The Ohio State Buckeyes are the most maligned program in college football in the 2000's. Despite the program's resurection to prominence under Jim Tressel, the Buckeyes have come up short in a ton of BCS games, eliciting comparisons to the Buffalo Bills of the 1990's. Even their one BCS national championship win against the Miami Hurricanes in 2003 is somewhat tainted by a very controversial pass interference call on 4th down that kept their game-winning overtime drive alive.
Last night, in a game effort against the Texas Longhorns in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the gritty Buckeyes looked poised to pull off an upset that would send critics, like myself, a message that THE Ohio State University's football team could come from behind and beat a quality team from a "speed" conference. Then, defensive coordinator Jim Heacock, who had coached a really good game to that point, decided to blitz Colt McCoy with 24 seconds left in the ball game.
Heacock must have forgotten that he was up four points at this moment, and playing conservative and keeping the ball in front of you was key. This strategy allowed Texas WR Quan Cosby, the 26 year old former minor league baseball player to catch a hot slant route from the Heisman Trophy runner-up, break a tackle, and house the game winning TD.
The shame of this call is that it will overshadow a well-coached game by Heacock. He took Texas' short passing game out of rhythm, with the exception of the third quarter, and got heat on McCoy most of the night. In a fickle finger of fate moment, the Buckeyes new found defensive aggression, that allowed them to have the lead with 2:00 left, bit them in the rear. The normally conservative Jim's would have been better served sticking to their old school nature on that play.
It just seems at this point that Ohio State, and the Big Ten for that matter, can't win for losing!
