He's out. That's it. He's not going to play, just like Jim Tressel said.

Or, you know, probably. Kirk Herbstreit seemed to have a hard time accepting Tressel's decision after watching Wells at the Buckeyes' walk-through Friday, and based on their previous confidence and Kirk's skepticism on the Worldwide Leader, I fully expected the insiderz behind the pay walls on Buckeye Message Boards to stick by the line they'd been peddling all week: it's a smokescreen/wild Trojan stallions couldn't keep Beanie off the field. Not so much, though -- it's generally accusations, mea culpas and assurances that "there are a lot of surprised people in the Buckeye locker room" who hadn't been very discreet behind the scenes about their certainty that Wells would be ready to go. Maybe something happened, maybe they were just wrong. But the Sweater Vest plays no games. And if for some reason he is playing games in this case, he's a hell of a writer all of a sudden:

"I'm not sure (Wells) will ever speak to me again, but I think it's the right thing to do, so we won't have Beanie tomorrow."

Asked whether Wells fought him for the right to play, Tressel said, "I suppose if looks could kill, he fought me."

Look, any sportswriter in the room would have put out a contract on Beanie's foot himself for the chance to use that "if looks could kill" line in a lede, and Tressel could only rattle it off in the heart of Cliché Kingdom because he actually saw the look, and wrestled with it, and won.

Unless he's just a sheer, bloody, hardcore motivational genius playing this one to the hilt. That's gotta be it, right? Seriously. Because Beanie's going to play. No, no, seriously, he's going to play, right? Seriously.