As my excitement for Saturday’s match-up between Ohio State and Miami quickly turned into the realization that I was witnessing the inevitable on-field destruction of the OSU program, I frantically searched for someone to blame for the Buckeyes’ ever-apparent ineptness.

I wanted to blame Joe Bauserman for throwing balls that had more movement than any of his pitches in minor league baseball did. I wanted to blame Braxton Miller for only being 18 and not being ready for a game of this magnitude. I wanted to blame Jake Stoneburner for dropping a would-be touchdown catch in the middle of the end zone. And I wanted to blame Luke Fickell for being in way over his head.

But as I turned to Twitter to vent about things that I can’t control, I found the answer to the first person who deserves to be blamed for the disaster that we saw on Saturday and future misfortunes that the 2011 season may hold for the Buckeyes.

“Buckeyes have to give football to Jordan Hall,” former OSU quarterback Terrelle Pryor posted to his Twitter account midway through the Buckeyes’ beat down in Biscayne Bay.

To steal a phrase from Seth Myers and Amy Poehler’s Weekend Update, really Terrelle Pryor? REALLY?

That’s not to say that Pryor wasn’t right, but the mere fact that he was showing up in my Twitter timeline and not in Sun Life Stadium in Miami on Saturday made it all the more clear for me as to who OSU fans have to blame for Saturday’s loss.

This season was supposed to be the culmination of the careers of one of the mostly highly-touted recruiting classes in OSU history, one which was headlined by Pryor. But instead of leading the Buckeyes to any BCS championship games, Pryor led his teammates into the Fine Line Ink tattoo parlor, where they received impermissible benefits and started the biggest scandal in program history, which culminated with Pryor bolting for the NFL and Jim Tressel being forced to resign.

That’s not to say that suspended Buckeyes Mike Adams, Dan “Boom” Herron, DeVier Posey and Solomon Thomas aren’t also to blame for the current mess that OSU finds itself in, both on and off the field. But not only did they stick it out in Columbus instead of leaving to play professionally; to be honest, they just don’t have the same effect on the program that a quarterback does.

After taking over for Todd Boeckman in the fourth game of the 2008 season, Pryor was supposed to be a four-year starter at OSU. Bauserman was never supposed to play a meaningful snap for the Buckeyes, and Miller was never supposed to play one so early in his career.

But thanks to the current mess that Pryor helped create, OSU’s current quarterbacks find themselves in a playing situation being drastically mishandled by a head coach who was never supposed to have a job of this magnitude this early in his career.

To anyone who watched Saturday’s game, it was clear that the Buckeyes’ biggest issue was the inconsistent play and playing time of its quarterbacks. But before you blame the players and the coaches who have been thrust into roles that none of them are prepared for, take a look at who got them into this mess. He’s the one running his mouth in 140-characters-or-less.