Big tension for the Big Ten’s Buckeyes

The game plan was to sneak into town early and catch Ohio State football in a semi-relaxed state, well in advance of the inevitable lockdown before Saturday’s game against USC -- an almost must-win for the Buckeyes and the beleaguered Big Ten Conference.

The plan failed.

It was too late.

It was Aug. 19.

A glimpse of Ohio State was offered at an evening scrimmage in fabled Ohio Stadium, as beat reporters who cover daily . . . well, what the head coach generally wants covered . . . sat together monitored by two sports information officials.

Cellphone use was strictly prohibited. A team roster was handed out, but several of the numbers were wrong.

The tall player, standing 6 feet 6 inches behind center, wearing black jersey No. 2, was obviously sophomore quarterback Terrelle Pryor.

No reporter would be talking to him this day.

It was Wednesday, which was designated by Coach Jim Tressel for special teams’ player interviews only. So, after the scrimmage, reporters and television crews scurried to push tape recorders into the faces of the punter, kicker and long snapper.

Control and secrecy are the mother’s milk of football. The open locker-room policies at USC and UCLA are almost unheard-of at most major college programs.

And nowhere is the word “clandestine” more appropriate than it is in the Big Ten.

“It’s just a different culture,” a scrimmage observer noted.

This “iron curtain” mentality may have nothing to do with the conference having won only 1 1/2 football national titles since 1968 -- Michigan’s half-share with Nebraska in 1997 and Ohio State’s undisputed title in 2002.

It could be noted, though, that Woody Hayes at Ohio State and Michigan’s Bo Schembechler -- two titans of Big Ten covert planning -- also struggled in big games.

Schembechler was 5-12 in bowls, 2-8 in the Rose; Hayes was 5-6 in bowls while at Ohio State, with a 4-4 record in Pasadena.

Could clamping down make players more nervous?

“I don’t know how it could make them tight,” Tressel countered during a post-scrimmage dinner break at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. “I’ve never had any of my players come in and say, ‘Hey Coach, we need to have the media here more.’ ”

The stakes are always high in Columbus, but never higher, perhaps, than they are now.

The USC game is seen by many as a line-in-the-sand game -- a last stand for a conference with shaken credibility.

The Big Ten went 1-6 last season in bowl games; Michigan is coming off one of its worst seasons; and Penn State got routed by USC in the Rose Bowl.

“Ohio State is a top-10 team playing at home at night against a true freshman quarterback in the second game,” said Michael Rosenberg, a Detroit sportswriter and author of “War as They Knew It,” a book about the Hayes-Schembechler rivalry. “It shouldn’t be that important, but it is. If Ohio State does not win this game, the Big Ten will be considered irrelevant for the rest of the year, and rightfully so.”

The conference avoided a disastrous 2009 debut last weekend when Ohio State survived a four-point home win against Navy, Minnesota rallied to beat lowly Syracuse in overtime and Iowa blocked two field goals in the finals seconds to stave off Northern Iowa.

What’s gone wrong?

“It’s hard to tell,” Tressel said. “History tells you that there are cycles.”

Even Ohio State, the Big Ten’s flagship program this decade, is feeling the heat.. Winners of the 2002 Bowl Championship Series title game, the Buckeyes have lost their last three BCS bowl games.

In 2006 and 2007, Ohio State was played off its feet in consecutive BCS title games by Florida and Louisiana State. Last year, Ohio State played well in the Fiesta Bowl but let victory slip away against Texas.

“Trust me, we hear all about it,” Ohio State punter Jon Thoma said of the Big Ten’s reputation. “The numbers don’t lie.”

The punter in August was not allowed to look ahead to USC -- with good reason. Navy wasn’t expected to be an easy opener and, as it turned out, it wasn’t.

“We know Southern Cal is there,” Thoma said. “We know we have a game against Toledo. And we know the Big Ten season is coming. The only other team we think about is Michigan. We have a period every day dedicated to Michigan.”

Jake McQuaide, the Buckeyes’ long snapper -- again, that’s who was available -- understands what is at stake for his team and conference.

“We know people are saying that kind of stuff,” McQuaide said. “We don’t worry about it too much. . . . We probably don’t deserve to be No. 1 right now. We accept that. We have to prove ourselves.”

A win Saturday would restore some order for Ohio State and the Big Ten. It could also make partial amends for last year’s 35-3 loss to USC at the Coliseum.

Another loss, though, would open the criticism floodgates.

Either way, Tressel isn’t going anywhere.

His record of 84-19 lags only slightly behind USC Coach Pete Carroll’s mark of 89-15. Each has one BCS championship, though Carroll also won the Associated Press national title in 2003.

The coaches simply have different philosophies. Carroll runs an open-access camp -- too open, some would argue. Celebrities mingle freely on the sidelines -- too freely, some would argue.

Tressel was born in Ohio, where Woody Hayes once ruled and roamed.

Hayes’ aura still hangs over the town. The chalkboard in his office at the time of his 1987 death is now showcased behind glass in the athletic center named after him. “Woody’s Final Thoughts” represent a fascinating jumble of meandering bullet points in chalk -- from “special teams” to “Stalin.” It encapsulates Hayes as a thinker, historian and eccentric football genius.

This was the environment in which Tressel was raised. He was an Ohio State assistant coach in the mid-1980s before leaving to coach Youngstown State to four Division I-AA national titles.

Hayes saw football through a different prism. His hero was George Patton and he called Richard M. Nixon a friend.

As Rosenberg recounts in “War as They Knew It,” Hayes used to say Germany lost World War II because it was “caught in a double-team block from the Allies on the west and the Russians on the east.”

If an Ohio State quarterback wanted to change a play at the line of scrimmage, he would yell “Patton” for a ground attack. The audible for pass was “LeMay,” an ode to Air Force General Curtis LeMay.

On Rose Bowl trips, the media-wary Hayes would sequester his team in a monastery.

“I don’t mind the picture painted of me taking them to the convent,” Tressel said.

Rosenberg says Midwesterners tend to be more reserved, and this is reflected in their football ideology.

“They don’t want you to know what’s going on in their lives,” he said.

Rosenberg is convinced closing ranks before big games has probably hurt Ohio State and Michigan.

“There’s no doubt that’s part of the problem,” he said. “They just get tight.”

But no one can accuse Ohio State of ducking big-game opponents.

Tressel has always pursued marquee nonconference matchups. Ohio State under Tressel has played Texas and USC and the school has future arrangements with Miami, California, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

“To me, the thrill and experience for the players and coaches outweigh the risks,” Tressel said. “You have risk every time you line up.”

Risk returns to Columbus on Saturday -- time to line it up again.

--

chris.dufresne@latimes.com

twitter.com/DufresneLATimes

--

BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX

Conference call

Breaking down BCS bowl game records over the

last 10 years. Ohio State won the BCS title game in 2003

by defeating Miami, 31-24, in two overtimes:

*--* Conference Record (Pct.) BCS Titles Southeastern 11-4 (73%) Four BCS Championships Pacific 10 8-4 (67%) One BCS Championship Big East 6-4 (60%) One BCS Championship Big Ten 8-8 (50%) One BCS Championship Big 12 6-8 (43%) Two BCS Championships Atlantic Coast 1-9 (10%) One BCS Championship *--*

Note: The Big Ten went 1-7 in bowl games last season.

Pacific 10 schools went 6-0.

Sources: www.cfbdatawarehouse.com, Los Angeles Times and Associated Press

----

USC’s Carroll vs. Ohio State’s Tressel

Coaches Pete Carroll and Jim Tressel were hired before the 2001 season. Their results, finish in the Pacific 10 Conference for USC and Big Ten for Ohio State, bowl results, and how they finished in the coaches’ and Associated Press polls:

*--* PETE CARROLL W-L Conf Fin Bowl Coach AP YEAR 6-6 5-3 5th L Las Vegas -- -- 2001 11-2 7-1 T-1st W Orange # 4 4 2002 12-1 7-1 1st W Rose # 2 1 2003 13-0 8-0 1st W Orange #* 1 1 2004 12-1 8-0 1st L Rose #* 2 2 2005 11-2 7-2 T-1st W Rose # 4 4 2006 11-2 7-2 T-1st W Rose # 2 3 2007 12-1 8-1 1st W Rose # 2 3 2008 1-0 0-0 2009 89-15 57-10 *--*

# BCS bowl game; * National championship game.

*--* JIM TRESSEL YEAR W-L Conf Fin Bowl Coach AP 2001 7-5 5-3 3rd L Outback -- -- 2002 14-0 8-0 T-1st W Fiesta #* 1 1 2003 11-2 6-2 2nd W Fiesta # 4 4 2004 8-4 4-4 5th W Alamo 19 20 2005 10-2 7-1 T-1st W Fiesta # 4 4 2006 12-1 8-0 1st L BCS #* 2 2 2007 11-2 7-1 1st L BCS #* 4 5 2008 10-3 7-1 T-1st L Fiesta # 11 9 2009 1-0 0-0 84-19 52-12 *--*