Michigan City, Indiana -- The backdrop was the same. The ritzy Hyatt in Chicago's high-rent River North. The same high-rollers. Big Ten Athletic Conference hoi polloi from officialdom to hangers-on and all points in between. Were they ready for some football?

Once they extinguished the major brushfires surrounding the Big Two -- Ohio State, with the unwanted finish to the wholly sordid Jim Tressel affair punctuated by a Sports Illustrated trashing of everything about Ohio State but Carmen Ohio, and the unceremonious departure of three-year experiment Rich Rodriguez at Michigan, to be replaced by -- and this is rich -- yet another Ohio Native (Kettering) -- Brady Hoke, who got into the spirit of things by declaring "We're not rebuilding. We're Michigan."
 
Throw in new arrival Nebraska, coached by former Buckeye Bo Pelini, and you'll have enough storylines to create a running soap opera series. Did we mention always dangerous Wisconsin, which thumped the Bucks last year in Madison? Penn State, Iowa...you get the idea.
 
Into this Columbus firetrap of media scrutiny and immediate expectations, comes Luke Fickell, a very capable defensive assistant who now will carry the label pro tempere head coach.
 
Not a total surprise since during the painful downfall of Tressel, the revered 10-year legend whose teams went 9-1 against the forces of evil from the north, always a guaranteed plus, and 106-22 overall, Tressel suspended himself and the Tattoo Five, whose trinkets-for-tats shenanigans got them and, unfortunately, the entire Ohio State football empire, in trouble in the first place. Five games. Including a key roadie at Miami and the first Big Ten game, at home with Michigan State.
 
On one level, Fickell is both proud and thrilled to be Head Buck, because he's a Columbus native, one of the nation's most sought-after recruits at Saint Francis de Sales High School, and a lifelong Buckeyes fan. On another...well, he looked back over the last part of his question-and-answer session against a sardine-can backdrop with more microphones and cameras than a presidential presser.
 
"I had a completely different idea of what that last 15 minutes was going to be," Fickell told The Columbus Dispatch's Bruce Rabinowitz. "What I had prepared mentally to be ready for was completely different....
 
"As you can probably imagine, the last few months have been a whirlwind -- exciting, crazy, emotional, but yet very productive as well."
 
Most of the dagger-questions have pretty much been dealt with in various venues -- campus, Chicago, Bristol, Conn., home of the Sports Bleeder.
 
But without electrifying 6-foot, 6-inch, 240 pound Terrelle Pryor back there to take snaps, without wide receiver wunderkind Devier Posey, without mercurial tailback "Boom" Herron, and lesser, but valuable pieces, the Bucks' 2011 start suddenly becomes an unsteady trip off the runway. "I had no time to feel sorry (for Tressel)," Fickell told Rabinowitz, (or) to have a whole lot of emotion. The situation arose and obviously I had to stand up."
 
Most pre-season prognogs still think Ohio State is Top 15-20 material. But as Fickell, his newly minted co-defensive coordinator Mike Vrabel, fresh from a brilliant New England Patriots career, and some talented Tressel remnants sift through the pre-season info, game films and scouting, there can be little doubt the klieg lights will burn brighter than Times Square on New Year's Eve.
 
At Michigan, Hoke knows the league's second-most demanding fanbase will be yowling loudly if the Wolverines stumble out of the gate.
 
The Wolverines, also dogged by the NCAA, face plenty of media requests. And Hoke knows his multi-talented quarterback, Denard Robinson, one of the nation's best wideouts, junior Roy Rountree, who from Dayton's Trotwoond Ironwood High School, choosing U-M after a bitter recruiting battle with Penn State and Purdue, and a strong offensive line, will not be guests at anyone's pity party.
 
He likes to refer to the Bucks as "Ohio." Hey, they're Michigan, remember? But there will be a whole lot of comparative notes taken before the two square off Nov. 26 in Ann Arbor.
 
"I really don't (think Ohio State will play the role of vulnerable victim)," he said to The Dispatch's Tim May. "That's a tremendous program with tremendous tradition, just like we have. We have 42 (combined) championships in the Big Ten. When you have schools that have that quality about them, have those legacies, I don't see anybody as wounded."