USAToday
8/7
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<!-- ARTICLE HEADLINE --><!--HEADLINE--> Ohio State climbs back on top in college football
By MIKE DODD
USA TODAY
<!-- ARTICLE BODYTEXT --> <!--ARTICLE TEXT--> For The Ohio State University, the Maurice Clarett hangover is finally gone.
Four years and a series of public embarrassments after their last national football title, the Buckeyes are projected to return to the top of the college football world this fall.
Ohio State, behind the electrifying offensive talents of quarterback Troy Smith and wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr., is No. 1 in the USA TODAY Coaches' preseason poll released Friday, its first time in the top spot since the end of the 2002 season.
"We know the one in August isn't quite as important as all the other polls at the end," coach Jim Tressel says. "It's just another reminder of the respect people have for Ohio State."If there is a symbol for the Buckeyes' bumpy road to glory, it is Smith, their 22-year-old senior quarterback from Cleveland.
A year ago he was preparing for the season knowing he would be sitting out the opening game for an NCAA infraction of accepting money with no guarantees of regaining his starting job.
"You have to be able to fall on your face to get up and complete an obstacle to appreciate it," says Smith, at the Big Ten media conference this week. "A year for any college athlete helps."
Today he is among the leading preseason candidates for the Heisman Trophy with boyhood friend Ginn, 21, a junior.
Ginn, a wide receiver/kick return specialist, arguably could be the most electrifying player in the college game this fall. In two seasons he has six touchdowns on returns, six receiving and three rushing.
The two, who have known each other since they were about 7, played at Cleveland Glenville High School under Ginn's father, Ted Sr.
Smith last year went from a tantalizing prospect to a multifaceted quarterback who attacks defenses with his running and passing, drawing inevitable comparisons with Texas' Vince Young, who led the Longhorns to the national title.
"Consistency has become much better," Tressel says of his quarterback's development. "He showed us a lot back in '04 (when he went 4-1 as a starter), that he could make some plays. But would he do it consistently?
"I thought what '05 showed ... the back half of that season, there was a consistent quarterback."
Wake-up call
For many, the turning point came after a somewhat jittery performance in the 17-10 loss at Penn State on Oct. 8. Smith rushed a season-high 19 times for a total of 15 yards and threw for just 139 yards and an interception.Ginn Sr., who phones Smith at least twice a week, provided a harsher-than-normal critique that time.
"It was just to wake him up," he says. "The fact that you've got to make decisions with your arm and mind and not with your shoes."
He tacked on a little lecture about studying more film and staying away from a Hollywood attitude. "His sunglasses (all the time). Me and him have a thing about that. I want to see his eyes," Ginn Sr. says with a laugh.
Over the final seven games of the season, Smith threw for 225-plus yards six times and took off on foot no more than 13 times in a game. His film preparation - time in "the lab," as he says - is frequently cited by his teammates.
Smith's maturation off the field has been equally impressive. The two-game suspension from the 2004 Alamo Bowl and 2005 season opener for accepting $500 from a booster proved a turning point.
The sanction was levied two days before the Buckeyes left for that bowl game. He recalls watching the game from Ginn Sr.'s basement, which he describes as a shrine to the coach's former players.
"I have a key to Ginn Sr.'s home; that's where I stay a lot of times when I'm home," Smith says, adding the coach was out of town.
"I'm sitting in the basement, watching TV and looking at (reminders of) all the things we've done. I really got it into my head that there wouldn't be a situation like this again."
Problems galore
Since the Buckeyes completed their 14-0 season of 2002 with a Fiesta Bowl victory against Miami (Fla.) for their seventh national championship, the athletics department has been rocked by NCAA investigations of its football and basketball programs.First Clarett sat out his sophomore season after being charged with falsifying a police report, then he claimed he received a number of improper benefits while playing at Ohio State. An NCAA investigation cleared the university.
Next, the NCAA and the university found violations in the men's and women's basketball programs.
An investigation resulted in the men's program in March receiving three years probation from the NCAA for seven violations, including a $6,000 payment to a recruit. Then late in 2004 came Smith's suspension.
In January 2005, athletics director Andy Geiger, declaring he was "just tired, just bone-weary," announced his retirement. New athletics director Gene Smith restructured the department.
Two months ago he hired Douglas Archie, whose background includes seven years with the NCAA in enforcement, as associate athletics director for compliance.
The past issues are resolved, but the indirect fallout continues.
A troubled Clarett faces an Aug. 14 trial date on robbery charges stemming from an incident Jan. 1 in Columbus.
This week, fired basketball coach Jim O'Brien was awarded $2.2 million plus interest from the university in a civil suit over his contract.
"The morass was a) never deep and b) never systemic," says Geiger, now living in Washington state. "The fundamentals were sound, and I think Gene (Smith) found that when he got there. I don't think there's been anything startling since that would say there's ongoing trouble."
Smith agrees but acknowledges a perception in some quarters that the football program had been out of control.
"We can think of programs that were run amok, and those incidents (at OSU) pale in comparison to programs that have run amok," he says.
In his first year, he says, the football team had 56 players with a grade-point average of 3.0 or better, and "we had no serious behavioral issues off the field." (One player was arrested for driving under the influence.)
"You're going to have incidents. To sit here and say we're not is probably naive," Smith adds.
"The question is ultimately how you deal with them and how many you have."
A lot to look forward to this season
Throughout all the headlines, the football team largely continued its success. It went 11-2 in 2003 (finishing No. 4 in the USA TODAY Coaches' poll), slipped to 8-4 in 2004 (finishing No. 19) and rebounded to 10-2 and a No. 4 ranking last year, including a 34-20 victory against Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl."A play here or there and they could have been national champion last year," Minnesota coach Glen Mason says.
The 2005 team, which lost to Texas by three points and at Penn State by a touchdown, had nine players drafted by the NFL, five in the first round.
This year's team will rely on the explosive offense that also features junior running back Antonio Pittman (1,331 yards last year) and a young defense that needs to replace nine starters (all in NFL camps this summer).
"Where there is some experience is up front with senior defensive tackles Quinn Pitcock and David Patterson," Tressel says.
"A lot of time, if you're solid up front, that certainly helps the growth of people in the linebacker corps and on the back end."
Among the promising linebackers is junior transfer Larry Grant, the 2005 junior college player of the year at City College of San Francisco.
Asked what he noticed most about the secondary in spring drills, Smith had one word: speed. "I think we're a little bit faster," he says.
If the Buckeyes' goal of a national championship is to last until the trees change color in Columbus, the young defense will need to develop quickly. The second game of the season, Sept. 9, is at preseason No. 2 Texas.
Many of the seniors, Smith included, were in the program as redshirts their freshman year when the Buckeyes last won the national title.
"Some guys in some situations did the wrong thing, but every year we have a good record as a team, (the Clarett fallout) kind of diminishes," Pitcock says.
Smith says he watched the leaders on that 2002 team, and he's ready to step into that role for the 2006 edition.
"A lot of things I was taking for granted. Coming in as a young guy, we won the national championship, and I'm walking around with my ring on," he says.
"As you can see, I don't wear my rings at all now because all that work is done on the field. I'll worry about being glorified later. We've got work to be done."
