Ohio State and The Big Ten Deserve More Respect

(Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

After this week of upsets and shuffling in the Top 25, it was agreed that after the top three teams in the country, the rest was a lot of guesswork. Not surprisingly, I found after a dominating 30-0 victory over Illinois, Ohio State found themselves at No. 9, still two spots back of their ranking going into the season.

Ahead of them are such teams as Boise State, USC, Oklahoma, and Virginia Tech. I got to thinking—is Ohio State really worse than these teams? I believe the answer is no. And I believe that the Big 10 conference does not receive the respect it deserves.

Of course, Ohio State lost to USC, but for those who actually watched the game (obviously not Mark May or the rest at ESPN proclaiming the game marked the "arrival of Matt Barkley"), it was clear who the better team was.

Through a combination of Terrelle Pryor mistakes (there were several), conservative play calling, and a defense that was clearly worn down from being on the field so long, the Buckeyes lost a game they clearly should have won. Of course, Ohio State dropped a few more spots after dropping the prior week after a win.

Then came the Washington game. In my mind, I thought it was obvious that Ohio State would leapfrog USC after shutting out Toledo, who coming into that game had the best offense in all of college football.

Ohio State lost to the No. 3 team in the country, while USC lost to a team who won zero games the prior year. Which is worse? To my great surprise, I found Ohio State had dropped two spots, being jumped by Miami and Oklahoma (more on them later), and pushed back by a USC team that still remained ahead of Ohio State.

I fully expected Ohio State to drop after pitching their second consecutive shutout, this time to Juice Williams and Illinois, until it happened that the fourth, fifth, sixth, and ninth ranked teams lost in that week. As we stand, Ohio State is ninth.

So why does Ohio State deserve to be higher? 

Let's start with the defense. The first game, at Navy, the defense looked like a liability instead of an asset. Navy ran the triple-option all over the Buckeye defense, and the much smaller Navy O-line continually created holes against the much more athletic Ohio State D-line.

The consensus was that Ohio State's defense was not on par with those of years past. Then, during the USC game, something amazing happened. The supposedly unstoppable USC rushing attack was contained beautifully for the vast majority of the game, and the defense gave the offense every chance to win the game.

Next week, against a Toledo team that managed over 600 yards of offense the week before, Ohio State's D stepped up big time. Toledo was not even close to field goal range, much less sniffing the end zone.

Then, low and behold, the defense does it again, bottling the Juice and the "dynamic" Illinois offense and holding another team to a big goose egg. So throw out the Navy game—the triple option offense is something that Ohio State had never seen and could not be replicated by the scout team as well in practice.

Other than that, Ohio State's defense has been the best in the country.

Going forward, we can assume Terrelle Pryor, the best athlete in the country, will continue to mature and grow as a quarterback. We can expect many more games like his performance against Toledo with fewer mistakes and better decisions.

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