Feeling right at home

When you play host to your enemy, you want to make sure you keep them uninspired and flat. In college football, road warriors can receive a boost through comments before the game, music, the crowd or anything that may get the blood pumping. When Ohio State travels to Happy Valley, viewers will anticipate a battle between two of the best football programs in the country.

What fans may not know is the accommodations that the Buckeyes receive from the visiting locker room in Beaver Stadium. Whether this is just the attributes from an older stadium or how the Nittany Lions intend to treat their conference rivals, veteran OSU players reminisce about their past experiences in this stadium.

“When you are in the locker room, which is one of the worst locker rooms in the Big Ten, and then you walk out of the locker room, which is like old bleachers and all of the walk ways underneath so everybody can see you,” said Ohio State tackle Jim Cordle.

“They can look down, spit on you, cuss at you and everything like that. You got to walk about 50 yards through all of that and then run out of the field.”

Beaver Stadium has been renovated a few times over the past ten years but apparently the university did not make it a priority to update or expand the visiting locker room.

“It’s like an old shack. It’s probably 10 feet across and 30 feet long. The taping room is like five-by-five so trying to get the whole team taped in a five-by-five room so that sucks but you deal with it,” said Cordle.

“Once you get out there, the fans try to get at you. Whatever the air temperature is outside, it is the same in the locker room. You just got to deal with it but it’s not going to throw off our game.”

Ohio State typically plays in hostile environments with they hit the road. Every away game they have on their schedule is usually the biggest home game for their opponent. Through their hatred acts prior to the game, the Penn State fans actually show how important this game is to them and how much they actually fear and respect the Buckeyes.

“It definitely gets you going though and when you get the Zombie Nation and the white out, it gets us pumped up too,” said Cordle.

Public enemy number one this week from Ohio State will be Pennsylvania native Terrelle Pryor. In the return to his home state, the Penn State fans may add a little extra saliva to their ammunition when they see number two in red emerge from the visiting locker room.

“Their fans make it personal. It’s just a unique stadium. Their fans are right there on top of you and I’m sure there will be lot of stuff directed at Terrelle,” said Cordle.

“He might have to carry an umbrella or something. Walking under the stadium there and they are definitely going to come after him. Hopefully that gets him going.”

The one area that the Ohio State offensive line has struggled with this season is their silent count. Nearly three weeks ago, the line struggled with the crowd noise and was mostly unorganized for the majority of the game. In one of the loudest stadiums in the country, the Buckeyes will look to use hand signals and rely on non-verbal communication to get the job done.

“Everything we did today was silent so in 2007 when we played Penn State, I came up with some hand signals so this week it is all non verbal communication and silent counts. All of this towards not letting what happen in Purdue happen this week,” said Cordle.

“With the noise, it is a lot louder in Penn State so we did well today and with two more days of practice, we should be ready to go.”

There are not many advantages to the silent count but the o-line knows during away games, they need to utilize the silent count to their advantage.

“You rather not do silent counts but you have to at Penn State. Why do we talk? Because we can so it’s a lot easier than doing sign language. We only do it when we have to,” said Cordle.

Despite their miniature sized locker room, their even smaller taping room and their trek through the crowd to get to the sidelines, the Buckeyes love the challenge that is ahead of them and look to steal another victory from the Nittany Lions in their own backyard.

“It’s just something we got to deal with and we’re only in there for a couple hours at the most. When you walk out, their fans are on top of you but you how it is with college football,” said Ohio State safety Anderson Russell.

“I love it though, I say bring it on. I love that stuff. I don’t think we’ll have any problem staying amped up for this game just with all the hype with this game and next to Michigan, this is our other big rival and we look forward to the most.”