Ohio State Football: Why Counting out Ohio State Would Be a Mistake

Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer) Yes, Ohio State is taking its lumps in the court of public opinion, and soon enough it'll take them in the NCAA's chambers. Yes, the Buckeyes have lost their star player, their head coach and a huge chunk of their reputation, not to mention they'll also soon lose their only win over an SEC school since most of their players have been alive.

But anyone who thinks that Ohio State is down for the count doesn't understand college football. Some teams come and go from the ranks of great college teams. Take Miami for instance. The Hurricanes were atop the college football world from nowhere to be among the top for a while, only to sink back down into the "also ran" category for the last decade.

Then there are schools like Notre Dame, Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma and USC, that foundered for a few years with problems and have since returned. Now Ohio State is seemingly sliding out of the elite status, and if people are ready to write it off and think it'll be irrelevant like Michigan has been lately, they don't understand the dynamics that make Ohio State what it is.

As an Alabama alumnus and feature writer for that school, as well as the SEC, I have enjoyed taking occasional shots at Ohio State and was one of the first to say that Tressel would be either fired or quit over the storm I could see coming all too well.

I lived through similar experiences with teams in the SEC, and knew all too well that no program could withstand the onslaught that was coming.

But anyone who writes off Ohio State is foolish. Here is what will happen in the months to come.

Luke Fickell knows this is a one-season gig, and short of winning a national championship and curing cancer, he has no hope that OSU will not want to distance itself from anyone that couldn't see its star player in a parade of sports cars it knew he didn't own and couldn't afford. The school wants a fresh start.

And well it should.

Ohio State will continue, however, to recruit well because it IS Ohio State. That, and some of the top prospects will want to be part of the new beginning and fix for that school.

It will spend the money necessary to bring in a top-tier coach, one that will cause a lot of public excitement and stir the recruiting fires even more. It may even announce this coach before the end of the season to get a leg up on recruiting, and that would be smart.

The great schools of all time, the Michigans, the Alabamas, the Notre Dames, will have down years because of the great rule of life: nobody can be on top all the time. But the same reasons that made them great schools once and kept them a great school for so long, will always re-emege.

Hence, the truth of the saying, "You can't keep a good man down." Schools like Ohio State may get knocked down, but not knocked out.

So enjoy it while you can, Lord knows I enjoyed seeing the smugness of Tressel wiped from his face, as I would any coach who placed his team in such a predicament as this by letting a molehill become such a mountain.

But I don't enjoy seeing a great school like Ohio State have to suffer from the utter stupidity of one man. Coaches come and go, great schools last forever. Great schools overcome adversity. Great schools are bigger than one season of mistakes.

Don't count out Ohio State, it would be a mistake.