"If ever we didn't need all this caving down on us," one student would say, "it was today." The day the Buckeyes faced their archrival Michigan, the team Woody Hayes liked to term "The Gang Up North," in the most intense three and a half hours college football offers.

If you are either not a college football fan or have shut out the daily world for a couple of weeks, the No. 13 in question was belonged to controversial All-American tailback Maurice Clarett, who had he remained, would have been completing a likely spectacular junior year.

Had normalcy prevailed.

But Mr. Clarett, bent on rewriting pro football history as effectively as he had Buckeyes lore in his brilliant freshman year, drove O.S.U. officialdom crazy as he lobbied to join the N.F.L. during and after the Buckeyes' national championship season of 2002.

Since that time, he has accused the university, its coaching staff and various affiliates of everything but having weapons of mass destruction.

So much for the history lesson, but needless to say, the Buckeyes battled distraction and potential destruction as they built up their intensity level for The Game. It became the unlucky past, personified by No. 13 vs. the uncertain present, played by Ohio State's beloved good luck symbol, "The Big Horseshoe," filled over capacity with 105,456 Bucknuts, second largest crowd in Ohio Stadium history.

Which is as good a way to explain the Bucks' stirring 37-21 victory over the Wolverines as any.

"We always hope we'll play our best game against Michigan, number one," a Claretted-out O.S.U. coach Jim Tressel told Edward Mauler of Ohio State's campus daily, The Lantern. "We work night and day -- not just this week, but all year long -- to become better and better and better and hope that at the end of the year you can play your best game."

This one didn't bump the No. 13 Wolverines (9-2 overall, 7-1 in Big Ten play) from a shot at the national title; it did, however, knock the confident Maize and Blue down more than a few pegs, from No. 7, although Michigan will represent the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl as a result of 12th-raned Iowa's victory over No. 20 Wisconsin.

What it also did was shove the unwanted visit from the N.C.A.A.'s Gang Out West, a second round of inquiries and investigations from the empty suits of the Indianapolis-based organization, to the rear pages, for a day at least.

And in the process, unfolded a tale of a potentially-brilliant future for the Bucks in annual hand-to-hand combat that is a Big Ten title chase.

Where Ohio State (7-4, 4-4) will wind up for this year's post-season begs the main point of the school's two-week verbal war with the media elite.

What it showed is that Tressel, the team and its boisterous fan base could focus on the present.

Thanks, largely, to the brilliance of a pair of Cleveland Glenville High School products, true freshman Ted Ginn, Jr. and redshirt sophomore quarterback Troy Smith.

"Last couple of games, (Ginn's) sort of been like the sparkplug in our car," Smith told Mauler. "He's kept us going, hats off to him."

But without Smith's brilliant mix of athleticism, rare field smarts and exceptional intelligence, the Bucks would have been staring at a 6-5 finish and a bare-bones bowl in Bumpluck, Tex.

Smith, however, put his personal editing touch on this game, creating a dizzying 386 yards of total offense, 145 rushing -- most in the modern era by an O.S.U. quarterback -- and 241 passing, including two touchdown strikes. It placed him third all-time behind Art Schlichter (412) and Joe Germaine (388), but Smith was numb to numbers other than those registering under "OHIO ST." and "MICHIGAN" on the scoreboard.

"I didn't realize what this rivalry was about and is about until you get a 'W,' until you're in it, until you're in the fight," Smith told Cleveland Plain Dealer O.S.U. beat guy Bruce Hooley. "My hat's off to Michigan, but today was Ohio State's day."

But it took every bit of Smith's heroics. With the nation's 108th ranked offense going against a Top 15 defense, the task was daunting.

Smith had started out beating a backside Michigan rush and hit Tony Gonzalez on a 68-yard bomb in the game's first series to put O.S.U. up early, but then the Wolverines put the Bucks in the squeezer.

Two touchdowns in a four-minute, 23-second stretch, a 14-7 lead for Team Darth Vader.

"We never want to lose to Ohio State, especially when we have so much on the line," Michigan senior cornerback Marlin Jackson told The Detroit News' Angelique Chengelis.

Chad Henne hit Jason Avant for a four-yard score and then after a 3-and-out punctuated by a 21-yard Jason Turano punt, U-M's most pleasing discovery, freshman Michael Hart out of Syracuse, N.Y., capped a 43-yard drive with a one-yard plunge that put the Wolverines up.

But it was how the Buckeyes responded to that dark moment that defined this season as largely successful despite the four disappointing losses.

A ninety-nine yard drive, two Mike Nugent field goals, then one of the most electrifying punt returns in Ohio State history, an 82-yarder by Ginn that wowed both sidelines.

But in the end, it was Smith's brilliance that rocketed the Bucks past U-M.

"We knew coming in he was an exceptional athlete and that he was capable of making big plays," Jackson told The News. "Today he made too many big plays and that kept their confidence high and offense moving."

Ginn, who has lived up to all aspects of his prep All-American billing, turned the Wolverines' exceptional special teams inside out on the killer punt return that gave the Bucks a 13-point lead.

"I get to watch that every day in practice," Tressel told The Lantern. "And that one, I don't know where that (came from) -- I mean, I was shocked. (Ginn) just came out of nowhere. How many yards later? Eighty-two? Oh, Lord -- 82 yards later, we've got a touchdown. He's special!"

The highlight-film moment came relatively early in the third quarter, as Ginn and Santonio Holmes looked indecisively at Adam Finley's booming punt before Holmes seemed likely to catch the fast-falling missile before he ducked out of the way and Ginn seemed a 50-50 shot to fumble.

"All of a sudden," Tressel told Hooley, "(Ginn) flipped his hands out. I was just glad he caught it."

But once Ginn slipped a straight-on tackle try by Anton Campbell, three more U-M defenders loomed. With a spin move that could only be likened to a hockey spin-a-rama, Ginn left all three Wolverines grasping air and took off on a major wind-sprint to the end zone.

"I had to make something real quick," Ginn told Mauler. "I was just trying to find a hole to get vertical, as my coach (Mel Tucker) told me to.

"As I said before, once you see the touchdown, there's no point in making a move. You just use your speed and get to the end zone."

Yep, that simple. Or not. "Sometimes," U-M coach Lloyd Carr, whose record vs. Ohio State fell to 6-4, said to The Plain Dealer's Burt Graeff. "you can cause other problems when kicking away from people (like Ginn). Ginn's return changed the complexion of the game..."

It gave the Bucks yet another boost of confidence to produce a killing 97-yard T.D. drive, ending with a 12-yard-Smith-to-Holmes T.D. pass. It easily withstood one final Michigan push early in the fourth quarter, a 38-yard Chad Henne-to-Braylon Edwards T.D. pass.

"I don't know how long each possession was as far as minutes," Tressel told Hooley, "but they were both significant. That's how you win a game -- control the tempo of the game -- and we happened to do that on those two drives."

Yeah, The Columbus Dispatch was alive Monday with yet another tale of boosters, jobs and yadayadayada. But Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany might have best put the whole sordid mess in perspective Saturday.

"I'm looking for the corroboration," Delany told The Plain Dealer's Bruce Hooley. "I'm looking for a document. I'm looking for something other than a regurgitation of broad statements that were made, discredited and then remade...

"Having said all that, the N.C.A.A. may conclude that Maurice Clarett is a great witness with lots of intergrity and his facts can be backed up. If that's the case, then Ohio State has issues..."

From many impartial legions, Clarett has a better chance of playing Radames in the latest Metropolitan Opera version of "Aida."

"I've been watching and working with Andy Geiger for a quarter-century," Delany added. "Some of the comments the young man has made with reference to Geiger don't pass the smell test, as far as I'm concerned."

Delany, an attorney, doesn't arrive idly at his conclusions. From here, it looks more and more like this exhausting season will have one of the happier endings in recent Ohio State history.