Trouble On The Way to The Game

By Paul Smith
paul.smith@collegeblitz.com

Champaign, Ill. -- Inevitably, inexorably, the No.'s 1-2 teams in the country, just two weeks away from a showdown-of-showdowns, finally got caught looking ahead.

And, perhaps in the season's most ironic twist, against two teams that most assuredly wouldn't have been confused with Texas or Notre Dame. Those two top 10 teams figured to be the biggest challenges on No. 1 Ohio State's and second-ranked Michigan's schedule respectively before The Game Nov. 18 in Columbus.

The venue for Ohio State was Illinois, home of the Flighting Illini (2-8), who had been smacked 33-0 at No. 15 Rutgers, for example, and suffered mostly double-digit losses...and for Michigan, it was a home game against Mid-American Conference also-ran Ball State (3-7).

So why, you ask, were both hanging on for dear life at the end of a very long Saturday afternoon?

Ohio State (like Michigan, 10-0 overall, 6-0 in Big Ten play) didn't so much beat Illinois as survive, a struggling distance runner rapidly running out of stamina nearing the finish line. A 17-10 game that was by far the Buckeyes' closest, one that needed an Ohio State recovery of an onside kick with 90 seconds remaining to insure the win.

Michigan's plight was far more perilous. The Wolverines, 10-0 like the Bucks, let the four-touchdown underdog Cardinals hang around, reeling repeatedly with the Muncie, Ind., team's counterpunches. In a 34-26 game that had 103,000 Michigan Stadium patrons squirming, the Wolverines' defense had to somehow hold off seven thrusts inside the 10-yard line in the final minute, including a dropped pass in the end zone.

But survive both did. The Buckeyes, playing before 53,351 Memorial Stadium fans -- at least 20,000 of whom were wearing visiting Scarlet and Gray, got off to a too-easy 17-0 halftime lead, then basically shut down the offense for the rest of the game.

They racked up (wracked up might be a better description) a season-low 224 yards' total offense, 65 of them coming on the game's first drive, 180 in the first half. Typical of this was Antonio Pittman's 58 rushing yards. In 32 carries!

"I don't know what (being) overwhelming favorite does for us," Bucks coach Jim Tressel said to a legion of media scrutinizers that gets bigger by the week. He was somewhat miffed by his team's inability to move the ball consistently against a beleaguered Illini defense that had yielded 26 points a game before this game.

"It doesn't spot us any points or get us any first downs," Tressel added. "So what does it say that we got taken against the wall? Everybody can get taken against the wall."

No question. The season, which started with an impressive 35-12 shredding of Northern Illinois and a rumbling 24-7 victory at then No. 1 Texas, had produced few Maalox moments for Tressel and the Bucks. The Texas game, truly a one-sided Austin Saturday Night, represented the closest an opponent got to the Bucks before this one.

While there is no question Troy Smith is still the epicenter of the Heisman Trophy discussion, this game did little to add to the senior quarterback's resume. He completed 13-of-23 passes for just 108 yards and was sacked three times.

Short touchdown bursts by Chris Wells (a fourth-down plunge that barely made the end zone on O.S.U.'s first possession) and Antonio Pittman in the second quarter, plus a half-ending 50 yard Aaron Pettrey field goal were the only Buckeyes entries in the game scoresheet.

"A win is a win any which way you look at it," Smith proclaimed to The Associated Press. "Whether you score 50 points or 17 (the Bucks had scored 44 two weeks in a row in home routs of Indiana and Minnesota) -- not the way you want to, who cares? We won today and will continue to grow."

While having one of the nation's most rabid fanbases, the dark side of that is it is also one of the most scrutinizing.

As the 30,000-plus Illini backers sensed their team had a chance to cause Bowl Championship Series convulsions from the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam, the growling among some of the Buckeyes crowd was plainly audible.

The defense was its usual beastly self in the second half, although with O.S.U. unable to sustain possession in the second half, it was on the field for 19 minutes, 22 seconds and finally, the Illini broke through, first with a 27-yard field goal with 8:54 left, then a three-yard Rashard Mendenhall run with 1:40 left that tightened a few throats among the Bucks' faithful and sideline.

Fortunately for Ohio State, Brian Robiskie dove on Reda's on-side kick and the Bucks were able to burn all but four seconds of the remaining time, leaving the Illlini on their own 2-yard line.

One respected Buckeyes beat writer said the beleaguered defense was "almost enjoying" the challenge. Uh, no. There were plenty of sideline gestures by the new guard, led by sophmore linebacker James Laurinaitis and old, whose spokesman was senior tackle David Patterson.

Their message: Cool it. Stay focused. Not to be confused with "We're having a ball out here..."

Patterson did put on a brave face. "As a defense we like when pressure is on us," he said. "It was a feeling of guys getting together and rallying together."

Hard to argue that, and now because of it, the Bucks can add "Survivors" to the many other labels applied to the 2006 season full of superlatives.

"We knew, as a team, they were going to pretty much give us everything (they had)," said Smith, admiring the Illini's never-quit spunk. "This was pretty much their shot of doing something big, ending their season on a positive note..."

There is a long-held cliche about not accepting moral victories, and if you polled the Illinois players, you'd probably have heard it repeatedly. But defensive tackle Chris Norwell, who had a monster game stuffing the Buckeyes running game and chasing Smith, thought his mates had made a statement.

"When the No. 1 team in the country comes in, it's a great challenge," he said to The Associated Press. "I think we just basically executed better in the second half."

Fortunately for the Buckeyes, the Illini fell a failed onsides kick short.

Just as Ball State fell an end-zone near-miss short.

And fortunately for both O.S.U. and The Gang Up North, the B.C.S. computers didn't factor that into their weekly stat-packs. The Bucks and Wolverines remain a rock-solid 1-2, light years ahead of No. 3 Louisville.

With Michigan visiting Indiana and Ohio State traveling to Northwestern this week, that doesn't figure to change. But we were saying that last week and look what almost happened.

Notes: The Illini offense seemed to snap to life when coach Ron Zook replaced starting quarterback Isiah "Juice" Williams with Tim Brasic, who guided the 80-yard T.D. drive that brought Illinois within seven...Zook on being a weekday prophet: "I told the guys on Thursday it's going to come down to an onside kick," he told A.P. "When I saw the ball in the air, I really thought we were going to get it, but it wasn't meant to be." The Illini might have a shot at a win, as struggling Purdue (6-4 overall, 3-3 in Big Ten), which barely edged out free-falling Michigan State, visits Champaign.