OSU column: Tressel not ready to call big win a blowout

EVANSTON, Ill. - Ohio State coach Jim Tressel is a numbers guy. If there is a trend about Ohio State's football team, he has it charted.

Ask how many times Ohio State ran an off-tackle play and he can tell you the answer. And not just for this year. He can quote you the number for 2002 if for some reason you'd want to know it.

So, it was no surprise Tressel had a few numbers to talk about after Ohio State rolled over Northwestern 45-10 on Saturday.

He talked about how junior tailback Chris Wells now has 2,999 rushing yards in his career at Ohio State.

And he told about how he asked Wells earlier in the week if he knew the significance of the number 467.

Wells didn't, so Tressel informed him that was the number of yards he ran for in three games last November. The implication was clear - he wanted the same kind of production from Wells this November.

Wells rushed for 140 yards against Northwestern, so he needs to average 163.5 yards against Illinois and Michigan to reach that goal

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald tried the numbers as a motivational approach earlier in the week. But it didn't do his team any good on Saturday.

In the previous three seasons, Ohio State had beaten Northwestern 58-7, 54-10 and 48-7.

One of the themes of the week at Northwestern was that the Wildcats seniors didn't want to go out with another blowout loss against Ohio State.

After they did just that, Tressel diplomatically insisted it wasn't a blowout.

"That wasn't a blowout game. It was a tough, fighting football game and we got a couple touchdowns in the last few minutes. I wouldn't call it a blowout win. It was a good fight and a couple touchdowns made it a decisive win," he said.

And, when senior co-captain Malcolm Jenkins was asked if Ohio State was a team that needed a blowout after all its offensive struggles this season, he basically called for a fair catch. He was willing to receive the question, but he declined to run with it.

"We wanted to continue to get better. We definitely didn't want to come in here and be tight and have it be a close game," Jenkins said.

It wasn't close. But it was a blowout. And it was a blowout Ohio State probably needed after not scoring an offensive touchdown in a disappointing 13-6 loss to Penn State the last time it was on the field.

This wasn't a superficial blowout, like the 45-7 win three weeks ago at Michigan State, in which the defense scored two of the touchdowns.

This was Ohio State outscoring Northwestern 38-3 over the last 49 minutes of the game. This was Ohio State freshman quarterback Terrelle Pryor looking like a threat as a passer as well as a runner. This was Ohio State's defense controlling Northwestern's offense, though to be fair, that offense was without its starting quarterback and starting tailback.

Linebacker James Laurinaitis talked about the significance of playing well after the Penn State loss.

"It just feels good to go out and play football," he said. "When you have a game that you lose and a whole other week to think about it with the bye week, you're just itching to go out there and play. You're trying to get that taste out of your mouth."

There was one number Tressel didn't mention after Saturday's game, though it does have some significance for him.

It was his 81st at Ohio State, tying him with Earle Bruce for third on the school's all-time list behind Woody Hayes and John Cooper.