By: Gregg Doyel (CBSSpots.com) –

CHICAGO — They are joined this season, though not in the way Rich Rodriguez had hoped or planned. But one year after trying — and failing — to sign Terrelle Pryor in his first recruiting class at Michigan, Rodriguez and Pryor are joined nonetheless.

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They are joined, this coach from Michigan and that quarterback for Ohio State, because it is time for both of them — in their own way, at their own school — to live up to the hype.

Or to recede into the background while the rest of us move onto the next big thing.

One year ago Rodriguez was the next big thing at Michigan and Pryor was the next big thing at Ohio State, but neither delivered. In fairness to both, neither stepped into a situation where becoming the next big thing was all that doable. Rodriguez was trying to bring his 21st century offense to the 20th century Wolverines, while Pryor was doing something even more unthinkable — starting at quarterback for The Ohio State University as a true freshman.

For both the results were mixed, and for Rodriguez, “mixed” is a kind description. Michigan went 3-9, a season-long Appalachian State Moment. Pryor earned the Buckeyes’ starting job and even Big Ten Freshman of the Year, but he also produced the lowlight that came to define the Buckeyes’ season — an ugly fourth-quarter fumble against Penn State that led to the Nittany Lions’ game-winning touchdown and cost the Buckeyes the outright league title.

But that was last year. This is this year. And this is their year.

Or there will be hell to pay. That’s the thing about football at Michigan and Ohio State — it’s not enough to simply win. Everyone wins at those schools. The question is: How much did you win? How many league titles? How many national titles?

And how many Heisman Trophies?

The bar for each of them is high, but if Rodriguez and Pryor are all they were hyped to be, the bar is reachable.

And if they’re not all they were hyped to be … well, we’ll find that out.

Rodriguez has a history of winning big in his second season at a school, and that history runs deeper than his days at West Virginia, where the Mountaineers went 3-8 in his 2001 debut and then 9-4 in ’02 with the biggest one-season turnaround in Big East history — from 1-6 to 6-1.

Rodriguez was “only” an assistant at his previous two stops, at Tulane and Clemson, but he was the offensive guru for Tommy Bowden at both places, and at both places the team’s offense was the engine behind the massive improvement from Year 1 (7-4 at Tulane, 6-6 at Clemson) to Year 2 (12-0 at Tulane, 9-3 at Clemson).

What has been so good about that second season? The same thing that has been so tough about the first: Rodriguez’s spread offense. It isn’t easy to deal with — not for the defense trying to stop it, but not for the offense trying to run it, either, especially when it’s being run by players who weren’t recruited specifically for it.

Rodriguez knows his history from Year 1 to Year 2. That’s probably why he seemed so relaxed Monday when he met the Big Ten media to discuss the 2009 season. That, or he’s a good actor……

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