OSU Football

I love OSU football, really, I do. I just like other Cleveland sports more. The Cavs, the Tribe, the Browns and the Buckeyes are all my teams, but sometimes I just don't 'get' the passion for some aspects of OSU Football.

I have friends who really follow recruiting. I understand it, but I just can't get into it. These are high school kids we're talking about and its a crapshoot if these kids are going to make it. Am I excited when OSU lands a coveted recruit? Of course, but I can't follow the entire process.

Take yesterday's Scarlett and Gray spring game. It's a glorified practice and 60-70,000 people show up. That I cannot do. It was televised too, I caught the halftime report, they telecastors we're saying how good the defensive line looked, but they weren't sure if it was because the D-line got better, or because the O-line was missing some seniors.

That's my problem here, how do I know what I'm seeing matters? If our offense smokes our defense, does that mean our D sucks? Or is our O good? Who knows?

The Dispatch gets carried away too, they had a ton of stories on the OSU Spring game (only a game recap of LeBron's first playoff game). Dispatch columnist Bob Hunter is a great example, in the same column he compares incoming freshman running back Chris Wells not only to Jim Brown, but to Babe Ruth as well:

Besides, if you know the Ruth story, you know how easy it is for simple things to be misinterpreted. Cubs pitcher Charlie Root used to say that Ruth’s home-run gesture meant nothing of the sort, and there’s no way for us to know exactly what Wells was intending with his chest slap. He might simply have been quelling a cough or straightening his shoulder pads or …

------------

But Wells takes this spring game perception stuff one step further. After all, he’s the player who, on national signing day, running backs coach Dick Tressel said reminded him of Jim Brown. Tressel wouldn’t back off that comparison after watching Wells through four weeks of spring practice.Whether fans think they saw the second coming of Brown yesterday is what this whole Scarlet-Gray thing is all about. This is one day of the year where reality seldom intrudes on perception.

Wells looked good. He led both squads in rushing with 48 yards on 11 carries. He broke a lot of tackles, a lot like Brown used to do in Cleveland.

Maybe Hunter is joking, maybe it's all about how passionate OSU fans are. I dunno, I love my Buckeyes man, but sometimes I think we gotta chill a bit.