Big Game, Immense Hype for Buckeye Football – Ohio State Buckeyes
11/17/1998 12:00:00 AM | Football
November 17, 1998
By Rusty Miller
AP Sports
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Every time they turn around they are reminded of what’s ahead. When the phone rings, they don’t assume it’s only Mom calling.
“Everywhere you go, it’s just somebody saying, ‘What’s going to happen? Are you going to win?”‘ Ohio State flanker Dee Miller said. “So I’ll just pretty much close myself off, stay in my apartment, sit on the couch, watch some film and if the phone rings, check my caller I.D. and see who it is. If it’s nobody I want to talk to, I won’t answer.”
Michigan is coming, and television, radio and newspapers are overloading on Ohio State football like no other time.
Asked what he liked least about the week, coach John Cooper said: “The hype that goes with it – the questions you have to answer. But that goes with it. I understand.”
In a city of 633,000 that is caught in Ohio State’s gravitational pull, there is only one major topic of discussion.
The Middle East crisis? It doesn’t lead the evening news. The impeachment investigation? It was at the bottom of the front page of Sunday’s Columbus Dispatch, squashed by an Ohio State football picture that filled a quarter of the page along with a headline that read, “Big Ten Battle Royale.” And this was a week before the game.
It’s an obsession that often turns to depression. In Cooper’s 10 years at Ohio State, his teams are 1-8-1 against Michigan. The Buckeyes have been unbeaten going into the game three times in the last five years – and lost.
This year, Ohio State got the disappointment out of the way early, losing to another Michigan school, Michigan State, 28-24 two weeks ago. One writer suggested someone erased the word “State” on Cooper’s schedule.
The No. 7 Buckeyes are 9-1. If the No. 11 Wolverines win, they take the Big Ten title and go to the Rose Bowl. If Ohio State wins, the Buckeyes grab a share of the conference championship and are almost assured a major bowl, possibly the Rose.
Ohio State’s problems have been a source of unending commentary on talk radio. Everybody wants to get in his two cents.
Eric Kaelin, host of a morning call-in show on Ohio State’s flagship station, WBNS in Columbus, said a typical day in August might include five callers an hour.
But as the scarlet-letter day on Ohio State’s schedule approaches, the phone lines are jammed.
“If all we did was take phone calls – no weather, no traffic, no news updates, no commercials – if all we did was have Bob calling from his car phone, we could easily fill up an hour with no trouble,” Kaelin said.
Most of the players, particularly those who grew up in Michigan or Ohio, are steeped in the mania of the game. They don’t need encouragement from Bob on his car phone.
“Someone asked me a couple of weeks ago, ‘Do you think about Michigan all season?”‘ Ohio State linebacker and co-captain Jerry Rudzinski said. “I told him, ‘No, I think about Michigan 365 days a year. I’ve been thinking about Ohio State-Michigan since grade school.”‘
