Yes, I know we’re two days into Michigan week, but for reasons that will become clear later, I’m a little behind. Nevertheless, we’ve got a week’s worth of stuff for Michigan Week for our fellow Buckeye fans. We’ve left the painful (literally) memory of the Illinois in the past. We’ve all moved on and it’s time to look forward to bigger and better things, i.e. beating Michigan.

So here are some of the things we have lined up:

• Ahhh, the memories. Each day this week we’ll look back at some images of past Ohio State/Michigan games. Unlike the poor fellows at the MZone, we don’t have to get into the way-back-machine and turn back the clock thirty years. We’ll just check in with last year’s game.
• As much as it pains us, we’ll still do a performance review of the Illinois game. It will be quick and painless.
• Tressnac may stop by for a visit.
• We already looked and why UM will beat OSU (with a straight face, even!) Next we’ll be looking at why OSU will beat UM (duh).
• We may even fit a blogpoll ballot in there somewhere.

Don’t go anywhere!

So OSU didn’t make it to the BCS game again.

Fans from ages past would hang their heads in shame at the lot of you.

You’re upset over a Big 10 record 20 straight conference victories?!?

You’re upset over a 28-game regular season winning streak?!?

You’re upset over two straight Big Ten championships?!?

You’re upset that your team has been dominant enough have a chance to beat Michigan for ANOTHER championship, and a trip to the Rose Bowl for the first time in ten years?!?

You’re actually angry?!?

Link to clip, H/T to Jeff @ the BBC, as always.

A couple things before the game starts:

• Shawn Crable and the rest of the UM defense made some pretty dirty plays against Wisconsin. I also noticed that Wisconsin’s D wasn’t as chippy today as they were last week in the ‘Shoe. This does not compute.
• Andre Ware is the new Trev “I miss Mark” Alberts. I’m not sure he has a left side to his brain.
• I was hoping Michigan won today. I really didn’t want extra motivation going into next week. This is something that doesn’t bode well for Ohio State. But maybe, just maybe, they are truly beaten down and they ain’t getting up again.
• And another thing — Mississippi State beat Alabama, the same Alabama that took LSU down to the wire. Can we now say that the SEC is not, in fact, the power conference? Please?

Now let’s go Bucks!

First Half

First play — 65 yards down the field. Uh-oh, Spaghetti-OH!

Second Half

I had to step out for a little while and now I return to this horror! Gah!!

Congrats to the Illini.

And now they fighting. Great job.

I’m not feeling so hot right now, so I’ll just let this soak.

sportsMonkey here:
It’s still a great season, everybody! Don’t fret too much.

It’s okay to be disappointed that the Bucks won’t go to the BCS game, but that’s an unreasonable expectation for any team. If it happens – hey great. But don’t forget what the real OSU goals are: (1) Big Ten title, and (2) victory over UM. Sure, it would have been nice to dispatch an overrated SEC team in the title game, but that would have been a bonus. Trust me when I tell you that, if the Bucks win next week, you won’t be so upset about today’s loss.

Still, I know some still want to blow off steam about today’s game, so here are some points for discussion:

1. Do not blame the defense for the loss… Illinois is a fine offensive football team. The goats in this game are Boeckman and Tressel.
2. el Kaiser will vouch for the fact that earlier this year I said that, if the Bucks lost this season, it would be due to Boeckman’s underthrown wounded ducks. Not that I’m happy about being right… but I’m just sayin.
3. 4th down, 7 minutes to go, Illinois punting… and Tressel calls a time out?!? Worst coaching decision of his career here at tOSU. It allows Zook to change his mind, he goes on 4th… and that’s the game. Even Zook expressed puzzlement after the game; he was ready to give the ball back to the Bucks in good field position with 7 minutes left. As bad as the O-line and Boeckman were playing, OSU still had an opportunity to go for the win, but the coaches took it away from the team.
4. The Illini football players running over to the Buckeyes to taunt them after the loss is the most classless thing I’ve ever seen, and they’d better know that the Buckeyes won’t forget that when they travel to Champaign next year.
5. It’s a long shot, but keep in mind there are three weeks left, and lots of matchups and rivalry games between teams from the top 5. It’s conceivable that OSU could climb back up to #2, if enough teams ahead of them lose. Not likely, but possible. Remember, that same scenario was the only reason OSU was #1 to begin with.
6. Silver-lining: OSU, UM, Wisco, and Illinois will probably be ranked in the top 25, and have all proven themselves very capable of being strong contenders in their bowl games. Add in PSU, and the Big Ten should, once again, have a very good postseason.

Sylvester Yon-Rambo here:
I truly believe the world wont end today.

With that said I honestly believe that there is no way not to blame every aspect of this game on everyone. It is the coaches fault for many blunders it is the Offense fault for not performing the plays. It is the defense fault for not stoping Illinois. It is the Speacial Teams fault for not performing better. It is the fans fault for not cheering louder all game long ….instead they sat there and thought to themselves all game long we are ok we will come back….. so they didnt get loud until it was too late.

Now onto Illinois. CONGRATS you guys are the first ones all year to watch tape of the Florida game last year. The game plan was exactly the same….. SPread us out and run on occasion and throw deep when we load the box. It was such an exact replay of the NC game that it was frightening. SO with that said kudos to ZOOK and company for calling a great game and realiseing our weakness.

Now onto the players…. you played a great game and beat us on every side of the ball. Now go over and cheer with your 3000 fans and enjoy what you just accomplished……. instead you act like thugs and morons and try and dance on our BLOCK O…. What a truly classless act. I am sick and tired of other teams being disrespectful to our team and stadium everytime they get a win here…… You will win a game here and there and get to do this but we will win 20-30 games and not do it on your field…. ZOOK this is your fault for letting the bottum of the barrel players get away with acting like they actually helped get this win.

Now onto my favorite subject….. scUM

scUM week is officially on and the winner of this game will at least get a Rose Bowl invite….. if not BETTER lol.

So in brief I will say this about this weeks game. scUM couldnt run a SPREAD if they were putting butter on bread.

Regaurdless of which QB plays this week niether can run for 2 yards let alone 20.

Thier running game will not be based on tricks and gimmicks.

So it wont matter if Hart is in the backfield or not….. we know he will run behind Jake Long.

So I see this game going the same way they have for 5 out of 6 years a complete and convincing victory for the Buckeyes.

Let’s do this

Defense – 3 Sweatervests

I struggled with this one. On one hand Vernon Gholston and James Laurinaitis had huge games. Almost 20 tackles for the Little Animal and four sacks for the Python Tamer. Laurinaitis was free to roam thanks to the D-line keeping blockers off him and Gholston and the rest of the DE’s (we are so deep at the ends, it’s almost unfair) got pressure all game long. On the other hand, you have the to two sustained touchdown drives, missed tackles on crucial 3rd-and-long plays and again, TWO TOUCHDOWNS. I’ll give Jenkins a little slack for his missed tackle on Beckum, as Travis has NFL talent and size. He is a big dude (6-4, 224) and Jenkins (6-1, 208), not as much. Nevertheless, that was one of many missed tackles that drove me crazy.

I’m taking all this under consideration without giving any weight to the luck Wisconsin had on more than one occasion. It can’t be ignored. The second touchdown was a desperation heave by Donovan, off his back foot, into the most improbable and almost uncatchable location possible. Kudos to him. There’s no defense for going up against Lady Luck.

This has nothing to do with the Defense’s performance, but I was really hoping PJ Hill could have played in this game. Zach Brown was a competent runner, but the defense could have used Hill as preparation for Mendenhall this week and Hart next week. They need confidence they can shut down a great running back, not just a decent one. Still, how can you be worried about opposing offenses when you see this:

Opponent – 1 Sweatervest

Wisconsin came close to getting the dreaded no-sweatervest score not because of how they played (which wasn’t bad and would have earned them at least 3.5 SV’s) but how they acted after the whistle. I mentioned it in my semi-live update, but it bears repeating — hooting and hollering and getting in people’s faces after you make a tackle, no matter how impressive it was, has no place when you are losing by 14 points. Get pumped, high-five your buddy and get your sorry, no good, yella, losing-the-game-by-14-points keester back to the huddle. You made a great play. Good work. Now do it again on the next play.

Ooops, did Beanie just ran over your FACE?!

I listened to some of Bielema’s press conference after the game. He mentioned that he didn’t want his team to back down, not to be intimidated. That’s fine. Do it with your arms and legs, not your mouth. One of my favorite aspects about Tressel-coached teams is that you never see this. It’s never “look at what I did,” it’s all about “what we did.” Cue up Beanie’s score and run straight to the bench if you want to see how to do it. Make a great play? Great. Get ready to line up and run another.

The Running Game – 4 Sweatervests

Like most of you, I was wondering where the running game went during most of the second and third quarters. I thought we had good success running Beanie on the first couple of drives, when Wisconsin was obviously playing to stop the pass. Getting away from the run was a mistake and it showed. Going back to the run paid dividends very quickly. Twenty eight straight points prove that point.

I love how Beanie is running. Even when it looks like he’s in pain after every run, he gets back there and does it again. Wisconsin defenders were lucky they never really got close to tackling him. They were spared punishment via the Stiff Arm of Justice™

Officiating – 0.5 Sweatervests

Garbage. Absolute garbage. While I can’t point to any particular play, I had the pervading feeling the whole game that we were getting jobbed. A missed holding call here, a questionable call there. Maybe I’m not remembering correctly. Something just didn’t feel right. But worse than the missed calls were the fact that they never flagged Wisconsin for obvious taunting on more than one occassion. They had the power to take control of the game, but the never did.

Vernon Gholston – figure it out

What more can be said about our collective man-crush? Wisconsin’s offense, Donovan in particular, was absolutely abused by Gholston. We’re talking pull-the-pants-down, spanked-on-the-bare-bottom-with-a-wooden-paddle-with-holes-cut-out abused. The defense is starting to call him “The Animal.” I don’t think that’s quite right. I prefer Manimal. Dude is just sick.

Overall Performance – 4 Sweatervests

Baseline: 3 Sweatervests; +1 for each of Beanie’s TD runs, -1 for each of Wisco’s; +1 for each time Donovan was sacked, -1 each time a Wisconsin player whooped it up after a non-play.