The 20-somethings and teenagers who’ll take the field Saturday when No. 15 Iowa plays at 10th-ranked Ohio State don’t remember when the Rose Bowl was every Big Ten player’s fantasy.
From the first conditioning session on a bleak winter morning until the big rivalry games of November, the one and only dream of the sons of farmers and factory workers from Minnesota and Wisconsin and Ohio and Michigan was the palm trees, sunshine and the spotlight in Pasadena, Calif.
Once upon a time, the Rose Bowl wasn’t just the greatest bowl game for a Big Ten team to go to – it was the only one.
Now that computers help decide who’ll play in the ultimate game – the Bowl Championship Series national title game, that is – the Granddaddy of all Bowls has dropped a notch on the radar of the kids who play the college game. If they can’t get to the BCS championship game, they have to “settle” for a whiff of the roses.
But some still remember what it was like when the Big Ten champ went to Pasadena, and everyone else in the Midwest permafrost stayed home and watched.
h Jim Tressel said when asked if the Rose Bowl was special at his house. “January 1st in our house, two black-and-white TVs set up side by side, and that old 30-pot coffee maker, that little silver thing.”
Tressel’s dad, Lee, was a Hall of Fame coach at Baldwin-Wallace College. New Year’s Day was one of the few times when the Tressel kids could spend the day with their old man.
“My dad never got off the couch, man,” Tressel said. “We were taking him coffee and switching stations. I mean, that was – shoot, you were living on January 1st.”
For the winner on Saturday, either Iowa or Ohio State, it’ll sort of be like that again.
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HE’S NOT LAUGHING: Michigan freshman QB Tate Forcier has taken a pounding this season, running Rich Rodriguez’s spread offense that calls for him to make plays with his feet.
Forcier has hurt his right shoulder, had a concussion and added a twisted knee in Saturday’s loss to Purdue to his list of ailments.
“I expected it,” he said during preparations for this week’s hard-hitting affair at Wisconsin. “It’s the Big Ten, and you’re playing against a lot of big people. It’s no joke.”
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LAST-DITCH HIT: Penn State’s Jeremy Boone had 10 punts last week against Ohio State, a reflection of the Nittany Lions’ offensive struggles in their home loss to the Buckeyes.
It wasn’t all that extra work that wore him out though, but a last-ditch diving tackle on punt returner Ray Small to save a potential touchdown.
“The open-field tackle did shake me up a little physically, just because it’s not something I’m used to doing,” said the 5-foot-9 Boone, one of the smallest Nittany Lions.
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ROAD WORRIERS: Michigan State is giving up an average of 31.75 points per game on the road this season, twice as many as the 15.83 points per game it is allowing at home. That’s cause for concern for the Spartans, who travel to Purdue this week in a game that is vital to the bowl hopes of both programs.
Michigan State’s only road victory this season came at Illinois, 24-14, on Oct. 10. The Spartans lost at Notre Dame, Wisconsin and Minnesota despite scoring at least 30 points in each game.
“When you do look at that, it’s obvious to me we have to make plays on the road,” coach Mark Dantonio said. “As a defensive football team, you have an opportunity to make a play, you have to make it on a ball in the air, you’ve got to come up with some turnovers. We played well against Illinois. We’re hoping to duplicate that, trying not to think about the other.”
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JUMPIN’ JACKRABBITS: Minnesota hosts FCS foe South Dakota State, hoping to avoid the fate of the 2007 team that lost to North Dakota State 27-21. That year, with plenty of seats available at the Metrodome, the crowd was half-and-half for the Gophers and the Bison. This time, at sold-out TCF Bank Stadium, there will likely only be a few hundred visiting fans of the Jackrabbits able to get seats.
“That’s the advantage we have now,” Minnesota LB Lee Campbell said. “Hopefully the fans will be behind us this Saturday.”
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THANKS, BUT NO THANKS: Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez often talks about recruiting because he says it will take two or three classes to get the type of players who fit what he’s looking for.
Rodriguez, though, said he does not rely much on what recruiting experts think.
“It’s almost become a sport in itself, you know, with fans and the Internet, people following recruiting,” he said. “Most of the recruiting services do a pretty good job. They miss quite a bit, as well. We have to be careful we don’t fall into the hype that we have to recruit this guy because he’s a four-star or five-star, or you don’t recruit that guy because he’s only rated a two-star.”
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK: KR/WR Ray Small has been in Tressel’s doghouse throughout his Ohio State career. After crediting Small’s leadership as a senior, Tressel was asked how many shots he has given Small: “More than LeBron takes.”
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ING GAMES: A month ago, QB Jacob Charest was third on the Illinois depth chart, spending a lot more time watching than playing during practice and looking, realistically, at next year as his chance.
This week against Northwestern, he’s likely to play and may even start after leading Illinois through most of last week’s 35-32 win at Minnesota.
“It kind of seems like in the past four weeks time has fast-forwarded about two years,” the redshirt freshman from North Carolina said. “It’s weird.”
Senior Juice Williams’ up-and-down final season in Champaign took another dive last Saturday when he injured an ankle in the first quarter against the Gophers and didn’t return. Coach Ron Zook says Williams is questionable for Saturday. Backup QB Eddie McGee is now lining up at WR.
Charest said people on campus seem to recognize his face, even if some of them still aren’t quite sure why he’s familiar.
“It’s sometimes kind of awkward because people are just looking at me,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Are you gonna say hey? What’s up? I’m a friendly guy.”’
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QUICK-HITTERS: Road teams went 5-0 in Big Ten play last week. … Players of the week: Purdue QB Joey Elliott and Ohio State DE Cameron Heyward and Small. … Illinois and Northwestern had played for the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk since 1945. Now they’ll play for the renamed Land of Lincoln Trophy. … Five conference teams are bowl eligible, the three Ms – Michigan, Michigan State and Minnesota – need one more win and Indiana and Purdue each need two wins.
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AP Sports Writers Dave Campbell in Minneapolis; Larry Lage in Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Associated Press Writers Genaro Armas in State College, Pa.; Tim Martin in East Lansing, Mich.; and David Mercer in Champaign, Ill.; contributed to this report.
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