Buckeyes playing for the marbles, and another title

The marbles are something that coach Jim Tressel came up with this year.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Joke with Ohio State tight end Rory Nichol that by the end of the season he will lose all his marbles and, unsmiling, he quickly fires back, “And hopefully we’ll play for all of them.”

It’s clear that marbles — the coaching staff’s prop to impress on the seniors how time slips away — is already having an impact on the Buckeyes.

Shortly before the start of the season, coach Jim Tressel gave each of the seniors a small case that contained 12 marbles — one for each game on the schedule. Some were scarlet, some were gray (representing the school colors) with a blue one (for Michigan) tossed in.

Before Saturday’s 43-0 victory over Youngstown State, each of the seniors gave Tressel one marble. It’s something they’ll do before each game, underscoring how fast their final year passes and how they have to make each game count.

“All year we’ve been talking about cherish each moment, cherish each game, don’t look at next year, don’t look at next game,” linebacker Marcus Freeman said. “We talk about having 12 opportunities. We’re not looking at a bowl game, we’re not looking at anything after the Michigan game.”

Most of the seniors keep a close watch on their marbles.

“I lock mine up in my locker,” Freeman said. “That’s something that means a lot. It probably didn’t cost that much to put together but it means a lot to our seniors. ... You look at that and it really kind of hits you. That’s all the games we have left.”

James Laurinaitis, the Buckeyes’ Butkus Award-winning linebacker, said the message has gotten through.

“Every time you play a game you take one out, you see it getting smaller and smaller,” he said. “You have that mental picture: Your time’s running out.”

Tressel is continually trying to get his team to focus on the present and not look ahead. He gives his players inspirational books to read and phrases to memorize. A year ago, the code to unlock the doors at the team’s training facility was 4114, a bitter reminder of the 41-14 beating the Buckeyes took at the hands of Florida in the 2006 national championship game.

Laurinaitis said even though it seems like ages ago, he can remember how so many of the players he looked up to watched their careers dwindle away.

“I remember my freshman year Coach would always say, ‘These seniors here, A.J. Hawk and the others, they have a certain number of opportunities left in the ’Shoe. Let’s give them your best,’ ” he said. “Then you finally realize, that’s ME. That’s another world. You really start to truly appreciate every day.”

The third-ranked Buckeyes play Ohio on Saturday. A week later, they take on No. 1-ranked Southern California. But the marbles for both games are the same size. Each is just one more mile post on the journey.