COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)—The oldest of the Buckeyes sent Ohio State back to the Granddaddy of all bowls.
Devin Barclay, a 26-year-old former pro soccer player, kicked a 39-yard field goal in overtime to give No. 10 Ohio State a 27-24 victory Saturday over No. 15 Iowa and send the Buckeyes to the Rose Bowl for the first time in 13 years.
“None of our kids have gone to the Rose Bowl. I haven’t been there in 25 years (since) I was an assistant coach in the 1985 Rose Bowl,” coach Jim Tressel said. “There’s nothing like it. It’s a great feeling.”
The Buckeyes (9-2, 6-1) clinched at least a share of their fifth consecutive Big Ten title and the conference’s automatic BCS bid.
“It means everything to us,” linebacker Austin Spitler said. “Senior day, we’re going to remember this for the rest of our lives. This is a special moment.”
Iowa (9-2, 5-2), which overcame a 24-10 deficit with just over 11 minutes left, lost its second in a row. Redshirt freshman quarterback James Vandenberg was solid for the Hawkeyes in his first college start. But filling in for the injured Ricky Stanzi—who hurt his ankle in last week’s upset loss to Northwestern—Vandenberg was intercepted three times, the final time to end Iowa’s only possession in overtime.
Brandon Saine rushed for 103 yards and two touchdowns and Dan Herron added another score for the Buckeyes.
Iowa started overtime with an incompletion. Then freshman Adam Robinson was thrown for a 6-yard loss by Spitler, and Doug Worthington sacked Vandenberg for a 10-yard loss. Out of field goal range on fourth-and-26, Vandenberg then lofted a long pass into the end zone that was picked off by Anderson Russell.
The Buckeyes handled the ball with extra care—just the way Tressel wanted. Three runs up the middle netted two yards. On came Barclay, the Buckeyes’ front-line kicker since taking over after starter Aaron Pettrey injured a knee three games ago.
“We had so much confidence in Devin that we were going backwards to make his kick longer,” Tressel cracked.
Still, Tressel admitted, he was on the headphones as Barclay made contact with the ball, telling the offensive coaches in the press box to have a play ready for the next possession in overtime in case Barclay missed.
Instead, his kick split the uprights, touching off a wild scene as thousands rushed the field.
“It’s unbelievable. I’m speechless,” said Barclay, a former Major League Soccer player who walked on for the Buckeyes. “The fourth quarter definitely made it interesting. I’m just glad we came out on top—and now we’re going to the Rose Bowl.”
A cadre of state police surrounded the goal posts, preventing anyone from tearing them down. But that didn’t prevent the frenzied crowd from mobbing the Buckeyes players, snapping pictures and joining the team in singing the alma mater.
The Buckeyes haven’t been to Pasadena since the 1996 team finished No. 2 in the nation, scoring in the final minute to beat Arizona State 20-17 in the Rose Bowl.
Ohio State does not want to duplicate one aspect of that season, however— those Buckeyes were perfect all year until losing 13-9 to Michigan in the regular-season finale. Ohio State plays at its archrival next Saturday.
Iowa, a 17-point underdog, overcame several dropped passes and other mistakes to tie it at 10 on Vandenberg’s 9-yard slant pass to Marvin McNutt midway through the third period.
Coach Kirk Ferentz told his team earlier this week that it needed to play a perfect game to win.
“We didn’t quite do it,” he said. “Maybe if we had, we might have won. This was a heck of a challenge.”
The Buckeyes counter-punched, putting together a 79-yard drive. Terrelle Pryor—who completed 14 of 17 passes for 93 yards and ran for 29 more yards— engineered a march that resulted in Herron taking a direct snap and sweeping right, stiff-arming Brett Greenwood and then turning the corner for the go-ahead score with 13:03 left.
Vandenberg then tossed his second interception, picked off by Ross Homan. On the first play from the Iowa 49, Saine took the ball on a quick-hitter off left tackle and outraced everyone for a 24-10 lead.
The 14-point margin was short-lived, however. Derrell Johnson-Koulianos dropped the ensuing kickoff, picked it up, shed a tackle and raced to the right sideline where he sidestepped another potential tackler before sprinting 99 yards for the fourth-longest return in Iowa history.
Barclay missed a 47-yard field goal that might have salted it away, and Vandenberg made several big plays on the next drive—after Brian Rolle’s interception return for a touchdown was wiped out by an Ohio State offside penalty.
Vandenberg, who completed 20 of 33 passes for 233 yards and two scores, then threw a pass directly to two Buckeyes but it popped up in the air and tight end Tony Moeaki quickly grabbed it for a 16-yard pickup.
Vandenberg flipped a high pass into the end zone where McNutt pulled it in with two hands over defender Chimdi Chekwa to tie it at 24.
“Man, this was great,” Ohio State offensive lineman Jim Cordle said. “I’m bruised. I’m battered. But we’re victorious, man. We did it.”
Head to Head - Week 11
| Team | Total Yds | Pass Yds | Rush Yds | First Downs | 3rdD% | Pen./Yds | Turnovers | Time of Poss. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iowa | 300 | 233 | 67 | 16 | 30.0% | 6/51 | 3 | 26:08 |
| Ohio State | 322 | 93 | 229 | 20 | 47.1% | 5/50 | 0 | 33:52 |
653 Comments
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Where in the heck are you reading that the Big 10 is so much better than the PAc-10 and that the Buckeyes are so much better than Oregon? I haven't read that ANYwhere. In fact, 90% of posts I read say the Pac-10 is the greatest ever and whoever the Big10 champ is is doomed.
Yes, Oregon beat Purdue...by 2 POINTS. The point is, every team has different styles, and every team plays different on a given day. Oregon, with a potent offense, versus OSU with a real solid defense, sounds like a cool matchup to me! Flashy offense versus tough defense...how is that a bad scenario? I'm excited for that game. Anyone who thinks different is overly negative towards the Big10 and is just being a hater instead of a college bowl enthusiast. I would RATHER have a good game than a blowout either way, so why not just hope for that? It's more entertaining.
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"Jealousy"??? Regarding OSU???
Lmao!
Seriously - put OSU in the SEC or Pac 10 and no waaaay on frikking earth do they win 9 championships in the past 16 years! Perhaps 2 or 3 (and I think I'm being generous given their 1-10-1 all time record vs. the SEC), but 9??? Hysterical!
Jealousy????
Puleeze!!!!
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Let's talk about Ohio State vs. the SEC - just for grins let's look at bowl games, and to be fair we'll check out the last 20 years:
1989 vs. Auburn - loss
1992 vs. Georgia - loss
1994 vs. Bama - loss
1995 vs. Tenn - loss
2000 vs. SCar - loss
2001 vs. SCar - loss
2006 vs. Fla - loss (and they not only got smoked, they were 3-4 TD favorites!)
2007 vs. LSU - loss
That's 8 losses to 7 different SEC teams in 2 decades!
In fact, OSU has NEVER beaten an SEC team in a bowl game. The Bucks have had some good seasons, but they are fortunate they don't play in the SEC - lucky for them they had that Rose Bowl tie in all those years!
Cheers!
s.
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Thanks for listening--
John Cooper
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As of this morning it was Oregon. I agree Penn State is tough. However, Iowa is over rated and been blessed to win many of the games that they have. I think they will most likely get thumped to a out of conference team. Oregon, Standford and Oregon State will all take care of business in which ever Bowl they go to. I think USC and Arizona will do well in there bowls as well.
Not a big ten hater. Big 10 is just not as tough this year as in the past and the Pac-10 is getting stronger. Pac -10 won all of there bowl games last year and have a great shot at doing it again this year. Only time will tell. QUACK !
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By Matt Zemek
Ohio State fans, we're going to have to conduct another fireside chat, it seems... gather 'round. Last week, I had a guest columnist, Myron Stroicz, pen the Weekly Affirmation, which focused on the Big Ten's big problem: an insistence on winning the conference, which comes at the expense of national competitiveness against the USCs and Floridas of the world. How coincidental it was, then, that less than 48 hours after the column was published, Mr. Stroicz's views would be so thoroughly confirmed in Columbus, as Ohio State nipped Iowa in a battle of hyper-conservative coaches who, as Pat Forde of ESPN noted, evoked memories of the famous - and then infamous - 1966 tie between Notre Dame and Michigan State.
The Buckeye program and its leader, Jim Tressel, cannot be booed in the midst of a de facto conference championship game. Success isn't supposed to be knocked. Results, when attained, shouldn't be downplayed. Most importantly, conference championships - the fruit of superiority in the heart of any college football season - need to be recognized as central and substantial achievements. If eight or nine games in a season are played against non-conference teams, a conference title wouldn't mean much. But because conference play occupies at least two-thirds of a season, winning the conference is the foremost attainable goal for any FBS program. Only two teams, under the current system, get to play for something more than a league crown in the bowl season.
As it stands, winning the Big Ten for the fourth time in five years (the Football Writers Association of America needs to investigate the dubious practice of calling a team a conference champion when it loses a head-to-head matchup and ties another team at the top of the conference standings; only Penn State was the 2008 Big Ten champion...) is an AMAZING feat, the kind of accomplishment which should add to a great coach's legendary status.
Yet, this morning, after the narrow win against Iowa, you'd think that James Patrick Tressel is a bum. Some of the comments coming from certain endlessly grumpy precincts of Buckeye Nation would be hilarious if they weren't so profoundly sad.
"Ohio State won in spite of its coach, not because of him."
"This win will only justify his madness."
"JT's (Jim Tressel's) success is his slave."
In other words, you're pissed, Buckeye fans, that you've won another Big Ten championship, because this means that Tressel will continue to lose to USC, Florida and LSU in bowl games.
What a lovely attitude to have after seeing your program reach - let's get a drum roll from TBDBTL here - YOUR SEVENTH BCS BOWL IN THE PAST EIGHT COLLEGIATE FOOTBALL SEASONS.
That's an insane amount of success... positively USC-like. And oh, what program won't be in a BCS bowl this year? Yeah, the deposed Trojan Empire of College Football. The Greeks from Stanford horsed around in the Coliseum on Saturday and drove the dagger through ailing Troy's heart. But you, Dear Brutus, will be in the very Rose Bowl game USC hosted for so long.
It should be great to be a Buckeye this morning, but apparently, all you can think about are the ghosts of Januaries past against SEC foes.
That's sad. James Patrick Tressel loses to USC, he gets understandably ripped. He loses to Purdue, he gets deservedly ripped. He digs out of the hellhole created by those two losses and gets his team to win the Big Ten..... AND HE GETS RIPPED! Not how a coach should be treated. At all. Ever.
So, what to do, Buckeye fans? You have some serious soul-searching to perform after Tressel once again waxes Michigan and does the kinds of things John Cooper rarely did with better talent.
Do you just not care about winning the Big Ten anymore? Myron Stroicz said in his column, "Consolation prizes are a distraction. The road passed through ‘Win the Big Ten’ when the system was limited, with access flowing only to the Rose Bowl and nowhere else. (Only when Michigan and Ohio State tied in 1973, and the Wolverines were voted out of Pasadena, did it dawn on the Big Ten that second-place teams actually deserved big bowl tickets.) That ship has sailed. These are the times of a global college football world, not just the village. Take the cue and think ‘Win the National Title.’ "
Is that what you think? If so, the prevailing style of play which has been Gospel to most of the Big Ten for generation upon generation needs to be blown up, and the style of coaching witnessed in Iowa-Ohio State needs to go out the window. If winning big intersectional and national games against non-conference opponents in early January really is the goal of the Big Ten, everything about the conference has to change. Conference commissioner Jim Delany needs to schedule post-Thanksgiving games. The league needs to go crazy in scheduling elite opponents for home-and-homes in the coming years. Three yards and a cloud of field turf has to go bye-bye. AND... the tie-in with the Rose Bowl should be obliterated. But ah, do you really want to go there?
See, one of the lasting virtues of college football is tradition. Woody Hayes. Bo Schembechler. Duffy Daugherty. Lloyd Carr. All with eyes fixed on Pasadena.
Ever since Fielding Yost's Michigan club won the 1902 Rose Bowl against Stanford, the idea of traveling West for some California fun and sun in the middle of a Midwestern winter has captured the imagination of Michiganders, Ohioans, and other Big Ten citizens. Expecting Tressel, or any other Big Ten coach not named Pat Fitzgerald (who is young enough to own or develop a different and new-age college football worldview), to disown the sacredness of a Big Ten championship is a fool's errand. It's akin to expecting old-time football writers to suddenly ignore split conference championships when head-to-head tiebreakers exist.
If you downgrade the value of the Rose Bowl and the Big Ten title that comes with it, go ahead... but realize that until the BCS system gets blown up (and that won't happen for at least another four years, if not more), you're basically bashing your own conference and longstanding Midwestern football values.
Don't blame Jim Tressel for winning the Big Ten again. Blame the Big Ten - its administration, but also its prevailing football subculture - for the supposedly problematic and unacceptable "success" of Ohio State football in the Tressel era.
The criticism of Tressel for his late-game decisions is fair. The vehemence and consistency of that criticism, on the other hand, is quite unfair. The (Twitter-based) experience of seeing scribes and fans going ape about the Belichick decision against Indianapolis only adds to the double standard being applied to Tressel.
What is it that you want, football fans and commentators of America? Jim Tressel won and Bill Belichick lost, so it's not winning which is at issue here. Conservatism trumped boldness in terms of eventual results (though not necessarily quality or shrewdness of thought process), so the reason for the Tressel-bashing and Belichick-bashing can't be connected to any consistent football philosophy.
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Weak play calling once again, the runs up the middle just aren't going to work w/a 3rd string back, sorry Norm, it's not 1972 anymore, and this isn't the old Big Ten where rushing up the middle for 4 yards every play gets the job done.
Let your QB air it out and you'll move the ball down the field.
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Watch out next year. YA YA YA, but, I am telling you, this team will be a lot better. And TP will be vastly improved. Look for much more varied passing attack next season especially using tight ends. The off line will be better. Plus, I have noticed that Tressel is being effected by critics calling him out about too plain, too predictable, and not tweaked enough to adapt to opponent strengths and weakness. I think the expandng voice of former Nat Champion QB Craig Krenzel as a radio commentator in Columbus is reaching his ears. He not only is critical but he makes specific recommemdations that it looks like Tressel is responding to. Really.
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You talking about the schedule Ohio State had pretty sure OSU played Navy as one of their non-conference games. And it wasn't an easy victory. And if I remember correctly last week Navy beat Notre Dame two years in a row, and if my memory serves me right is a very recognizable team in college football. The other non-conference team was USC (who has won the PAC 10 like 1000 years in a row) and OSU lost on some bullcrap non touchdown call and a defense meltdown with 2 minutes to play. So your arguement is very unvalid.
And if you don't watch football you probably shouldn't post on stories just a heads up. A team can have an automatic bid without playing all their games because they have the best record in the conference. The game against Michigan only matters because it's the Michigan game. OSU has won the "tie breaker" against Iowa, and Penn State. Not hard to understand. But nice try!!!
I don't know about any of you other OSU fans but I sure am tired of the conservative play calling by Tressel. 4th and 1 on Iowa's 40 and we punt... With the fastest QB in college football (who should change positions by the way) and 2 of the best RB in Saine and Herron. Then with like 2:00 min maybe less in the game to a run on 3rd and 7...REALLY!!! It is very frustrating sometimes to see this occuring. Because as I'm watching other games coaches will gamble on a 4th and 1 and 90% of the time they get a first down. OPEN UP THE PLAY BOOK JIM!!! Especially against Oregon in the Rose Bowl. You'll have to if you want to win!!
GO BUCKEYES, Beat that team up North!!!
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