became offensive tackles, only thinner.

Nicol has six receptions for a combined 60 yards this season after catching 16 and 13 passes in the previous two seasons. Ballard has four receptions this year after making 13 grabs last season.

In October, Ballard did some lobbying to get Boeckman back on the field.

“I don’t think a two-quarterback system would be a bad idea,” Ballard said then.

If it’s any consolation, the tight ends have some company in star tailback Chris “Beanie” Wells, who has caught only seven passes for 26 yards this season.

In Tressel’s eight years, Ohio State tight ends have been known as much for the balls they didn’t catch as the ones they did.

In 2005 against Texas, an open Ryan Hamby dropped what looked like a sure touchdown , one that might have iced the game and eventually kept the Longhorns out of the national championship game. After the drop, Hamby received some stinging e-mails from Buckeyes fans, but how purchase prozac online could you blame him ? The tight end was out of practice. That entire year he caught only nine balls, none of them for touchdowns.

It’s now been 25 years since Ohio State’s most productive tight end, John Frank, played. Three of the top six leaders for career receptions for a tight end — Billy Anders, Bruce Jankowski and Jan White — played during Hayes’ three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust days.

Still Nicol, who played high school ball in Pennsylvania, said he arrived in Columbus with hopes that he would be used more as a receiver.

“It’s hard,” he said of letting go of those dreams. This season has brought additional frustration as the Ohio State offense has, at times, floundered. The offense failed to score a touchdown against USC, Penn State and even hapless Purdue. In some instances, the coaching staff didn’t even bother to name an offensive player of the week.

“Obviously there are some sour, sour tastes you don’t win games if you don’t score points,” Nicol said. “We always feel like if we score 24 points, our defense will hold them to less than that.”

OSU offensive coordinator Jim Bollman has helped Nicol cope with his limited role as a receiver.

“When we talk on Friday before games at our walk-through,” Nicol said, “he talks about forgetting yourself in the service of others — basically saying forget about yourself and do what is best for the team. He’s been showing us that quote for probably two years, and it probably took almost two years for me to really look at that quote and understand it.

“We never really throw to the tight end. When I bought into it, that it wasn’t about me, that’s when Ohio State football became fun.”

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