By: BostonHerald.com —
COLUMBUS, Ohio - In the midst of the dog days of summer, a popular sports blog ran its predictions for the upcoming college football season.

One smart-aleck reader’s post spoke volumes about the enmity many people have for Ohio State.

“National championship game prediction: (insert random SEC team here) 49, Ohio State 10.”
After consecutive one-sided defeats in the last two Bowl Championship Series title games — 41-14 to Florida two years ago, 38-24 to LSU last year — it’s clear that America is tired of seeing, reading and hearing about the Buckeyes. They were No. 1 all of the 2006 season until getting ripped by the Gators, then took advantage of a number of missteps by other teams last fall to take over the top spot heading into the championship game against LSU.

Throughout both years, the Buckeyes have been all over television, radio, newspapers, the Web — heck, several Buckeyes-themed books (including one inspirational tome by head coach Jim Tressel) came out this past winter.

No wonder a recent ESPN poll identified Ohio State as the most hated team in college football.

That’s just dandy with offensive lineman Alex Boone.

“It’s always fun to be hated, especially by everybody,” he said. “We kind of take that with a little bit of pride.”

The Buckeyes talk as if they don’t understand why others dislike them so.

“They always bring up the bad memories,” Boone said. “Some people are nice, but a lot of times it’s like, ’What was it like to lose to LSU or Florida?’ and you’re like, ’Really, dude?’”

Yet Ohio State may get the last laugh. Here’s some particularly bad news for the haters: Don’t be surprised if the Buckeyes make it to their third-straight national title game and fourth in seven years.

Ohio State is loaded, with almost everybody back from last year’s first unit except its best defensive lineman (Vernon Gholston), a decent linebacker (Larry Grant), an offensive tackle (Kirk Barton) and a largely anonymous fullback (Dionte Johnson).

The long list of returning stars includes tailback Chris “Beanie” Wells, who broke Archie Griffin’s sophomore school rushing record with 1,609 yards, along with quarterback Todd Boeckman, linebackers James Laurinaitis and Marcus Freeman, cornerback Malcolm Jenkins and wide receivers Brian Robiskie and Brian Hartline. Another half-a-dozen players are candidates for various national and conference awards.

Oh, and Tressel also added the nation’s No. 1 quarterback recruit, Terrelle Pryor, who is often compared to a guy named Vince Young who played at Texas.

So, America, be prepared for more Buckeyes, all day, all night, all the time.

Freeman said he knows why so many are rooting against him and his teammates.
“That’s just a sign of success,” he said. “A lot of people envy that.”

As evidence of how good and how experienced the Buckeyes are, consider that one of Tressel’s biggest concerns in preseason camp was keeping his veteran players interested.

“We have I think 40 guys on our rosters right now that are entering years four or five and there’s a little challenge there in our eyes to make sure that those guys come back into training camp (and) they don’t think it’s same-old-same-old,” he said.
So while other schools are trying to find a starting quarterback or dream up some way to stop the other team, Ohio State’s staff is working hard to not have a bunch of bored Buckeyes.

In due time, there’ll be plenty to get their attention. The third game of the year makes for one of the red-letter days in college football this fall: Ohio State at USC.

Should the Buckeyes defy their detractors and win that game, there are still plenty of land mines in the road ahead. They play at Wisconsin, at Michigan State and at Illinois — which upended them a year ago at Ohio Stadium.

Still, Ohio State received a clear mandate as the team to beat in the Big Ten in the preseason. The Buckeyes have won back-to-back outright conference titles for the first time since 1954-55 and have enough talent to win a third in a row by themselves for the first time ever.

If they should pull that off, then a third straight trip to the BCS title game isn’t out of the question.

The Buckeyes are hoping one more trip to the biggest game in the sport might be enough to push all those haters just that much closer to the edge.

No related posts.