With the future scheduling of the annual Ohio State – Michigan game currently in limbo, the majority of Buckeye faithful and college football fans alike are fully engrossed in the matter.

However, Buckeye coach Jim Tressel insisted Monday that his coaches and players have their sights set solely on one thing: Thursday night’s season opener against Marshall.

“You talk to our 25 seniors and they don’t really have much opinion on it at all,” Tressel said at his weekly press conference luncheon. “We’re busy preparing for Thursday. Most of the people that are talking about it aren’t busy preparing for Thursday.

“I don’t think it has been a distraction at all.”

While the rest of Buckeye nation continues to weigh in on the issue, the OSU football team is making its final preparations for a Marshall team that Tressel and his players admit they don’t know much about due in part to an off-season coaching change.

“We don’t know exactly what they are going to do,” Tressel said. “Outside of knowing some generalities, we have come to the conclusion that we have to focus on us.”

The majority of the hype surrounding this year’s squad is on the offensive side of the ball, with the imminent success of the Buckeyes sitting squarely on the shoulders of quarterback Terrelle Pryor.

Tressel said Pryor has been making progress.

“I think he has demonstrated throughout with what he has said and how he has prepared that there is clearly progress,” Tressel said. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be little blips in the radar because there always are, but I think the recovery from those blips…will be much more rapid due to that growth.”

And despite showcasing an uncharacteristic, high-flying offense in the Rose Bowl against Oregon, senior captain Dane Sanzenbacher admitted the Buckeyes have not done away with the traditional smash-mouth football OSU fans are accustomed to.

“We’re going to try to run the ball obviously, I mean its Ohio State football, it hasn’t changed,” he said. “We want to be a balanced team and I think we have all the weapons to do that. As we saw last year, whatever gets going is what we’re going to stick with.”

On the other side of the ball, the silver bullet defense appears well positioned to continue last year’s success, when OSU ranked fifth in the NCAA in total defense. The Buckeyes return seven senior starters from last year’s squad.

Still, success on the defensive end hinges on the unit’s health.

The secondary was a bit banged up during the preseason, but Tressel said that both safety Orhian Johnson and cornerback Devon Torrence participated in the entire practice on Sunday and cornerback Chimdi Chekwa would be reevaluated after taking part in half of the drills.

Tressel also said starting defensive end Nate Williams will not go on Thursday but expects to be ready for Miami on Sept. 11.

A few question marks still remain on special teams, specifically the return game, although Tressel did suggest that running backs Jordan Hall and Jaamal Berry and receiver Corey Brown could see time returning kicks.

Now just days away from the season kick-off, Tressel believes it is time for his players to get out and put their months of hard work to the test.

“We’ve worked on a lot of things that we think fit our personnel,” he said. “Now is the time to go out and see if that’s true and to see how we’ve developed.”