OSU wary of wounded Wolverines

COLUMBUS - Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel started his weekly press conference on Monday by calling the week of the Ohio State-Michigan game "the most exciting week of the year," then spent the next 40 minutes trying not to make it any more exciting.

If the slumbering Wolverines (3-8, 2-5 Big Ten) were going to find any extra incentive against No. 10 OSU (9-2, 6-1 Big Ten) on Saturday at Ohio Stadium, they weren't going to get it from anything the Buckeyes coach said.

He dismissed the fact his team is favored by nearly three touchdowns, saying, "They probably shouldn't have a (betting) line on this game."

He called Michigan's defensive line "perhaps the most talented defensive front we've faced," even though OSU has faced two of the five top-rated defenses in the country in Southern California and Penn State.

"Ohio State versus Michigan trumps everything," he said. "It trumps your record. It trumps whether it's dangerous or you don't have a chance or any of those kinds of things. It trumps all those things because it's the Ohio State-Michigan game."

After Tressel's press conference ended, OSU tight end Rory Nicol agreed there is something different about an Ohio State-Michigan game. At least when it comes to the rivalry producing a higher level of intensity.

"I never believed in it until I was a freshman and (Michigan safety) Ernest Shazor knocked me into the third week of my junior year," Nicol said. "Go back and look at the films. On our first kickoff return, he hit me harder than I've ever been hit in my life."

Ohio State certainly has found the week of the Michigan game more exciting since Tressel arrived.

On the day he was introduced as OSU's coach at halftime of a Buckeyes men's basketball game, Tressel uttered his famous line: "I can assure you that you will be proud of our young people in the classroom, in the community and, most especially, in 310 days in Ann Arbor, Mich., on the football field."

Better yet, from OSU fans' perspectives, he has backed it up by winning six of seven games against Michigan after his predecessor John Cooper had a 2-10-1 record in this rivalry.

Ohio State, with a 6-4 record, made good on Tressel's words when it went to Michigan and beat the heavily favored Wolverines 26-20 in the promised 310 days.

Since then, Ohio State has beaten Michigan by five points, 16 points, four points, three points and 11 points, with a 14-point loss in 2003 the only time the Wolverines have stopped a Tressel team.

"We've had good players. We've had good fortune. They've been battles. They could have turned on any one given play. Unfortunately, that has nothing to do with how it will go on Saturday," Tressel said, when asked for the reasons behind this success.