OSU fans must step up, execute their worry game
I’m worried that Ohio State fans aren’t worrying effectively about the big game on Monday night.
It’s the least I can do. If I worry more about the worriers, the worriers will worry more about the team, and the team will beat Alabama to win the College Football Playoff national championship (assuming COVID-19 doesn’t upend everything).
I know, I know: No fan base on Earth marinates in anxiety like the Buckeyes faithful. And, yes, the fan forums in the past week have been a hothouse of unease, angst and unconvincing bravado, just as you’d expect.
But that’s quantity of worry. I’m concerned with quality. I think Buckeyes fans need to step up their game, as they say in the sports world.
I will now pass along my chief worries about the worriers in the hope that it will inspire them to worry better.
They lack focus.
Fans say that disrespect directed at Ohio State motivated the Buckeyes to demolish Clemson. Yet they fret about underdog Ohio State being considered inferior to Alabama in the upcoming game and in the football universe in general.
Either it’s good for the team to be underestimated or it’s bad. Let’s settle on a narrative here, people. Contradictory fretting will not get the job done.
They’re looking ahead.
I’m seeing too much talk about what a win or loss on Monday will do to Ohio State’s reputation.
There will be plenty of time to debate that question during the long winter. Right now, your job is to wring your hands about how to stop Alabama coach Nick Saban’s high-scoring offense.
If the team played the way you worry, OSU pass defenders would be caught counting their Instagram followers while a quicksilver Alabama receiver catches the game-winning touchdown pass. Get your heads in the game, fans.
They’re looking behind.
The halftime score of the Big Ten championship game (Northwestern 10, Ohio State 6) doesn’t count in the record books. Will you please stop agonizing about a game that OSU played three weeks ago and ultimately won by 12 points, quarterback Justin Fields’ injured thumb notwithstanding?
Every brain wave wasted on retrospective apprehension is a brain wave not available for the fretful task of vanquishing the dark lord Saban and his crimson legion.
They’re “out of rhythm.”
I have no idea what sportscasters mean when they say this. But here’s what I mean: Ask 10 Buckeyes fans to worry in sync about Alabama, and seven of them will disrupt the exercise to send some side-hate to Michigan.
In a year when The Game wasn’t even played, Michigan still manages to pop to the surface of this roiling cauldron of anxiety way too often. Let it go, Buckeye loyalists.
The hour is late. The great contest looms. If we can all worry at our best, we’ll have nothing to worry about.
Joe Blundo is a columnist for The Dispatch. joe.blundo@gmail.com
@joeblundo