Article published October 01, 2008 Beating Badgers lucky for Bucks as recent wins have meant titles for OSU
Jim Tressel commented yesterday that during his seven previous seasons as head coach at Ohio State, the Buckeyes have won the Big Ten championship in the years they have defeated the Badgers (2002, 2007) and not won the league crown in the years they have lost to Wisconsin (2001, 2003, 2004).
(
ASSOCIATED PRESS
)
COLUMBUS - As a three-time defending champion of the Big Ten Conference, and the pre-season favorite to win a fourth title in a row, Ohio State has to expect the worst, which translates into everyone's best shot coming the Buckeyes' way.
Around the rest of the Big Ten, they all want the notoriety associated with knocking the king off the mountain.
The biggest threat to any perceived supremacy has to be the next opponent, and this week that's the same team the pre-season polls had picked as Ohio State's primary challenger in the Big Ten - Wisconsin. The Badgers that would be king have won 43 games over the last five seasons, second only to Ohio State (45) among Big Ten teams.
"The thing we've seen over and over again is that if you go into a Big Ten game and you are not as prepared and focused as you need to be, there's a good chance you are going to get beat," Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said when he looked at the Buckeyes' schedule and saw a night game against Wisconsin as the second outing in Big Ten play.
VIEW FRANK'S RANT
Tressel commented yesterday that during his seven previous seasons as head coach at Ohio State, the Buckeyes have won the Big Ten championship in the years they have defeated the Badgers (2002, 2007) and not won the league crown in the years they have lost to Wisconsin (2001, 2003, 2004). The two teams did not meet in 2005 and 2006.
"The Ohio State - Wisconsin games since I've been here have been between two of the better teams in the conference, and both of those teams probably ended up in the upper half of the conference, so they are big games," he said. "The years we beat them, we won the conference, so I guess if you want to win the conference, you better beat Wisconsin. And they are probably saying just the opposite - if they want to win the conference, they better beat Ohio State."
Tressel and the No. 14-ranked Buckeyes envision a daunting task ahead of them Saturday night. Wisconsin has won 16 straight games at Camp Randall Stadium, the second-longest home winning streak in the nation. The Badgers also have won 21 of their last 22 night games, and since head coach Brett Bielema has been in Madison, they are 27-1 at home.
OHIO STATE AT WISCONSIN
• When: Saturday, 8 • Records: No. 14 OSU is 4-1, 1-0 Big Ten; No. 18 Wisconsin is 3-1, 0-1 • Series: OSU leads 51-17-5 • Favorite: OSU by 21/2 • TV: 13 • Radio: 1470
The Buckeyes last won at Wisconsin in 2002, their national championship season, when a hard-fought 19-14 victory came against a Badgers team that ended up just 2-6 in the Big Ten.
"That's always been our Big Ten road formula - we have always believed that Big Ten championships are certainly won on the road," Tressel said. "There's no way you're going to win a championship if you can't go on the road and come up with a big victory. So it's a huge thing for us."
Junior defensive back Anderson Russell said he has noticed the Buckeyes being a tighter unit following the embarrassing 35-3 loss at Southern California three weeks ago, and that closeness should play to their advantage in difficult settings like Camp Randall.
"The USC game, it definitely forced the team to come together and fight," Russell said. "I think a lot of people were expecting with all the talent we had coming back that we would go undefeated, but after the loss those expectations changed. The loss really just made us closer as a team and made us focus even more."
The Badgers are coming off a stunner of their own, a 27-25 loss at Michigan Saturday in a game Wisconsin had led 19-0 at the half.
Ohio State senior wide receiver Brian Robiskie said that defeat and the manner in which it happened should just serve to motivate the Badgers, already a game back in the Big Ten race.
"Forget what happened last weekend - we know this is still a great football team, and even with them losing, we can expect them to come back a lot more ready," Robiskie said. "We know it will be a great challenge for us."
Tressel said his team will need to keep the momentum on its side as much as possible, and not allow the highly-animated Wisconsin crowd to play a role in the outcome. He also said Ohio State can not be thinking about anything beyond this game, and dealing with the Badgers.
The Ohio State coach did not want to speculate what the rash of upsets in last weekend's college football games might do to the post-season picture. He said thinking like that will get you in trouble.
"That's probably why there are upsets - because people talk in September about whether they're in the national championship picture," Tressel said. "You better be in the picture that's in that frame right now, and the one that's in the frame right now is Wisconsin."
Contact Matt Markey at mmarkey@theblade.com or 419-724-6510. Permanent Link
Copyright 2010 The Blade. By using this service, you accept the terms of our privacy statement and our visitor agreement. Please read them. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660, (419) 724-6000 To contact a specificdepartment or an individual person, click here. The Toledo Times ®
Search
advertisement
