Article published October 25, 2008
National focus on Buckeyes, Lions
The Buckeyes' Chris 'Beanie' Wells is looking forward to playing on the national stage.
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
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By MATT MARKEY
BLADE SPORTS WRITER
COLUMBUS - With unbeaten and third-ranked Penn State set to take the national stage here tonight against No. 10 Ohio State, there's been a lot of chatter about the enormous impact of this game. The stock of one of these two teams should spike with the outcome, while the other's will certainly crash.
The thinking is that a Penn State win against a top-10 team inside a stadium where the Nittany Lions have not been able to win since 10 years before Chris "Beanie" Wells was born should pay significant dividends.
It should make Penn State a virtual lock to play in the Bowl Championship Series title game, some say, given the bonus gold stars if the Nittany Lions can win in the belly of the beast.
Ohio State, on the other hand, who many feel will need a papal dispensation to get back to the title game after losing there the past two years, would certainly buttress its standing and band-aid some of the open gashes left by the pounding it took against Southern Cal earlier this season if it beats the No. 3 team in the country. The Buckeyes would move from double-secret BCS probation to being at least part of the wider BCS discussion.
But all this conjecture and talk of the long-term payoff does not sit well with Penn State's Joe Paterno, who is two months shy of his 82nd birthday. Growling like one of those two grumpy old-timers who sits up in the balcony on The Muppets, Paterno wants the focus on the present, not the uncertain BCS implications.
"Let's not get into that. We're playing Ohio State this week - we're not playing the BCS," Paterno said.Ohio State coach Jim Tressel is also a devout apostle of the one-game-at-a-time religion, but he knows tonight's spotlight will be just as intense as the one that cast his team in a negative light at USC. The Ohio State-Penn State game will be carried nationally by ABC, with ESPN's Gameday crew getting the crowd cranked up early.
"The fact that the world is at the end of its football-watching day, and they all get to sit back and watch us play is exciting," Tressel said.
"There will be great energy, and it's exciting to have the attention. It's exciting to be recognized. It's just the environment, the energy. It's a neat thing to have that on your campus, and I'm proud of our guys for earning that Gameday situation - they just named it this week - where's the best game of the week, and here we go."
The significance of the event is not lost on Wells, the junior tailback who started the season as one of the favorites to win the Heisman Trophy but missed three games after injuring his foot in the season opener. Wells, who carried the ball 39 times for 222 yards in last year's showdown with rival Michigan, said he likes it when all the marbles are on the table.
"All my life I've loved big games," Wells said. "It's something that I guess you could say that I'm made for. I like to think that I'm made to play on the big stage."
Paterno commented that he is pleased his players will have the opportunity to play Ohio State in these circumstances and in a game with so many watching.
"I'm happy for them because they've worked hard, and now, here it is. Now they got a chance, a big game against a really good football team," he said.
"I just don't want them to get caught up in any of this bologna about, 'you've got to do this, and if you don't do this.' Just go out and have fun. It ought to be a great Saturday for college football, for us and for Ohio State."
Contact Matt Markey at:
mmarkey@theblade.com
or 419-724-6510.
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