I love football.
I particularly love college football.
I really truly totally love Ohio State football.
But I hate Ohio State fans.
Have you ever watched a sporting event with someone who, the instant his team failed to score, or turned the ball over, or even just didn’t execute a play perfectly, began griping loudly and repeatedly about how much this team – a team he is utterly devoted to – completely sucks? Until the entire room becomes a fog of negativity and even the players themselves, through the television screen, seem to feel it pressing on them? That’s what Ohio State fans are like, almost without exception.
A lot of this has to do with insanely high expectations coupled with the snarling defensiveness that comes from years of not getting national “respect.” The latter we’ll get to in a moment, but the former was spurred most recently in the current issue of ESPN The Magazine’s 2013 College Football Preview, wherein Ohio State, coming off an undefeated season marred only by an NCAA-violation-mandated postseason ban, is ranked number 2 behind Alabama and in talking about the Buckeyes, ESPN’s lede is “National Title or Bust.” National Title or Bust — the absolute pinnacle of NCAA football achievement, or the entire season is a failure. Now, I know this is somewhat hyperbole, a slight exaggeration of the reality that success is the ultimate goal. I know a title game is what the Buckeyes are reaching for — it’s what every team is reaching for, every year. And it’s absolutely doable. Ohio State is strong and ready, they’ve got a great coach, a talented QB that gets better every year (this is his third), a 12-game winning streak and something to prove. But to suggest they will have accomplished nothing if they don’t walk away with the crystal football come January is ludicrous. Wildly reaching blanket statements like that are the media’s stock-in-trade, but Buckeye fans take it to heart. Every week leading up to Game Day you’ll hear Ohio State fans discussing the upcoming match, predicting scores and analyzing the competition. This is standard practice for any fan of any team, but an OSU fan’s predictions will be astronomical and nothing short of a blowout will suffice. Obviously there is already plenty of talk surrounding tomorrow’s season opener against Buffalo and the most conservative score I saw floated on the morning news broadcast was 41-10. That’s a 4-touchdowns-and-a-field-goal margin. That’s a lot. And I know Buffalo isn’t a strong team, but those same predictions will inevitably follow the Buckeyes to San Diego State and on into conference play. And as soon as the predictions inevitably – for inevitable it is – fail to come exactly true, Ohio State fans will commence cussing out their own team, players and coaches. It’s an unavoidable outcome, and in knowing that it’s unavoidable, the fans are in essence looking forward to trashing their own team. It’s at this point that I no longer want to watch a football game with any other human anywhere.
The other thing about Ohio State fans is that they constantly feel slighted by the media, by the polls, by other teams and other teams’ fans, which creates a belligerence and a constant defensiveness. Ohio State fans are always at the ready to go off – often profanely and crudely – on whatever and whomever disrespects them. There’s a certain amount of normal fan-centered bravado to this, and not a small amount of justification when players like Johnny Manziel sells his autograph and is suspended for one-half of one game while the entire Ohio State program was decimated in the spring of 2011 (and continued to pay for it in 2012) for similar activities. Ohio State fans notice all these injustices; they catalog them and index them and carry them around like gargantuan chips on their shoulders until the end of time, whether it’s the inequality of the polls or the staunch refusal of ESPN’s Mark May to give the Buckeyes any kind of praise while they’re suspended (I don’t know). They obsess about these things, and they do not let them go. The irony, of course, is that they feed into this same conversation. If the Buckeyes don’t get 500 rushing yards or don’t run up the score by 30 points, then they’re losers that can’t compete, according to their own fan base. So why should anybody else care?
I love my Buckeyes. I want them to do well, I want them to win games, I want to cheer for them. I get disappointed for them when they lose (NOTE: for them, not with them). And I do get frustrated when they can win every single game they play (as they did in the ’02 season) and still get held up as a fluke, or as undeserving of their success. But I will continue to cheer them on, and I will never trash talk them.
And anyone who wants to get pissed if tomorrow OSU only beats Buffalo by a single touchdown can go watch the game somewhere else, thanks. I’ll be alone in my house eating Tostitos scoops and salsa.
/jessica
Viable Option 