OSU-Michigan turns out to be interesting after all

Ray Stein

Editor: Is it just me or is Mickey Geslak (Mailbox, last Sunday) counting his chickens before the eggs hatch? I agree that Michigan should win this year’s game, but they do not have a good offense and they have Jim Hairball as the head coach. If there is a way to screw up a game, Hairball will find it.

This is Michigan’s best chance to win in the past 10 years or more, so it will definitely be embarrassing if they lay an egg. Should be an interesting game, as most of them have been in the past. Ken Shepherd, Gahanna Ken: Interesting is one way to put it. Shocking goes a bit too far. But you’re right about the embarrassing tag on Michigan’s shirts. That had to be one lousy trip home.

Mr. Stein: I understand printing letters in your Mailbox column that offer different points of view. Nothing would be a bigger waste of newsprint than offering readers’ opinions that were all in agreement.

That said, I have to question devoting a full one-third of your column space (last Sunday) to a disjointed rant from a reader in California who sounds more like a 1960s hippie than a sports fan.

No true Buckeye supporter was too happy with how the Zach Smith debacle was handled. But allocating so much space to a largely uninformed diatribe from a Left Coaster seems like a huge waste to me.

Dennis Driscoll, Upper Arlington

Dennis: I’m confused — are you more angry by the points the writer made or the fact that he might once have driven a Volkswagen bus with flower stickers on it? Haighters gonna Haight, I guess.

Editor: Many of you, like us, watched too much football (last) weekend. Take Ohio State: For most of the game, they played poorly, to say the least. But in the end, they won! Reporters and fans described the game as “ugly, get rid of the coaches, what’s wrong?”

Next, take the Pittsburgh Steelers: For most of the game, they played poorly, to say the least. In the end, they won! Reporters described the game as a “miracle comeback, overcoming many obstacles, a great win.”

The difference in the postgame commentary is the negative attitude of the reporters and fans of Ohio State. Never satisfied!

How many schools do you think would love to have their record? Good teams find a way to win and bad teams find a way to lose.

Bill Jilek, Mansfield Bill: And sometimes decent teams put it all together when the whole world thinks they should change their name to Jack Squat. That’s college football.

Ray: With the exception of Alabama vs. Georgia, every one of the conferences’ top dogs will play a team with three or four losses in their league’s championship game.

It seems to me like it is time to eliminate the league championship games in favor of an eight-team playoff. We can’t have both since it would be too many games for young men. If money is the issue, figure out a first-round payout to each conference.

Garrett “Chip” Kane, Reynoldsburg

Chip: I have zero doubt that there will be a time when the system will correct itself to allow for five conference champions and three at-large teams. And still people will gripe, but perhaps not as lustily.

Ray: Forget about OSU’s defensive woes and the Michigan game. The real issue: What’s the over/under on how much OSU will shell out in the Strauss fiasco?

Paul Travis, Hilliard Paul: I’d rather bet it than set it. Give me the over.

Ray: OSU can say all they want about how great the Schottenstein Center is, but after watching the Buckeyes play Cleveland State on Friday in St. John Arena, I yearn for the days of the basketball Buckeyes playing in a basketball arena.

There’s also the fact that St. John is named for an important person in Buckeyes athletic history and not some discount department store.

I don’t understand why all the big time universities built hockey arenas for their basketball teams. I wonder if the love of money had anything to do with it? None of these state-of-the-art, all-purpose arenas have the same game ambiance of the basketball arenas they replaced.

Steven H. Spring, South Charleston

Steven: I never was smitten with the idea of St. John as a cozy place, perhaps from my time in the vertical reaches of the upper deck. But compared with a stale multipurpose place, yeah, I’ll take St. John.