Join the Ho-ho-hum crowd if you are one of the thousands of Ohio State fans this holiday season not overly excited about the Buckeyes playing in the Cotton Bowl.
Despite OSU facing glamour opponent Southern California, the Cotton suffers from the same cultural clutter that affects everything from 24-hour news networks to the proliferation of cable TV channels to the similarity of all things social media.
Too much loud noise. By the time the Buckeyes play the Trojans on Friday, everything pertaining to college football already has been said, er, yelled. It’s like listening to Gus Johnson call a game every minute of every day in December. Smaller doses, please.
Too many choices. The Cotton Bowl is one of 40 bowls, just another cop/detective/hospital/sitcom show among hundreds of other TV options. Older readers will recall how the entire nation once watched and discussed the social significance of “All in the Family” or comic timing of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Today, we’re all glued to our own little piece of the cable pie, not all watching the same thing and thus disconnected.
It is only the “gone viral” that attracts our attention. In the case of college football, that means the College Football Playoff, which has taken on so much importance that any game besides the two semifinals and national championship gets the same notice as a 2 a.m. tweet. If you’re not in the four-team playoff, you’re out of the national discussion.
Many former Ohio State players lament a loss of perspective that assigns all-or-nothing significance to the playoff.
“Back when we played, the big thing for us was winning our conference. Nowadays that gets lost,” said Mike Bartoszek, who played receiver on Woody Hayes' OSU teams from 1972-74. “Woody always said if you win the Big Ten and go to the Rose Bowl you’ve got a chance to win a national championship, but our main goal to start the season was to win the conference, which usually meant winning against Michigan.”
At least among most fans, the days of focusing on winning the conference have given way to winning the Michigan game and the conference and the conference championship game and the playoff semifinal bowl and the national championship game. That’s a lot of ands to navigate successfully.
“The playoffs and national championship have changed everything,” said John Robinson, the former coach for Southern California who considers playing in the 1958 Rose Bowl — as an end for Oregon — to be one of the highlights of his life.
Anymore, unless like this season it serves as a playoff semifinal, the Rose is just another bowl.
The challenge is how to become enthusiastic for non-playoff bowls. Whining won’t solve anything. Needed is a new outlook that focuses on the positives, no matter how small, and a shift in priorities.
Instead of watching the Cotton Bowl with an over-the-top competitiveness that only finds enjoyment in a positive outcome, try looking at the big picture — how might this be a preview of next season? — even while paying attention to details like potential improvements in play-calling, pass routes and the kicking game.
Maybe consider the Cotton Bowl the capstone to a season that saw an all-time comeback against Penn State and sixth consecutive win against Michigan. If that means fooling yourself into forgetting the ugly losses to Oklahoma and Iowa, so be it.
The truth is that if winning a national championship is the only thing that makes Buckeye Nation happy, then most seasons will end in misery. Ohio State has won six national titles since 1936, the year the Associated Press poll debuted. That comes out to finishing No. 1 once every 13.5 years. Parents of newborns, do you really want your kids scarred until they become teens by what they see as failure for not winning a national title?
Personally, I think the lows make the highs feel that much higher. How does that Robert Browning poem go? “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”
Not buying it? Too naive? Then treat the Cotton Bowl as a way for Ohio State to stick it in the eye of the playoff selection committee, which chose Alabama over OSU for the fourth spot. A payback of sorts. That’s how USC tailback Ronald Jones II chooses to see it. The committee voted the two-loss Trojans No. 8, right behind three-loss Auburn.
“We’re going to treat it as a playoff game,” Jones said. “(The Buckeyes) are, too. Make a statement — just let us in next time. Yeah, it’s definitely a big game.”
That it is. Maybe not the biggest game, but it should be entertaining nonetheless. And during a mile-a-minute bowl season operating in a nonstop world, that is all anyone can expect.
@rollerCD