I went through a phase that many fans live in. Much of my life, including my emotional energy, was centered on the success of OSU Football. This all started because of the timing of that success with my life. The first year I had time to follow OSU Football was the year after I graduated high school due to my involvment with my own short-lived football career. That year was 2002, and I still remember watching some of those incredible games with my father. I remember grabbing my hair with both hands in reaction to the "Holy Buckeye" Michael Jenkins catch at Purdue, and I remember feeling like we had the game won when Willis McGahee went down in the NC with that nasty knee injury. I also remember how I got more and more involved and how I became so emotionally invested as that season went on. The NC game was so amazing, but the continued success through the years really got many of our expectations up. The sense of pride in being a Buckeye and being apart of something so successful allowed me to feel good about myself, but the losses made me depressed as if I could've done something to prevent it.
I reached my peak point when OSU lost to Illinois when they were on the verge of completing back-to-back perfect regular seasons. That defeat made me depressed, and I had to sit back and think about my relationship with Buckeye Football. I had to think about what I have control over and what I don't, and that was a tough time for me since I am so proud to be a Buckeye.
I have drawn back the amount of intrest I take in recruiting, but I still am very much a fan; and I'm constantly reading up and looking for videos to hear and see about other's thoughts on OSU. This has evolved into The Buckeye Board and this blog where my voice can be heard, and I want Buckeye Nation to hear and respond to me. I believe I'm very rational in my outlook of Buckeye Football, but I obviously still have issues as I find it very hard to pick against my beloved Buckeyes.
I'm looking forward to jumping into MSU this week, and it will surely be one of the more intense match-ups on slate. The fact that both OSU and MSU have lost already will provide this game with some fire. These teams haven't played each other for awhile, and they both have something to prove. MSU has been somewhat solid on defense, but their competition has been suspect. OSU has had its obvious issues including a poor passing game and a defense that has been gashed for 300+ yards 3 games in a row.
The match-ups in this game heavily favor MSU, in my opinion. MSU has experience and talent on offense in all of their skill positions. MSU is the team with experience. MSU has a stout run defense which matches up well with OSU's offense. Buckeyes, this is a dangerous game because we can't necessarily play that underdog role yet, so Coach Fick and Coach Bollman have an important gameplan ahead of them. I will jump into what I expect to see in the next post.
