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Oops, we let OSU do it again
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Location: Blogs Broken News |
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| Posted by: Bill Thompson |
1/8/2008 4:29 PM |
In 1994, I spent one of the most enjoyable weekends of my life with an old Army buddy, Dean Thornberry. Thornberry lived in Ohio, and he invited me to attend the Ohio State-Michigan game with him that year. Thornberry was an OSU grad, and spending a mostly sober weekend partying in a college town like Columbus with a seat to one of college football's most storied rivalries was unbeatable. It was even better that the Buckeyes won, ending a six-year winless drought against the Wolverines.
I lost contact with Dean not long afterward, but he was on my mind this morning, since his alma mater had been pummeled yet again in a NCAA title game. It's bad enough to get crushed the way Ohio State did last January by UF. It's worse — not to mention unprecedented — to be drilled by the same school in a different sport in the same year, as the Gators did to OSU in basketball. Yet it's unimaginable to come back with another title shot and get drubbed the way OSU did by LSU on Monday night.
Writing this, I have mixed emotions. I feel sympathy for Thornberry and other Buckeye fans for the year they've had. But as a Maryland grad and fan whose football team has had just one BCS appearance — a beat down administered by UF in Steve Spurrier's last game in Gainesville — and will forever be on the outside looking in, I also wonder what it would be like to have that chance. In the end, I think enough's enough.
OSU actually won the football title a few years back, and given their recent past, we should issue a five-year ban on them appearing in any NCAA championship games in any sport. It's painful to watch them get smoked while you can't help wonder whether other teams — for this year Georgia, West Virginia, USC, even Missouri, Kansas, or Virginia Tech — wouldn't have given LSU, and college football fans, a better game.
The scariest part of the LSU-OSU game Monday night came when Fox Sports announcer Charles Davis, in commenting on the Buckeyes' youth (they only have three senior starters), said, "They very well could be back in this game next year." Noooooo
The only way we'll know who's BCS best is to get rid of the BCS as it exists and have a playoff. As a traditionalist, I've always opposed that. The debate over who's best in years when it's not so clear-cut is part of the fun of following college football. But perhaps it's time for a new way. By the way, I'm joking about the ban. Perhaps Maryland will miracle themselves into the BCS' big dance in Miami next January ---- and get to play the Buckeyes. |
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Re: Oops, we let OSU do it again |
By Dean Thornberry on
2/23/2008 11:53 PM |
| Bill - It's your long lost buddy, Dean Thornberry. Man, 1994 still seems like yesterday. Sorry we fell out of touch. Hope you are well. Anyway, you at least got a taste of that rivalry between Ohio State and that team from up north back then and I believed I delivered on all the excitement, pomp and circumstance of the Michigan weekend that I promised when we were humping through the bush back at Benning. Now OSU beats Michigan for drill, on a reapeated basis. If we could just get some speed for those SEC teams in January. <br>Yes - the Buckeyes are young and we will be back next year to claim our second national championship in the BCS era. <br>Hey - I live in Columbus now. I married that girl I was dating when you came up to visit me on that November weekend. Janine still asks about you and wonders how I could have lose contact. We have four kids. I know, I know.... hard to believe if you were a friend of mine back at Benning when I was 23 and trying to make it through IOBC. Yankee Road, lost in the dark on that land nav course seems like a distant memory. <br>We need to get back in touch. Oh - and stop ripping on my Buckeyes. You were cheering for us if I recall that 1994 game correctly.<br>Your buddy - Dean |
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