Buckeyes put together good show in spring game
Backup tailback Brandon Saine was the star of Saturday’s game.
COLUMBUS (AP) — Linebacker James Laurinaitis was backed in a corner answering questions after Ohio State’s intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday when the huge high-def, flat-screen monitor above him started showing ESPN highlights of LSU’s win over the Buckeyes in the national championship game.
Laurinaitis stared at it vacantly, almost as if to say: Well, there it is again, every time I turn around.
“It still hurts from time to time but you accept it. It’s over with. That season’s done with,” he said of the Buckeyes’ 38-24 loss in the title game. “Now you have to focus on next season.”
The Buckeyes put a little more distance between them and that loss with a two-hour, full-contact intrasquad jersey scrimmage at Ohio Stadium Saturday. For the record, the offense beat the defense 55-44 in the complicated and subjective scoring system.
What was more important was that several matters facing coach Jim Tressel and the 2008 Buckeyes came into sharper focus:
U Rodriguez spat.
New Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez reportedly has spoken to several recruits who have verbally committed to other Big Ten programs. Without mentioning each other by name, Tressel and Rodriguez have fired broadsides at each other, with Tressel complaining that coaches should lay off athletes who have indicated where they want to go and Rodriguez saying he’ll continue to recruit players until they actually sign a letter of intent.
Tressel restated how Ohio State handles such a situation.
“If a guy is not interested in coming to Ohio State, and he says that, we’ve got to move on,” he said.
Tressel said he and Rodriguez have “no beefs at all.”
U The fullback position.
Curtis Terry, a linebacker his first four years at Ohio State, is also seeing playing time at fullback, one of only two places where the Buckeyes lost offensive starters from last year.
Terry, who played on both sides of the ball, said he wasn’t sure if he was a winner or loser in the scrimmage.
U Backup quarterback. Todd Boeckman is firmly entrenched as the starter for the second year in a row.
Terrelle Pryor, the acclaimed recruit out of Jeannette, Pa., doesn’t come to campus until the middle of the summer, so Antonio Henton and Joe Bauserman are fighting for the backup job now.
Boeckman threw two touchdown passes to Brian Hartline during the scrimmage, while Henton and Bauserman were erratic.
“I thought Todd was pretty fair and the other guys were pretty average,” Tressel said.
U Scrimmage star.
That had to be Brandon Saine, who will back up tailback Chris “Beanie” Wells when the season rolls around. Saine broke a couple of tackles, made a gee-whiz cut and carried two tacklers into the end zone on a 23-yard touchdown run.