After most games — especially the ones that end in blowouts like Saturday — Ohio State jogs back to its locker room where head coach Urban Meyer addresses the team and goes through a laundry list of statistics, key players and other general housekeeping matters. It’s a routine affair.
Upon obliterating Illinois, 55-14, on a freezing and windy night at Ohio Stadium, the Buckeyes talked of something else.
“We usually bring our coaches to talk about who did well on offense and defense and special teams,” redshirt freshman linebacker Darron Lee said.
“We skipped that.”
Oh?
“We know what this week’s about,” Lee said, “and it’s on, honestly.”
After all, an enormous rematch with Michigan State has been on their minds for a while. And the Buckeyes are ready to unchain a year's worth of angst; the memories of a devastating loss that derailed what was supposed to be a storybook season have been slow to fade.
“Obviously the dream was ripped away from us," Meyer said. "Ripped away by a very good team."
Of course, the Spartans beat Ohio State, 34-24, in the Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis last year. They dashed its almost-sure shot into the national championship, snapped a 24-game winning streak and handed the Buckeyes their first loss under Meyer.
So yeah, it sort of hurt.
"It was just heartbreaking … I’ll never forget that because I thought last year we were gonna win it all," senior linebacker Curtis Grant said.
Meyer, who was infamously found sitting inside a golf cart dejected and picking at a Papa Johns pizza after the game, said “it's going to haunt all of us, I imagine, for a little while" during his postgame presser that night. It’s a feeling Lee seems to have let bubble inside him for almost a year.
“I feel like they stole something from us,” he said. “That’s how I felt just watching it. I wanted a piece of them last year, honestly.”
Yet prior to this weekend’s demolition of a floundering Fighting Illini team that didn’t stand a chance, uttering just a single word about Michigan State seemed like an offense punishable by death.
Ohio State’s talked of — to painfully redundant extents — taking each week one at a time. No opponent, it said, was too small or too feeble to overlook.
It’s why the Buckeyes said they refused to disregard Illinois despite an obvious mismatch on paper.
They said the same thing about Penn State last weekend. Before that, it was Rutgers. The list goes on and on.
Now, for the first time all season, the Buckeyes won’t have to play that card when they travel to East Lansing next weekend for a bout that will more or less determine their season and a fringe chance at making the first-ever College Football Playoff.
“I’m glad it’s here now that we don’t have to worry about overlooking any teams or something. I’m happy it’s here and I’m ready,” Lee said. “Heck I want to play right now honestly. I can’t wait for Saturday honestly.”
Because it’s been on Ohio State’s mind since December.
“It honestly almost felt like life and death, we just made it seem that way down there,” Lee said. “And that’s how I feel about it honestly. It’s a matter of life and death. Everything is on the line with this game.”
