Junior quarterback Steve Bellisari shakes off the criticism that has been coming his way this past week as he prepares for the Michigan State game on Saturday.Criticism is something to which Bellisari has become accustomed. He holds an 11-7 record since becoming the starter in the third game of last year. The 1999 team, once 6-3, struggled to a 6-6 record and Bellisari took the heat.Eight games into the 2000 season, OSU is 6-2, but faces the same three teams that beat them last year to finish their season and once again Bellisari’s play is a hot topic around town.”It’s part of football,” said the second-year quarterback. “I don’t think it bothers me a bit. I’ve watched every quarterback go through it.”You look at any level of competition. Look at pitchers. One week they win the game, they’re great. They blow a save and everyone criticizes them like, ‘Why aren’t you doing this? Why aren’t you doing that?’ That’s part of athletics. That’s something I just have to deal with.”Last week against Purdue, the lefty completed 17 of 29 passes for 205 yards and threw one interception. Not bad numbers for Bellisari, but it was his inability to make big plays and run the offense when it counted that hurt the Bucks.Trailing 24-20, with less than five minutes left in the game, OSU faced a third and 14. Bellisari overthrew a wide-open Reggie Germany that would have kept the chains moving. The route called is, according to OSU offensive coordinator Chuck Stobart, the bread and butter of the passing game.”The best thing we do throwing the ball is faking and throwing the ball that he over threw when we needed that,” he said.Head football coach John Cooper remembers the play as well.”On that play, he wasn’t very good…,” Cooper said. “That’s probably the best thing he does, is throw back like that on that particular pass. He hit that pass several times in the game.”Either way you cut it, Bellisari could not hit that pass when he needed to. A completion would have given OSU a chance to win the game. Now, on Saturday, Michigan State – the No. 1 defense in the Big Ten – comes to Columbus looking to further enhance OSU’s possibility of switching quarterbacks.In Bellisari’s shadow are red-shirt freshmen Scott McMullen and Craig Krenzel. Both were recruited as true passing quarterbacks. Cooper said he would consider one of the backups if he felt it would give OSU an advantage.”I’d consider that,” he said. “Absolutely. If I thought that would help us win the game I would do it in a minute.”Stobart said the coaches do not know if the freshmen are ready for the big game feeling because they have not played enough.”I think both those guys are really capable quarterbacks,” Stobart said. “I wish I could find out which one is really better of the two…. The only way to find out really is to put them under fire in a game.”If we all felt that this is (the problem on offense) Steve Bellisari, then we would have a real problem, but until you decipher that the problem lays on his shoulders, then I don’t know if anybody else would do any better.”On the year, McMullen is 5 of 11 for 88 yards and one touchdown. Krenzel is 3 of 6 for 41 yards. Cooper said the blame falls on the man under center because that is the nature of the position.”The quarterback gets too much credit when you win and gets blamed too much when you lose a ball game,” he said. “It’s a team game. The quarterback is going to play about as well as his supporting cast will allow him to play.”Senior wide receiver Chad Cacchio echoed his coach’s comments.”I think that (the public perception that Bellisari is the problem with the offense) is definitely unfair,” he said. “It certainly isn’t Steve’s fault. There’s 11 guys out there. Steve’s back there, and obviously he’s got the ball in his hands, but if the receivers don’t run the right route, make the wrong read, or we can’t beat coverage, then we’re leaving him out to dry.””It’s the same thing with the offensive line and backs in a passing situation. It’s kind of hard to throw when you are on your back half of the game. So I think everybody has made mistakes. Unfortunately, when you are the quarterback, you’re the one that gets looked at.”After this weekend’s game, Bellisari may be getting looked at a little bit more. The Spartans, like many teams before them, are going to play press coverage and jam eight and nine men in the box, almost daring the Bucks to win the game by throwing the ball.Stobart is looking for his quarterback to step up and be the man that gets the Bucks out of tough situations and keeps the chains moving when the offense gets in a jam.”He (Bellisari) has to bail you out of some bad plays and make some good plays,” Stobart said. “Let me say this, as we look at a lot of film, that does not happen a whole bunch. We would like for it to happen once or twice in a ball game to change things around.”