The Motor City Bowl is the pre-eminent bowl game on the calendar and all Big 10 teams strive for an invite to this presitigious game. (We’re going with that as long as Michigan is in the driver’s seat.)
The WLA would like to learn as much as it can about potential MCB suitors from the BigTen, so we sent a questionaire to some fellow BigTen bloggers. [Previously covered: Purdue, Northwestern] Next up is the rising star of Buckeye blogging, Sam, from We Will Always Have Tempe. Gamblin’ extraordinare Jamie Mac ran down the odds for (LONGSHOT) Ohio State to get to the Motor City Bowl. He concludes:
Ohio State, 50-1
If you bite on this line, here’s what you’re basically banking on happening: Ohio Governor Ted Strickland announces another round of state budget cuts. With less money to spread around, OSU receives less dough to pass around to its football players. In protest of the pay cuts, the Buckeye players take a few dives along the way. Despite trying to flip the switch on for Michigan, the Bucks fall to a fired up Wolverine team in Ann Arbor, dropping them to a 6-6 record. A Motor City Bowl official walks into the lockerroom to invite them to the bowl, but Justin Boren mistakes him for a pizza and eats him. Unless, a lingering Alex Boone out in the halls mistakes him for a six pack and drinks him first. In other words, if you bite on this line, then you are a sucker. In related news, Tateriffic and half of the Scout Michigan message board have left messages on our ‘for amusement purposes’ phone line already.
Swing Game: USC, 9/13. Another whipping at the hands of the Trojans could send this team on a spiral. The pay cuts only make things worse.
Go, Sam, go:
1. Explain Ohio State’s outlook for 2009 (Projected wins/loses):
I’m going over the schedule game-by-game in ye olde blog (plug number one), so I haven’t reached a definitive answer yet. The talent level combined with the general lack of experience screams 10-2 to me, but that is also the exact same record of a much more experienced (and likely better team) last year. So, I’m going to say 9-3. I’m already chalking up USC as a loss (plug number two – in the same paragraph, even!), Penn State is 50/50 (of course), and I think the overall youth of the team will catch up to them against some Big Ten also-ran; perhaps Iowa or Wisconsin. The prospect of losing to coach Brohamulus himself is downright horrifying, but… that’s football.
2. Who is your most-hyped freshmen? Has he heard of Tate Forcier (aka White Jesus)?
That would either be Dorian Bell, Johnny Simon or Melvin Fellows, all of whom will probably be wiping Tate Forcier off the bottom of their cleats in a matter of years. Jaamal Berry is a hyped running back out of Miami (That Miami), Florida, but unless Tressel really means it when he says he’s opening up the offense, I don’t see him getting significant playing time his year.
3. Who is one opponent you are most afraid of this year? Please include any recent nightmares. Bonus points if the answer is “Michigan”.
While I’m always wary of the LOLverines, isn’t this obvious? USC. This is a team that ritualistically collects the skulls of whatever Big Ten team considers itself a big dawg for dropping 50 on Northwestern, Indiana and Purdue.This is a team whose two-deep is comprised entirely of four- and five-star fuck lions. No one wants to play them, and yet Ohio State is actually catching them at a very good time in their program’s evolution – they’ve got arguably the biggest defensive personnel turnover Pete Carrol has presided over and they’re breaking in a new QB. Of course, they were breaking in a new quarterback last year who promptly threw for four touchdowns and had time to make a ham sammich in the pocket, protected behind an offensive line that returns all five starters in 2009.
4. Is your coach on the hot seat? If Rich Rodriguez loses every game this year, would you want him?
It’s Columbus. If there isn’t a new crystal trophy sitting in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center display case every other year, there’s hell to pay. Tressel is beating Michigan though, like a red-head stepchild, so he’s safe as long as he buffers that win with eight or so 20-30 point wins over MACrifices and the Big Ten’s second and third tier teams.
5. Is your team willing to buy a few cars while in Detroit?
Who needs new cars when we’ve got sweet rides already? And who’s buying American these days? Rednecks, that’s who.
6. Please. How about a van?
I think you misunderstood me. Rednecks? We’re buying buying buying.
7. How many defensive coordinators have you had in the last 10 years? Has anything improved or has it been more along the lines of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?
Well, under Tressel, it’s been your boy Dantonio, Mark Snyder, and finally Jim Heacock. It’s been remarkably consistent, for the most part, but I attribute much of the success to a Big Ten that’s somewhere between “god-awful” and “setting football back 30 years” offensively. Only Dantonio and Snyder showed marked success against OOC teams with an offensive pulse; Heacock has struggled, except when he plays Texas. Have I told you Mack Brown is his bitch? Because he is. And Jim Heacock is everyone else’s (meaning Les Miles, Pete Carroll and Urban Meyer’s) bitch.
8. What new traditions has your team tried to implement in recent years? How well has that gone for you?
Well, a lot of people don’t know this, but Tressel has brought along the post-game tradition of the team singing Carmen Ohio in front of the Best Damn Band in the Land, win or loss. I mean, the stadium is like a morgue after a loss, but after a win, it’s awesome. For instance, in 2006, after the Michigan game (sorry…. wait, no I’m not. Not at all), you couldn’t even hear it over the drunken warbling/shouting/ public screwing of the teeming masses in Ohio Stadium. But it’s still a really cool thing to see, even if you’re one of the bad guys.
9. Is there any particularly stupid subject in your blogosphere that has the natives really up in arms? Night games perhaps? Rawk music team intros?
No, partly because we already do night games and the team comes out to Hell’s Bells in pre-game. The closest thing I can think of is the constant complaint that Tressel doesn’t win the “big games”, which are arbitarily decided post-game, of course. For instance, 2007 Illinois was supposed to be a walk in the park, but a week later, everyone labeled it yet another “big game loss” for Tressel. What the fuck? This is the Zooker we’re talking about, people. He beat Saban’s championship LSU team in Baton Rouge in 2003, a year where he still managed to lose five other games. He doesn’t make any fucking sense and I think he takes some measure of pride in it. Tressel, like any other coach, just loses games on occassion, often in frustrating and haphazard ways. But he does it rarely, and usually to very good teams that 115 other Division 1 teams would have lost to as well – Texas, LSU, Florida, and USC. So stop bitching unless your criticisms have some validity – i.e., our offense sucks.
10. Are there any particular recruits that your coach is heavily pursuing? Has your blogosphere begun Facebook stalking the poor kid? Has the word “skinsuit” been used in any discussion?
Lamarcus Joyner, a DB out of Florida with “unreal quicks” who “tackles like a linebacker” could serve as sort of a focal point of the 2010 class. I’ve also heard he’s “seven feet tall” and “shoots lightning bolts out of his arse”, but that’s neither here nor there. I haven’t heard of any facebook stalking, but there have been INSIDUR REPORTS OLOLOLOL from Buckeye fans who happen to live in Florida (Tampa Father of Seven, to be specific) who have been salivating over this kid and his “hip swivel”, how he seems “well-put together” and other creepy euphemisms for “I can’t stop staring at this underage boy who may one day play for my football team”.
11. What are the best nicknames on your team? Have any methods been used by the fans to anoint any nicknames on players?
I sorta like the name Lebron-In-Cleats (LiC) used for Terrelle Pryor that seems to have caught on with the fanbase at large, but I do have suggestions for other players:
The Caucasian Sensation (Dane Sanzenbacher)
BOOM – HERRON’D! (obvious)
Brand: Insane (Brandon Saine)
12. Is there a team about whom your fanbase is obsessed with accusing of being obsessed with your team?
Michigan. We do this despite burning Bo in effigy in July, dropping Ohio State pumpkins on Michigan vans (?!?!?) and crafting super-kewl highlight videos set to Young Jeezy a month after the fact to “showcase our dominance” or something. Every fanbase accuses the rival fanbase of doing it, but with both Ohio State and Michigan, it’s just true.
Thanks, Sam. We encourage every envious Michigan fan and O$U blog stalker to visit We Will Always Have Tempe*.
*bring your own razer
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