Is The Grind a self-fulfilling prophecy?
It's right up there with It's impossible for me to lose weight and I'm totally going to bomb the biology mid-term and George Lucas will find a way to ruin the new Star Wars movie with extremely punchable CGI characters specifically created to sell action figures to 6-year olds. Maybe it's a grind only because they said it would be.
The Chase begged for a sequel even though the original was without peer. The intact and completed 2014 season was perfect; arguably better than an imaginary undefeated version of it - so perhaps replacing that banner and battle cry with an entirely new one was unnecessary. The Chase was the best football movie you've ever seen in your life.
Zeke was grinding in 2014. This year he's chasing.
The best movie-movie ever made was the sequel to The Godfather. You remember what they called it? The Godfather II. Coppola harnessed all of the energy and most of the players from the first one and somehow upgraded the story. Maybe isolating The Chase and forcefully removing its magic from the follow-up with so many of the same actors was an exercise in squandered inertia.
The Chase II might not have eliminated all of the growing pains for a team that had to win a national title to earn the burden of becoming self-aware, but it could have made this journey less awkward. Super Sophomores is a courteous way of saying nouveau riche. They were too good, too soon to know better last year.
Winning it all made it impossible to keep them young, dumb and full of fun. They now know too much. Tension and strain are best left to self-loathing adults, which is what all of us turned into the second the 2015 Buckeyes revealed they would not be scoring over 60 points per game.
The Grind describes what's inflicted weekly on defending champions when they fail to win 20 games in a row in the precise manner everyone thinks they should.
That said, this marketing effort was not undertaken out dereliction or to make Ohio State's schedule purposefully heavier. The willful branding and preparation for 2015 is the product of multiple learning experiences, namely two seasons that began as reigning champions and ended with a loss to Michigan in a second-tier bowl game and in the emergency room, respectively.
The Grind is a prescient battle flag borne out of experience.
Perhaps it's a deeper manufacturing process than simply printing up a banner in 1072-point Cautionary Tale font. Maybe The Grind is an elaborate con where Cardale Jones has not completely forgotten how to throw a deep ball. What if this is the pinnacle of selflessness that, when revealed over the next few weeks, produces another postseason onslaught that results in No. 12 never paying for a burrito in his home state again?
Your pessimism was both expected and warranted. Cardale's three-game run might have been a transcendental accident akin to Frank the Tank destroying James Carville. Character development is crucial to defining this particular football movie and the role of superhero who temporarily loses his powers is an ancient narrative borne from an era when Israelites with debilitating haircuts were figuratively being fed to Philistines.
"The Grind" is what's inflicted on defending champIONs when they fail to win in the precise manner everyone thinks they should.
The protagonist switches halfway through the season and you saw it coming all along. J.T. Barrett re-assumes the position while Jones re-enters the Fortress of Solitude to rediscover his alchemy, regrow his locks and reclaim what's become a rite in Columbus ever since Kenny Guiton deftly played the handle behind Ohio State's In Case of Emergency glass: Best Backup Quarterback in America.
There are far less noble distinctions in college football, like "suspended Rutgers coach" or "Indiana's 4th quarter lead" or "school still paying Charlie Weis millions of dollars annually." Cardale was at his very best when he had nothing to lose as was J.T. when he had more than just a tiny window to prove something.
The Grind is two quarterbacks who are each 10-0 as starters in a 20-game streak.
You're expected to believe that this is all happening in real time, as if The Grind wasn't scripted this way back in February. Sure, Urban just sort of makes things up as he goes. Go ahead and believe he's not obsessed with being three steps ahead, poring over minuscule details or embracing the laborious chore of navigating a 15-game schedule unwillingly dressed as a dartboard.
The only useful idiots through these first seven games have been those of us watching them. The Grind is being filmed before a live, complicit audience.
Every distraction has been carefully orchestrated as part of both hardening and elevating a team that might have thought itself to be invincible. Whether it's dressed in its Cocaine Whites - which younger fans adored, or its Krokodil Blacks - which traditionalists abhorred, there is absolutely nothing uncalculated about the plot in this script.
Bright lights; whenever & wherever possible.
Special uniforms. Dark skies and bright lights whenever possible. Freedom of expression. Healthy distractions and a plan to handle the unexpected ones like injuries, suspensions and the destructive knowledge of quietly knowing your best isn't always necessary. The Silver Bullets had no edge containment last Saturday against Penn State and were torched all evening.
The grisly result of that lapse was the Buckeyes allowing 10 points while scoring 38. All evening there was scattered booing and widespread anguish delicately paired with a 20th consecutive win by the team dressed like it was way too excited for Halloween. Mitigating mistakes, rising above the line and dominating 4th quarters like Ohio State did on Saturday could very well produce another national championship.
Alternatively, the earth could fall off of its axis. The Grind is about bracing for disaster and continually dodging it.
There will always be second-guesses, short-term grievances and the unrelenting gnashing of teeth. There's also the absolution of chasing a championship, even if your big practice facility banner doesn't call it that anymore. The script may be venturing down an alternative path this season, but that's because it has to. This unacknowledged sequel is about taking chances and having everything to lose.
That's because The Grind is not a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's just prophecy.
