By
Bryan Rosenbaum
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Ohio State is the biggest (physically as well as notorious) opponent to visit Arizona Stadium since UCLA visited in 1998. Is tomorrow's game the UA's biggest chance to make a national statement on the gridiron?
Perhaps, but what matters more is that Arizona fans, and the city of Tucson as a whole, will give the visiting Buckeyes and their fans the worst weekend they've ever experienced. To help you out, here's what Ohio State fans will brag about to you, thinking the West Coast fan wouldn't know better. And what follows is what you strike back with.
Myth: "Our band is 'The Best Damn Band in the Land,' and 'Script Ohio' and the dotting of the I is college football's greatest tradition."
Reality: "Big deal. Even I could get together an entire fraternity, hung-over from a Friday night, to spell 'Ohio'. Ohio is such a short state name it doesn't even merit an abbreviation. If you can spell out 'Arizona', with the tricky cursive Z and all, then I might be impressed. And aren't you guys Ohio State anyway?"
Myth: "Our team is so good, just look at our helmets. It's no coincidence our helmets are filled with Buckeye stickers, which players get for making big plays."
Reality: "Please. If he remembers to put on the right color uniform, your player gets a Buckeye. Your stickers aren't intimidating, they just give you the ugliest helmets in football."
Myth: "Our rivalry with Michigan is the greatest in college football. It's amazing how many Big Ten titles have come down to that final game of the season."
Reality: "I wouldn't brag about a 2-9-1 record you have against Michigan since John Cooper arrived in 1988, especially since you were favored to win in most of those games. True, it is a big rivalry and one of the best, but recently it has been all Michigan."
Myth: "In the last decade, Ohio State has been one of the nation's best programs and we have dominated the Big Ten."
Reality: "Not so fast, my friend! True, OSU has had a good run, but it can be deceiving when you have your schedule tailor-made to a good postseason bowl game. For some reason, Wisconsin, Penn State and even Northwestern, when they went to the Rose Bowl in 1995, somehow always seem to disappear on the conference schedule. Even so, you have one Rose Bowl appearance and countless Sugar and Citrus Bowls, all because you escaped one or two losses by not playing the top teams. And Ohio, Toledo, Miami of Ohio and Bowling Green don't exactly scream 'Intrastate rivalry'."
Myth: "There really is nobody like John Cooper."
Reality: "Well, I'll give you that one. We have ours, you have yours."
Myth: "Columbus is the greatest college town in the country."
Reality: "So great, in fact, that there's nothing to it worthy of any mention. Columbus must be a great place to live, especially when the only nickname you can get out of it is a nut that comes from the state tree. Have fun rowing down the Olentangy River and passing countless factories and silos when you get home."
Myth: "I came down for the good weather and to see the Bucks pound the Wildcats."
Reality: "You're getting neither this weekend. It's an inferno down here, even in September, and the walk back from the stadium alongside delirious students, carrying the goalposts down 4th Avenue, will at least be manure-free."
