OPINION

By Matt Hayes

updated 4:52 p.m. ET Sept. 21, 2006

Matt Hayes

We were so giddy and giggly at the mere thought of it all. No clear leader, no one team to chase — pure pandemonium.

And Ohio State had to go and ruin it.

It took the Buckeyes all of three weeks to become the undisputed lead dog in a national title race that had looked deliciously crowded and convoluted. (As for our preseason pick, Notre Dame? Pfffffffft.) We're a quarter of the way into the season, and there's one thing even more unexpected than a male voice on The View: No one is beating Ohio State. At least not in the regular season.

"They have very few flaws," says Texas safety Michael Griffin.

Damn Buckeyes. Make that damn Big Ten. As September winds down and October brings key conference games, there is no more disappointing league. Forget about Michigan or anyone else in the Big Ten sideswiping this train. Not only is Ohio State clearly the elite of the league, the Buckeyes have one other key component to a championship run: a coach who knows how to win a big game.

This is a players game. But when the talent gap is minimal, when there is no real difference in speed and athleticism, you better have a guy in a headset who knows what he's doing.

One of the most overlooked factors in the game today: When all things are equal — and sometimes when they're not — no one is a better big-game coach than Jim Tressel.

Pete Carroll looks like a genius with all that talent at Southern California. Mack Brown validated his elite status riding Superman Vince Young. Tressel? He won a national title with Craig Freakin' Krenzel.

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The guy can flat-out coach in big games — in games that matter. In five-plus seasons in Columbus, he's 3-0 in BCS bowl games and 4-1 against bitter rival Michigan. One of those BCS wins (Miami, 2002) was against the most talented college football team in the past two decades.

And now Tressel has superstar quarterback/Heisman Trophy front-runner Troy Smith. He has wideout Ted Ginn, the game's most exciting player. He has Gonzo and Beanie and Antonio Pittman and a "revamped" defense that 100-some other Division I teams would trade theirs for.

He also has — after winning yet another big game two weeks ago at Texas — an incredibly easy road to the national title game. The Big Ten schedule includes road tests at Iowa (did you watch the Iowa-Syracuse game?) and, and . . . that's it. The Buckeyes get Penn State in Columbus on Saturday, don't play occasional thorn Wisconsin and finish up at home against Michigan.

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Don't even start, Blue Boy. For the Wolverines to win The Game, Lloyd Carr would have to outcoach Tressel. And that ain't happening.

"He's not a loud, look-at-me kind of coach," says Cincinnati coach Mark Dantonio, the Buckeyes' most recent victim, of Tressel. "What he has done there and what he can do kind of gets lost in that."

Until, that is, he ruins our party.

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