Please patronize our advertisers to help
keep theOzone.net free for everyone.

The-Ozone.net Mall

Interesting, Fun companies with interesting, quality products - and the-Ozone gets a piece of the action!

Football
No. 2 Buckeyes Set to Face Four Top-15 Teams
By Brandon Castel

COLUMBUS — The 2010 Buckeye are near the top of the heap in college football to start the season, but staying there won’t be easy.

Coming off their win over Oregon in the 2010 Rose Bowl, Ohio State was ranked No. 2 in the preseason USA Today Coaches’ Poll, released Friday. The Buckeyes were the only team to pilfer first-place votes away from defending national champion Alabama, who took 55 of the 59 possible first-place votes.

That left four votes for Ohio State, who finished No. 5 in the final 2009 coaches poll by winning their final six games, including a 26-17 victory over the Pac-10 champion Ducks in Pasadena.

It marks the eighth straight season Jim Tressel’s Buckeyes have been ranked in the top 10 in one of the two major preseason polls (the AP Poll, which will be revealed on Aug. 21, being the other).

The coaches’ poll makes up one-third of the BCS equation, but the Buckeyes have their work cut out for them if they’re going to be playing in Glendale next January. Although they open up with unranked Marshall on Sept. 2, Ohio State’s schedule includes four of the top 14 teams in the preseason coaches’ poll, including trips to No. 10 Iowa and No. 12 Wisconsin.

The Buckeyes visit Madison in week seven and make a trip to Iowa City four weeks later, just before their season finale against archrival Michigan. Before any of that takes place, however, they welcome 13th-ranked Miami (Fla.) to Columbus in week two for a primetime nonconference showdown. They will also play No. 14 Penn State at Ohio Stadium on Nov. 13, one week before their trip to Iowa.

Tressel and the Buckeyes went 3-1 against top-25 teams last season, their only loss coming in the final moments against then No. 3 USC who, by the way, was not found in the 2010 coaches poll because their NCAA sanctions. The Bucks went on to knock off No. 11 Penn State and No. 10 Iowa on back-to-back weekends in November, with Devin Barclay kicking the game-winning field goal against the Hawkeyes in overtime.

Their win over No. 7 Oregon gave them their third win over a top 11 team in their last four games, and their fourth win over a team that finished ranked in the top-25. Although they were unranked when they played Ohio State, Wisconsin finished the year at No. 16.

The second-ranked Buckeyes are immediately followed by Florida at No. 3 and Texas—a team that beat the Buckeyes in the Fiesta Bowl two years ago before losing to Alabama in the BCS National Championship game last year—comes in as the No. 4 team in the preseason according to the coaches.

Boise State, who went 14-0 last season, found themselves at No. 5 in the coaches’ poll, with TCU, the team they beat in the Fiesta Bowl, two spots back. In between them was Virginia Tech at No. 6, with Oklahoma and future Big Ten member Nebraska holding down the eighth and ninth spots.

Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa Hawkeyes round out the top 10 in the coaches poll, with Oregon, Wisconsin, Miami (Fla.) and Penn State taking the next four spots.

Full USA Today Coaches Poll Rankings:

1. Alabama
 2. Ohio State
 3. Florida
 4. Texas
 5. Boise State
 6. Virginia Tech
 7. TCU
 8. Oklahoma
 9. Nebraska
 10. Iowa
 11. Oregon
 12. Wisconsin
 13. Miami
 14. Penn State
 15. Pitt
 16. LSU
 17. Georgia Tech
 18. North Carolina
 19. Arkansas
 20. Florida State
 21. Georgia
 22. Oregon State
 23. Auburn
 24. Utah
 24. West Virginia

Donate by Check :

Ozone Communications
1380 King Avenue
Columbus, Ohio

Help us bring you more Buckeye coverage. Donate to the-Ozone.

Click here to email this the-Ozone feature to a friend...or even a foe.

(c) 2010 The O-Zone, O-Zone Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, rebroadcast,rewritten, or redistributed.