At the start of the week, I didn't consider that Beanie Wells might not play Saturday, probably because I didn't want to the think of the Game of the Century of the Year going anticlimactic if either team was less than 100 percent. Twenty-four hours before kickoff, we have a tediously-detailed list of celebrities expected to be on hand at the Coliseum, but despite Brent Musburger's best efforts, we have no idea what to expect from Ohio State's best player.

I was even going to lay out two scenarios: if Beanie plays, and if he doesn't. But the more I think about it, the more I think I agree with Kevin Ellison:

"I don't really care," safety Kevin Ellison said. "If he's in there, good for him."

â¨Asked by a reporter about "Beanie's status," Ellison said, "Who? Who's â¨Beanie?"

Oh, very clever, Mr. Ellison. But the game in my head plays out that same way whether Wells is in the lineup or not, somewhere along the lines of the "plausible scenario" I laid out on Wednesday, wherein USC battles from a small early deficit, controls the line of scrimmage and the clock and harasses Todd Boeckman into second half mistakes, i.e., last year's mythical championship game against LSU, or a less lopsided version of the one before that, with Fat Suit Troy Smith lolling around against Florida. Not very original, I know.

The LSU game offers a useful template for what can happen when Boeckman has to carry too much of the load, and when the Buckeyes face a balanced offense with a lot of options that it can't get off the field. If Wells isn't 100 percent, or if the running game stalls, anyway, Boeckman will have to make a big play, maybe a few big plays, and there's nothing on his record in tough games -- from deferring to Wells with a fourth quarter deficit against Wisconsin last year, to throwing a pair of bad interceptions in the loss to Illinois, to his generally wide-eyed collapse in the loss to LSU, to the general malaise with Wells on the bench against a vastly inferior team last week -- that suggests he's up to making that play with the SC defense bearing down. Which, by the second, they most definitely will be.

To be fair, there's nothing specific in Mark Sanchez''s record that marks him as Señor Clutch, either -- in fact, it was Sanchez who threw the game-clinching pick in the Trojans' loss at Oregon last October. His presumed advantages over Boeckman are virtually all circumstantial: Sanchez was a vastly more sought-after recruit, won a much more demanding competition for the job and looked like a mercenary without a hint of pressure against Virginia.

But mainly, I like Sanchez because there are more ways his offense can work. Ohio State almost certainly can't win without a sustained, time-consuming commitment to the running game, and the running game itself mostly depends on Wells' availability. His absence is a house of cards for the rest of the system. USC, on the other hand, has more versatile athletes, good enough to attack with power between the tackles (Stafon Johnson), speed on the edges (Joe McKnight, C.J. Gable), and size (Patrick Turner, Vidal Hazelton) and speed (Ronald Johnson, Damien Williams) downfield. More importantly, SC at its best has always placed a premium on aggressively dictated the pace, and as long the committee-based running game is viable, I'd expect OSU to have the same problems getting the Trojans off the field as it had against Florida in 2006 (a 22-minute deficit in time of possession) and LSU last year (an eight-minute deficit). Even with Wells in the lineup, USC's interior line is too strong and its run support on the next levels too fast for any one-dimensional attack to survive for long. Boeckman will have to make plays, and that seems like an invitation for disaster.

Remorseless Predictions
  • Beanie plays and does some good early on, but is soon caught wincing and jogging futilely on the sideline and doesn't finish the game.
  • Ohio State leads in the first quarter, but at no point in the second half.
  • USC runs for 180+ yards, converts at least 60 percent on third down and dominates time of possession by at least six minutes.
  • Stafon Johnson leads the Trojans in carries but Joe McKnight leads in yards.
  • Terrelle Pryor makes a big play with his legs in the first half, but us generally held in check and quickly becomes an afterthought as the offense becomes more pass-oriented in the second half.
  • Todd Boeckman is sacked at least twice in the second half and commits an ugly turnover that leads either directly or indirectly to the icing score.

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Photo of Ohio State's seniors via US Presswire; Photo of Mark Sanchez via Getty Images.