BOB HUNTER
MADISON, Wis. — Common sense tells you a stadium has nothing to do with winning and losing. A football game is a series of blocks and tackles, runs and passes, kickoffs and punts. It is one team’s execution vs. another’s, one coach’s decisions vs. another’s, a fortunate call, a good play or a lucky break. Where it’s played shouldn’t matter.
It shouldn’t, but for some inexplicable reason, it does. Camp Randall Stadium has been a field of broken dreams for Ohio State, and last night it came close to shattering some more.
A Wisconsin team that Ohio State had dominated early, a Wisconsin team that sometimes seemed overmatched from a talent standpoint, led until Buckeyes freshman quarterback Terrelle Pryor scored on an 11-yard run with 1:08 remaining.
Given what’s happened here in the past, given what seemed to be happening last night, that final 12-play, 80-yard Ohio State drive was a powerful answer to the forces that seem to be at work in this place. For that reason, the Buckeyes’ 20-17 win was one impressive victory.
OK, I know the concrete surrounding the field has nothing to do with what’s happened here in the past. It’s not the fans doing all that jumping. It’s not the way the place reverberates with noise. It’s the football, Badgers vs. Buckeyes, mano a mano, that decides who wins and loses.
But there always seem to be other forces at work here, forces that might not be part of the stadium or the atmosphere, forces that might exist only in the Buckeyes’ minds. When you pass along the horror stories the way the Ohio State players do, when you talk about the “violent” fans and the “crazy” atmosphere in anticipation of your visit, it’s possible that the House of Pain image of the place gradually becomes ingrained.
The history is dreadful. From 1981 to 1992, Ohio State went 2-4 in Madison, and none of the teams it lost to here was ranked at the time. Jim Tressel’s Ohio State teams are now 2-1 on the old Civil War training site, having beaten the unranked Badgers 19-14 on the way to the national title in 2002 and lost to No. 23 Wisconsin 17-10 the following year.
But if you’re in the Ohio State camp and you saw the way last night’s game turned after the Buckeyes’ charged out of the gate on a six-play, 71-yard TD drive, you know why this place can be very unsettling.
Pryor suddenly looked less like a wizard and more like a freshman, throwing an interception and taking a 16-yard sack. Wisconsin quarterback Allan Evridge stopped throwing wild floaters and started firing accurate strikes. The Badgers’ linemen started opening holes for the ground game. Before you knew it, Wisconsin led 10-7 at halftime, and the Buckeyes were back in their House of Pain.
The memories come flooding back, and with them come the mistakes. Didn’t Keith Byars’ see his Heisman Trophy hopes dashed by a sprained ankle on this field in 1984? Didn’t a third-ranked, unbeaten Ohio State team slink out of here with a 14-14 tie in 1993 that eventually consigned the Buckeyes to the — gasp — Holiday Bowl? Didn’t the 1942 Buckeyes suffer their only loss here because of a team-wide case of dysentery?
“You know, this is a tough environment and this is a tough team that we’re playing,” Tressel said. “So what it means to us is that this is a significant accomplishment.”
There’s no denying it. This was not only an important achievement for this year’s Ohio State team, but for the past and future teams.
Even if it takes years to accomplish, the force of this place can only be broken through winning.
Hunter is a columnist for the Columbus Dispatch. Reach him at bhunter@dispatch.com.
