COLUMBUS, Ohio—On message boards and call-in shows, you can hear the dread, the disappointment and the discouragement from Ohio State fans.
A painful 24-6 loss at Miami last Saturday night has the Buckeyes faithful expecting the worst. Even though eight games remain on the schedule, and key suspended players will be returning soon, some fans are girding for a debacle. They predict the program’s first losing season since 1988.
But not everyone sees impending gloom and doom for the Buckeyes.
Colorado coach Jon Embree, who brings his Buffaloes to Ohio Stadium on Saturday, benefits from being removed from the situation. He thinks the fans are overreacting.
“I know people are down on them around their program,” he said. “But to me, it is more that they have been so successful and they have done so well. And all of a sudden they lose a game and it is supposed to change? I don’t see it.”
It’s appropriate that Ohio State’s coach is named Fickell. Buckeyes fans have been known to show their fickle nature. Former coach John Cooper once cracked, “They’re with us, win or tie.”
That’s not to say that the Buckeyes don’t have problems. The quarterback job is an open sore after an abysmal passing performance (4 of 18, 35 yards, one interception) in the loss to the Hurricanes. True freshman Braxton Miller will get his first collegiate start against the Buffaloes, with Joe Bauserman backing him up.
But the Miami loss wasn’t all the fault of Bauserman or Miller. The wide receivers were covered like a fallen tent in a wind storm. The defense gave up a 54-yard run on its first play, and then surrendered touchdown passes to cap the first two possessions.
Ohio State (2-1), still awaiting three suspended starters’ return in two more games, has a lot of cracks and breeches to fix. The Buckeyes are aware of what is being said about them. But they haven’t stopped believing.
“That’s how fans are,” offensive lineman J.B. Shugarts said. “Some fans are bandwagon fans, some fans aren’t. But Buckeye Nation is loyal for the most part and we’ve got some of the best fans in the country. I would just tell them to have faith, this is Ohio State.”
He’s not the only one who thinks the school colors should remain scarlet and gray instead black.
“People are used to winning around here and so are we,” center Mike Brewster said. “They don’t take losing lightly and neither do we. That’s why we’re going to continue to keep getting better every day and make sure we come out Saturday playing well.”
Interim coach Luke Fickell has stressed bouncing back to his charges.
“They know how you feel. It’s not like I’m going to hide my emotions from them,” he said. “But you have to move on. You got to take it a day at a time. If you try to look two or three or four weeks down the road—where are you going to be at at this time?—to me that’s when you kill yourself. It’s that every single day trying to focus on that day, having some patience with it, finding ways to get better, see yourself getting better as a team in everything that you do.”
Colorado (1-2) comes in with some momentum that it hopes to build on, a 28-14 victory over rival Colorado State last week—Embree’s first win as a head coach at any level. Next week, the Buffaloes debut in the Pac-12—or whatever the name or number of the conference might be by then.
The Buffs, with just one turnover in their first three games, rely on quarterback Tyler Hansen, who ran for two scores and passed for two more against Colorado State.
But the road has not been kind. Colorado opened with a road loss, falling behind 17-0 at Hawaii at the half, drawing as close as 24-17 before losing 34-17.
A program that used to be a national contender every year has now lost a school-record 18 in a row away from home.
“Missed opportunities are magnified a little bit more, especially when you go to a place like Columbus,” Embree said. “It’s 108,000 people trying to will their team to victory, and so when you miss an opportunity and it can create a momentum shift. I feel like we played hard, we competed in Hawaii. We just didn’t start fast. I don’t think you can say that that is a road issue. We’ll just go out there and keep plugging away and get after it and end this streak at some point.”
The Buckeyes begin Big Ten play next week, too, opening with a strong Michigan State team at home before playing at Nebraska for the first time in conference play, then going to No. 24 Illinois and hosting No. 6 Wisconsin.
A two-game losing streak is no way to go into that grueling month of games.
“You can always find positives in every game,” Ohio State defensive tackle John Simon said, straining to be optimistic after watching the Miami film. “We’re not going to make excuses for ourselves. Miami came to play and got the job done. Our objective this week is Colorado. “We’ll bring that fire back. Everyone’s excited.”
———
Rusty Miller can be reached at
