No Free Passes – Behind the Hate

“Team A will be monsters this year.” “They are one of the fastest teams around.” “It was just a complete meltdown from every standpoint. Same thing for the [BCS National Championship Game] loss to [Team X]. If it could go wrong it did and then some.” “I still think Team A had more overall talent and speed.” “It also appeared to me that [Team Y] just wanted it more.” “I'm sure he will get this all figured out - my guess will be this year.” “I think that [Team A] will be a top 5 team at the end of this coming season.” “There have all of the tools. This program is a class act, with top grade A players.”

Guess which team all of the comments are about. O. OK. Okla? That’s right, Oklahoma. SportingNews.com, the media, and the fans seemingly love Oklahoma. A team so eerily similar to Ohio State that gets free passes while OSU is sacrificed on the public stage.

The same Oklahoma that won a championship in 2001, then proceeded to lose the national championship in 2003, get destroyed by USC 55-19 in 2004 in the national championship (worst loss in BCS history), beat Oregon in the Holiday Bowl in 2005, get stunned by Boise State in the 2006 BCS Fiesta Bowl, and get hammered 48-28 by West Virginia in the BCS Fiesta Bowl. Yes, that Oklahoma.

What has Oklahoma done that OSU hasn’t? Well, they are located in Oklahoma, for starters. Secondly, their championship loses were a long time ago and the Buckeyes are current events. Let’s take a look at where the hate comes from:

Jealousy. For 99.15% of people (that would be the fans of the other 117 teams out of 118 teams that didn’t beat the Buckeyes in the championship), jealousy is their motive. Big Ten teams hate the Buckeyes because they continue to dominate the conference. Most SEC teams hate the Buckeyes because they never got a chance to play them. Everyone else is jealous because Ohio State is there and they are not. Ohio State succeeded where the other failed, such as in 2007. Ohio State got to sit back the last weekend while all the other teams lost, the critics will say. In reality, all teams in conferences without championships (Big East, Pac-10) play the same number of games but on different days due to bye weeks.

Ohio State is as much USC as it is the anti-USC. For all intensive purpose, they each have the same number of National Championship trophies. USC gets atonement from fans and the media as much as they persecute OSU. The truth is Stanford beating USC is the most monumental upset of all time. Stanford was by far a worse team than Appalachian St was and USC a greater favorite than Michigan. Michigan was nowhere near as good as they should have been, but many people (ESPN, Jim Harbaugh) were calling USC the greatest team of all time.

Championship Performances. Hey, I hate the Buckeyes’ last 2 performances in the championship games. No wonder everyone hates them too. Take away the Florida loss and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It did happen, it was bad. LSU happened, but all it proved is the Buckeyes’ defense (and offense) leaves a lot to be desired. The good news and the bad news is that most of the key cogs from the LSU game are back for a second time, and a lot of those players were there in the Florida loss. Experience over past performances? That’s what we’re betting on.

The Big Ten hates Ohio State for their performances in the national championship games. That’s right, the conference that OSU barrels through is mad at its best team for choking away wins. They have a right to believe that, but I would be (and I am) more embarrassed by Michigan losing to Appalachian State and Oregon, Minnesota losing to everyone, and Northwestern losing to Duke. Win your own battles first. However, I do believe the Big Ten will go 3-0 against the Pac-10 this year (with, I hate to say it, OSU being the only team that could have problems).

History. Let’s face it, Ohio State gets the benefit of the doubt because of what it is and what it has accomplished over the years. There’s a good chance that Ohio State got into the championship game last year because it was Ohio State and they win a lot, and not just on merit. But really, there was no one left besides LSU and Ohio State. Neither team lost to Stanford. Neither team got beat by the conference champion. Both teams won their conferences. Neither team was from the ACC.

There’s a reason why history and tradition normally helps, in addition to just the fan base. History and tradition gives you a hint at whether a team is likely to meltdown at any minute and the kind of talent they have waiting in the wings. OSU has proven to only meltdown in championship games and are normally a model of consistency (2 Big Ten losses in 3 years). USF was #2 this year! Then what happened? So was Cal! For like 2 minutes, then what happened? Oregon had no one after Dixon went down. Ohio State has proven over the years that it’s not flaky like these other teams. Ohio State has depth and skill and has proven it can consistently be good.

Fans. You, me, everybody in Buckeye Nation. This isn’t Florida where it’s broken up into Florida State, Miami, and Florida. This isn’t Texas, California, or even Michigan. Ohio State belongs to Ohio. There’s a reason no instate school has beaten Ohio State since the mid-teens of the last century. Fans from other Ohio schools routinely throw on their Scarlet and Gray on Saturdays. As fans, we feel like Ohio State is the best and the only ones who have a better claim to that (as of right now) are Florida and LSU. Everything in Ohio is Buckeye this or Buckeye that. You want to watch a game at Ohio Stadium? Be my guest, but you better be in something red, gray, or have something Buckeye on it. If you are a fan of the opposing team, chances are you are going to draw unwanted attention. We are most especially happy when the Shoe is packed with 105,000-and-change Buckeyes. Then again, we will visit your stadium because there are open seats and cheaper prices. The only reason there aren’t more fans at Ohio State games is because they ran out of space to put people and the Federal Aviation Administration probably limits how high in the sky the stadium can go.

You are arrogant. You think other teams suck. You will let them know that. You are a Buckeye. This may seen odd, but you are no different from any other major college football power’s fans. Florida proved that. Now the SEC proved it. If Ohio State would have won the past 2 championship games, the SEC would be in shambles and you all would have been beating the fact that “Ohio State is number one” into any person or thing that resembled a person. You though OSU fans were obnoxious before? Wait until they win another championship.

YouTube, Blogs, & Message Boards. Suddenly, I’m a source of information. I put this on the web, thus people are going to take it as fact. I’d call this an editorial or opinion, definitely NOT investigative journalism. Suddenly, everyone with a keyboard gets to chime in when their team doesn’t play exactly like they did on NCAA 2009 (but he’s a 99 in the game!). Before message boards, the term ‘possession receiver’ was a good thing. Before message boards, no one ran a 4.2. Google the words “Ohio State” and “blow out” and they normally resulted in “blown out by Ohio State” and not “blew out Ohio State”.

The reason no one remembers Oklahoma getting shellacked 55-19 against USC is because no one had YouTube. Hell, you were lucky enough to get pictures of the game on the Internet. Before YouTube, there wasn’t highlight films (Iowa Had a Bad Day), but there definitely weren’t lowlight films (Ohio State Had a Bad Day). The game stayed in your head for a day and then the Super Bowl was in a month.

Media. People hate Ohio State because that’s what the media tells them to do. Trust me, most college football fans aren’t smart enough to formulate that conclusion on their own. Chances are also high that they have never seen the Buckeyes play besides in National Championship games. It’s easy to pick on the team that doesn’t win and even easier when they don’t win on the biggest stage. Look at the pictures from the past 2 championship games? Troy Smith getting sacked by a helmet-less Floridian and Todd Boeckman fumbling with 4 LSU players on him. Meanwhile, other pictures from the LSU game show 4 OSU players dragging down a Tiger, and in the Florida game, uh, Ted Ginn returned a touchdown…

Even the Big Ten Network talks about Ohio State getting blown out of 2 national championship games and they are owned by the conference. Just imagine what an ESPN or CBS meeting rooms must look like. My personal favorite was CBS lambasting Ohio State for ‘backing into the title game’ last year after jumping from third to first after the Missouri and West Virginia losses. All that ruckus while a team from their conference, LSU, made the stratospheric leap from #7 to #2 after beating an overrated Tennessee team (so its considered a good year for the SEC when Tennessee makes the championship game?). Folks, the BCS is not really a system if you get to choose who you want in the games.

“Well OSU doesn’t have to play in a championship game” is the worst excuse I have heard since Charlie Weis’ 2007 season. How did that work out for those who did win championship games? Virginia Tech beat Boston College in the most boring meaningful game I’ve ever seen. Fans wouldn’t even make the trip to Florida. Oklahoma beat Missouri twice in one season and proved Missouri isn’t there yet. LSU didn’t even play Georgia. CBS can play it off however they want, but at least the 2 best teams in the Big Ten played one another last year.

You know it’s bad when espn.com has an article entitled “Most Hated” and the Buckeyes rank #1. Thanks ESPN, you put them there. When your payroll includes names like “Mark May” and “Todd McShay” (hey, that rhymes…I’m thinking TV show!), you know your not pro-Ohio State.

As Jim Tressel would say, you can only earn respect on the field. But he also knows there’s a million people that want to tell you how to run a team, but 99% of them don’t have any clue what they are talking about.