Buckeyes favorite in Big 10 football

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

On the Big Ten’s proposed 2009 climb back up National Respect Mountain, Ohio State has been cast as the pack mule.

During the league’s annual preseason meetings Monday in Chicago, reloading OSU was voted the favorite by the media to win its fifth straight title. Sophomore quarterback Terrelle Pryor, who hasn’t even started a full season, was in essence declared the face and future of the league, being voted the preseason offensive player of the year.

Then there was this:

“I think everyone in this league wants to see Ohio State do well once again outside the conference,” Illinois coach Ron Zook said. “Obviously, it’s going to be a big game in September when they play Southern Cal.”

Talk about an understatement. The result Sept.12 in Ohio Stadium will decide just how seriously people across the country take the Big Ten the rest of the season. No other non-conference game involving a Big Ten team comes close, in terms of marquee value. And no other comes close in terms of a barometer, since the Trojans waxed the Buckeyes 35-3 last year in Los Angeles before slapping Big Ten co-champion Penn State around 38-24 in the Rose Bowl.

Those losses are included on a recent resume that includes a winless record for Big Ten teams in their past six Bowl Championship Series games, including three straight by Ohio State, and a 1-6 record in bowls last year. Then there is the general feeling throughout the country that in terms of conferences, everyone is looking up at the Southeastern because of its three straight BCS national titles.

Big Ten coaches often talk about ways their teams can get better, “even after the years we might be 5-2 in the bowls,” OSU coach Jim Tressel said. “This [past] year we were 1-6, and maybe that discussion gets even more impactful.

“But I don’t know that anyone in this conference has an inferiority complex.”

Yet some are hoping the cycle is about to change.

“You can’t talk about looking forward, you can only look backward; those are the only facts you really have,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said. “In the last three years, we’re 0-6 in the BCS games. Some of them we were very competitive, some of them we were not.

“I would say if you went to the seven or eight years before that, we had as many wins as anybody else did. But we’re playing against great teams, whether it’s LSU, Florida, Southern Cal. We’re not playing Little Sisters of the Poor. Those are great, great programs, I’ve got a lot of respect for them, and I hope that we’ll start winning [those kinds of] games this year.”

The first big step could come in the Horseshoe on Sept.12, and Tressel understands the Buckeyes will be bearing the weight of Big Ten pride and reputation.

“It is something that we take very, very serious, that every time we line up outside our conference — obviously we’re representing ourselves and our institution, but we’re [also] representing this league,” Tressel said. “That’s important to us.”

It hasn’t helped the league’s national perception the last couple of years that Michigan has been through a swoon of late. But second-year coach Rich Rodriguez pledged Michigan soon will bounce back, and so will the Big Ten.

“As a league, once we get a few big wins, whether it’s regular season, non-conference or BCS games or bowls, that perception will change,” he said.

Even Pryor’s coach and teammates were surprised by his selection as preseason offensive player of the year in voting by a media panel.

Daryll Clark and Juice Williams have helped hand Ohio State its only Big Ten losses the past two years, but both quarterbacks lost out to Pryor.

Clark’s Penn State squad beat the Buckeyes last season, and Williams led Illinois to a shocking upset of OSU in 2007. And both are seniors.

Apparently, it was Pryor’s obvious potential that led to him earning the league’s preseason offensive player of the year in voting by a media panel.

“I got to thinking, ‘Man, there’s a lot of good guys coming back in this league,’ ” said Tressel. “Darryl Clark and Juice Williams have been around here for a long, long time.

“I guess it’s a good reminder of the respect they have for [Pryor’s] ability.”

Pryor passed for 1,311 yards and 12 touchdowns with four interceptions last season, while adding 631 yards and six touchdowns rushing.

He might have earned preseason honors, but don’t expect Pryor to be named a team captain.