One of the hardest sporting events to draw conclusions from is a college football spring game.
If a player breaks a 70-yard touchdown run or intercepts two passes, he’s pegged as a breakout star for the fall. Ohio State’s Spring Game was no different.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Kenny Guiton was the media darling of the postgame interviews following his 167-yard, two-touchdown performance.
In last year’s Spring Game, Terrelle Pryor’s strong performance riled up Buckeye fans, giving them dreams of the second coming of Troy Smith. Then the regular season commenced, and Pryor struggled through the year up until his MVP performance in the Rose Bowl.
In Saturday’s game, there were times when Terrelle Pryor looked like Randall Cunningham, and then there were times when he channeled his inner Akili Smith. He was told not to scramble. Thus, it’s impossible to make sense of his performance at all.
The defenses dominated the game for the most part. Ben Buchanan and Derek Erwin punted a combined 13 times. Tresselball in April anyone?
The Spring Game is a lot like the NFL Draft. The beginning is filled with excitement and anticipation. But in the end, the game never measures up to the hype, and the media coverage is overblown.
After the game, I hinted to junior wide receiver Dane Sanzenbacher that we in the media tend to put a lot of emphasis on the Spring Game, and he smiled in agreement.
“Yes, you guys certainly do,” Sanzenbacher said.
He added that the players are basically just trying to enjoy themselves during the game.
“For us, it’s more fun than anything,” Sanzenbacher said. “We’ve been working hard the past 14 days, too.”
Usually a good indicator of how the game will go is to take note of the weather forecast. Last year, 95,722 watched the Gray defeat the Scarlet 23-3 in a game that featured a handful of exciting plays and essentially perfect spring weather.
The best word to describe the weather on Saturday would be mediocre. It was going to rain at some point during the game, and it arrived at halftime. When the downpour was over, the stadium looked like a Jacksonville Jaguars home game as the announced crowd of 65,223 had mostly filed out.
The excitement didn’t arrive until late in the fourth quarter, when Guiton threw a beauty of a pass to junior receiver Taurian Washington to put the Gray up for good, 17-14.
All in all, the game was mundane, which describes plenty of OSU games in recent memory. But in reality, that’s probably how it should be. The only difference between a normal spring practice and the Spring Game for Tressel’s crew is that the Spring Game is played in the Horseshoe.
That’s the point. This game doesn’t mean anything. It’s an overhyped scrimmage that the media has fallen in love with, and expects too much of.
On the other hand, sports fans have spoken, and they want to see as much football as possible. Nothing says success like excess.
