OSU’s season showed pride

By DOUG LESMERISES

The Buckeyes didn’t win the Fiesta Bowl, but they made some believers in the game.

COLUMBUS — Ohio State and its 28 seniors finished this four-year run at 43-8, tying the record for most wins by a senior class; won four Big Ten titles (two shared, two outright); continued a win streak against Michigan that reached five; and lost three straight bowl games for the first time since the Buckeyes lost four straight after the 1989-92 seasons.

The 24-21 loss to Texas in the Fiesta Bowl helped us learn some lessons about this team.

•There is room for a moral victory at Ohio State.

Two consecutive national championship losses to Florida and LSU, by 27 and 14 points, will do that to a program. There certainly wasn’t a feeling of satisfaction in the OSU locker room in Glendale, Ariz., but there was a sense of pride.

After repeated blowouts on that national stage, that made sense. At least it answered the popular question of whether it’s more difficult to lose in a tight game or in a blowout. For these Buckeyes, the blowouts were much worse.

“I’m going to be honest,” left tackle Alex Boone said. “Two years ago, I cried like a little girl. Last year, I cried. But this year, a lot of people didn’t think we were going to win this game, and obviously we didn’t. But we showed a lot of people that we obviously don’t care what they think, and we’re going to play to the best of our abilities.

“Ninety percent of the country thought we were going to get smoked. To play the game we played, we lost that game by 18 seconds. We showed the world you can kick us when we’re down, and we’re still going to come at you.”

That was maybe the most honest and emotional Buckeye on the team, but the more reflective seniors didn’t disagree.

“The past couple years, you were so disappointed because you didn’t show what Ohio State football was about,” linebacker Marcus Freeman said. “This team, we showed what Ohio State was about and said that we’re going to compete no matter what the score is.

“It’s a confidence builder. The guys realize that we can compete with the team that was one of the best teams in the nation, and it came down to 18 seconds.”

If you’re not playing for a national title, building for next season is half of what a bowl game is about. You can imagine the Buckeyes, certainly not strutting, but at least walking a little taller this off-season.

“It’s a totally different feeling,” said junior safety Kurt Coleman, who should be a captain next season if he returns for his senior year. “This game we can take a lot of positives out of what we did.

“We didn’t get the win, so who knows what people will say, but I thought we stood toe to toe. I would have liked another shot at USC, too, because I thought as the season went on, we got better. Hopefully people can look at us as a great program still and we can get better for next year.”

UThe defensive line should be the strength of the defense next season.

The defensive line didn’t get it done the first half of this season. Senior tackle Nader Abdallah was the best player on the line in the second half of the season, and he’s leaving.

But the Buckeyes could be beastly there, starting with Thaddeus Gibson. That guy looked like the next coming of Vernon Gholston against Texas (if he can stop drawing penalties for hitting quarterbacks high). And one of the best Fiesta Bowl plays for OSU’s future came when backup ends Nathan Williams and Rob Rose both beat their tackles and met at Colt McCoy, forcing an intentional grounding. Overall, Texas got rid of the ball so quickly, the pressure wasn’t constant. But it was a factor.

Gibson, Rose, Williams and Lawrence Wilson, back from his second season-ending injury, can hold down the end spots. Doug Worthington, who had a pretty good year, and Cameron Heyward could start at tackle, backed up by Dexter Larimore, Todd Denlinger (who’s still pretty good when he’s healthy) and Garrett Goebel, who redshirted this season but impressed coaches in practice.

With new talent at linebacker and Malcolm Jenkins gone in the secondary, the line has to be good, and it might be better than that.

UJustin Boren is hugely needed next season.

Offensive coordinator Jim Bollman said one of his biggest disappointments this season was the time that freshmen tackles Mike Adams and J.B. Shugarts missed due to injury, costing them valuable field time. But the expectation remains that both will start and play well as sophomores.

No matter how well the Buckeyes ran the ball against Texas, the interior of that line needs to be shored up, and Boren, the transfer and former starter at Michigan, should be the man to do it.

UComing back is a risk.

So James Laurinaitis, Malcolm Jenkins, Marcus Freeman, Alex Boone and Brian Robiskie didn’t earn a national title after turning down the NFL last year.

But what would have happened to this season if they had gone pro? Could that crushing USC loss, followed by a quarterback switch, have given way to a five-loss season? Certainly possible. So at least for the program and the fans, coming back always has its rewards.

“It was time well spent,” Jenkins said. “We have a lot to look back on. I would never regret anything we did. I wouldn’t change anything or do anything different. I love everybody in Buckeye Nation.”