ECHOES from the men of the Scarlet and Gray

This was an echoing statement during the course of my entire trip back to old Columbus town this past weekend.

After the standard Northwest Airlines red-eye from Seattle to Columbus (via 4-fricken-hour layover in Detroit), I spent most of the day recovering from sleep deprivation, which is odd as I slept on both flights and generally gained more sleepy time than I would in a typical evening back in the Jet City. Some red-eyes are good and some are decidedly “no bueno.”

Friday marked the arrival of one of my buddies from Washington that decided he wanted to experience the finer points of Columbus, Ohio. Believe it or not there are plenty of things to do in this city…just that most of them revolve around a combination of sports and alcohol/food consumption.

Ohio State Ice Hockey

My “ladyfriend” (she loves it when I call her this…really) my buddy, and I headed down to Value City Arena for some OSU Ice Hockey. Whoa…what a way to start off the sporting weekend. The OSU Ice Hockey (sprinkled with a bunch of youngsters) took on the #8 team in the country and fierce rival, the Miami Redhawks. It was a game of momentum swings as OSU was up on Miami most of the game, but a late call on OSU gave Miami a 5-on-3 advantage and it was able to capitalize on the power play to tie the game to go into overtime. The game ended tied through overtime at 3-3. The game went to a shootout (new rule for this year), which OSU was able to win 3-1. Good times…an exciting game and things look on the up-and-up for the Hockey Buckeyes. For Markell’s sake, I hope this a good season (regardless of the team age factor…or where they were picked to finish in the CCHA this year), as his coaching future at OSU likely depends on a good season this year. By the way, Miami hockey fans…learn some original cheers. There is a reason OSU fans don’t do them, and that is because we don’t want to copy from Michigan, which copied them from Cornell. You guys sound like idiots. At least do something cool besides the “It’s all your fault.. It’s all your fault.” Maybe pull out a Wisconsin-esque that’s debatable and go across conferences. Maybe you guys can start the O-H-I-O around the football stadium on Big Ben Appreciation Day with that capacity crowd of 2,500.

Next topic…

Saturday was the standard trip to Northstar Café for yummy breakfast goodness (Did you ever notice they never make enough Ham-and-Cheese scones at that place?). Skull Session Entrance for the band. Over to Hineygate for some liquid libations and onward to the stadium for the “band” stuff. It was interesting to bring someone out here that had no idea what a gameday was like in Columbus and the utter chaos of pre-gaming and Hineygate and the crazy fanaticism involved with the OSU Marching Band. I kept mentioning the activities that we needed to see and that involved the band, which brought the looks of ‘seriously?’ I guess some of may take for granted the greatness of the OSU Marching Band at that a lot of schools don’t have the type of love for it’s band (ahem…Washington).

OSU Football

Oh yeah..that’s right there was a little event that took place on Saturday, as well. OSU and Purdue played a game of who’s offense was more inept for 4 quarters. Purdue won, but not for a lack of OSU trying it’s best. The defense and the special teams were fantastic for the Buckeyes. The offense seemed to have a Ro-Shambo session with itself every time it got inside of the 20-yard line and field goals seemed to be the main course of the day. I would be remiss if I did not mention the blocked punt by Mr Jenkins and resulting touchdown by Etienne Sabino in the first quarter. Outside of the offense (sounds like the entire team has the flu right now…especially on the offense) and pretty solid defense, the only disappointment that I had with the game was the fake field goal that stopped by a whistle in the second quarter. From our seats, it looked like AJ had so much room to run, he probably could have “speed-walked” for a first down. Terelle Pryor looked meh on this day. You can tell that he wants to throw the ball, but the defenses are starting to take away the quick slant or at least minimizing it’s effectiveness, as there were a few times that the Purdue linebackers and D-Backs were waiting for the receiver to catch it and not allowing the OSU wide receivers to make a play. Terelle’s play is a double-edged sword right now. We all want him to become an actual Quarterback, but if he sees a lane that he can exploit from any formation…he needs to take it sometimes. The designed QB runs are awkward (even the option looked decidedly worse this week, which should improve when Beanie gets rid of the sniffles and Herron gets the cobwebs cleaned out of his head).and you just wish that a little 2005 Troy Smith would crawl into TP’s head. 2005 Troy Smith’s ad-hoc running ability is what opened up the intermediate passing routes and allowed to him exploit both the underneath and 12-17 yard route with more regularity as the season progressed. Michigan State will be a challenge…especially if this weekend’s offense shows up next weekend.

Postgame activities included a “long” stop at one of the few remaining bars that actually stills existed from my times in Columbus…The Stube. Same bathrooms…Same 12-15 songs on the jukebox….Same beer prices. Same smell…and of course…same Stube magic.

Good to be back in cowtown with family and friends…even on a limited basis…

Other weekend observations:

• The Columbus Bluejackets started off the weekend right by spoiling the season opener for the Dallas Stars (who are pretty good…but Marty Turco is still a bag of douche) on Friday and showed signs of being on a back-to-back on Saturday when they lost to the Coyotes (who are teh suck).
• Michigan…moving on…Amstutz was given a lifetime supply of Tony Packo’s for this accomplishment.
• A big shout out to Wisconsin for mailing in it’s season after losing a tough one to the Buckeyes last weekend. I am not even sure why they bothered showing up for this one. At least put up a fight on your home turf…gutless.Penn State is a good team, but they are not that good..imo.
• Talk about paper-champions. Mizzou had that deer-in-headlights look (Us Buckeye fans are familiar with that look, see BCS Championship game film from 2006 and 2007) against Okie State on Saturday evening. They got punched in the face and the plan went straight out the window. I may be the only person that thinks this way, but as soon as Mizzou was behind in the game I pretty much knew that Okie State was going to win. Call it body language…call it Chase Daniels waiting for someone to spit on him…whatevah…
• Looks like dreams can come true. Washington State lost to Oregon State eleventy-billion to three. The “0-fer” Apple Cup to decide the Pac-10 basement is one step closer to becoming a reality.
• It has been a few years since OSU and Texas squared off in Austin, but it was nice to see Colt McCoy get a much deserved win against Oklahoma. Cant help but feel good for that team, which was getting no press leading up until this game.
• Finally, there have been a few articles about some of the players wanting to see Boeckman in there from time to time. I’m not against it, but not sure if it sends the right message to Pryor at this point in his development.

~YNBA~