What Does Ohio State Mean To Me?

I’m not from Alabama. I just graduated from the university.

In fact, I grew up in south central PA which was all Penn State and Notre Dame country.

Our house was the only freak Alabama house. To our credit, our home town, Columbia, PA also goes by the nickname Crimson Tide, so I guess it was in the cards.

Who was Ohio State to us?

To be honest, nothing really.

To us Alabama fans living in PSU country Ohio State was a team that would win nine or ten games a year, lose to Michigan and then get run in the Citrus Bowl by a SEC team.

This is what Buckeye fans refer to as the John Cooper era.

Yes, to my brother and me, we knew Ohio State by TV cutaway shots of a bewildered looking Cooper on the sidelines.

Our paths collided for one occasion at the end of the 1994 season.

Alabama had just come off a heartbreaking loss to Florida in the SEC Championship Game, while Ohio State had finally defeated Michigan and the two met for the early New Year’s day bowl in Orlando.

The Tide beat the Buckeyes 24-17 behind a monster game from tailback Sherman Williams.

You can watch the entire game right here:

From there I didn’t really pay much attention to Ohio State until they faced Miami in 2002.

Believe it or not, I was actually pulling for Ohio State in that game, like much of America did.

Flash forward to the 2006 season and like every hot-blooded SEC fan I was pulling for the Florida Gators to annihilate the Bucks in the desert, which they did.

One year later I moved to Columbus, OH with my family and like anyone else who lives here and isn’t drinking the scarlet and grey Kool-Aid, you grow weary of all the Buckeye rhetoric.

Luckily for me Alabama as been über successful in the time I have live in central Ohio, so I haven’t had much gruff to deal with.

Every now and then an Ohio State fan will fly off the handle at me and my Alabama attire, the worst incident coming in a Meijer. I was with my then three or four-year-old daughter and unprovoked an OSU fan comes up and tells me Alabama sucks.

How do you respond to that? Hey, guy, I have my little girl here, so back off.

I’ve covered tailgating parties for work in full Alabama gear on Saturdays. Most people are cool with it and there is some good-natured ribbing.

I’m fine with that.

So far my house hasn’t been egged or my car keyed.

I’m looking forward to this game and despite what I said in my last post, we are homeowners, so moving likely isn’t an option. At least that is what my wife tells me.

Roll Tide.