Badgers Suck the Life Out of Ohio State's Title Hopes

Paul Smith - View From the Midwest

Michigan CIty, Ind. (via Chicago) -- Pick your poison. Ouch. Oy. Yeeeesh.

The pain of No. 10 Wisconsin's 31-18 over previously top-ranked Ohio State Saturday night in mad, mad Madison's Camp Randall Stadium may not wear off at any point in the remaining five Buckeyes regular season games.

The No. 11 Bucks (6-1, 2-1 in Big Ten play), host injury-riddled Purdue (4-2) for a Saturday homecoming. But they will spend most of this week dusting off the cobwebs of the major league butt-whippin' on Regent Street.

"Wisconsin didn't merely deflate Ohio State's national title hopes...it jackhammered them," wrote Columbus Dispatch beat writer in his lead to an indelibly bad-news story.

Indeed. The Badgers (6-1, 2-1) tore up Ohio State's proud defense from the beginning, building a 21-3 halftime lead behind the driving, slashing runs of John Clay, who scored two touchdowns after David Gilreath opened the game with a crowd-rousing 97-yard kickoff return. Devin Barclay's late field goal after the Bucks drove to a first-and-goal at the Wisconsin 3, was OSU's meek response.

Even after Daniel Herron capped an impressive drive with a 13-yard third-quarter T.D. and capped another nice drive early in the fourth quarter with a 1-yard plunge coupled with a two-point Terrelle Pryor conversion pass to Reid Fregel, and with the vocal Buckeye contingent trying to neutralize the massive Badgers' home edge, Wisconsin displayed another gear that foiled the best plans of Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Heacock, munching up valuable minutes, finishing off the long march goalward with White's 12-yard T.D. run.

That, in two paragraphs, takes care of the business portion of the night's collective mishap. Throw in

"We had a chance -- 21-18, we had a chance," said Pryor, who spent the night running for his dear life against an unexpectedly strong Wisconsin pass rush, talking with The Dispatch's Tim May. "We just couldn't get it done as a team." His 14-for-28, 157-yard passing stats tell their own tale.

The Bucks squandered great field position after a third quarter Andrew Sweat interception and later, Barclay missed a very makeable short field goal -- two killing red-zone floperoos.

"We've got to punch that in along with the two times they stopped me in the red zone," Pryor added, somberly recalling the events of the mid-fourth quarter. "Then we had a chance. It was 21-18. Teamwise, we just blew it. We had the ball with 6:55 to go and offensively, I couldn't get it done."

The downhill slalom to defeat left longtime Pryor observers to tuck the Superman analogies away -- at least for now -- and realize the 6-feet, 6-inch, 240-pound junior still has some rough edges.

He might have been a tad harsh on himself, because maybe his sorest reminder of the road ahead came last fall at Purdue, where the Bucks suffered an astonishing 26-18 upset by a sub-.500 Boilermakers team that sacked him five times and forced four turnovers -- two drive-killing fumbles and two interceptions.

"We let this one really slip by us," Pryor said to May. "I'm disappointed in myself and disappointed in general. I am really disappointed that we lost this game, but it doesn't define us at all."

Maybe not. But it does cast a very dark cloud over what was beginning to promise a fourth ticket to the Bowl Championship Series national championship game in a daffy year where upstreamers like Oregon, Texas Christian and Boise State are grabbing the headlines.

But the stumble over the best-laid, carefully-constructed Regent Street pothole brings with it a new reality: the 2010 Big Ten's power structure is different, what with unbeaten No. 8 Michigan State's 7-0 start, its first such success since it tied Notre Dame for the 1966 national title. Did we mention the Bucks also have to travel to No. 13 next month?

Amidst the giddiness of the Portage St. frat houses and late night Regent St. reveling, this new reality, one that vaulted the Badgers one rung past the No. 11 Buckeyes, has as much bite as bark.

Badgers offensive coordinator Paul Chryst seemed to a laminated game plan cardful of correct answers (y'know, that thing coaches hold in front of their faces to make sure enemy lip-reading specialist/spies don't intercept any info).

Particularly after the Bucks pulled within 21-18 early in the final quarter. Typically, there wasn't any finesse involved in the Clay/White ground force. The clock served as a full-course meal and the Badgers spent the night gorging. White (102 yards) became the first Ohio State opponent to crack the century mark since 2008, for example.

But more important was both players' roles in playing keepaway in the game's waning minutes, resulting in White's final 12-yard clincher.

"Going in, there were some things we wanted to get to, we felt were pretty good," said Badgers offensive coordinator Paul Chryst told the Wisconsin State Journal's Tom Mulhern. "I thought early there was no need to get off the run.

He got just enough production from Q.B. Scott Tolzien to keep the Bucks off balance. Never more so than the final drive where 'Sconsin took possession with 11 minutes, 33 seconds left and sucked the life out of OSU's comeback.

And, to the considerable Scarlet and Gray hordes, that last action verb might well sum up the night's result.

About Paul Smith

Paul Smith covers the Big Ten, Notre Dame and the rest of the national college football scene with his View From the Midwest.

About Paul Smith

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