Part Two: Who's to Blame?

The Ohio State Buckeyes sweaked one into the win column against the Cincinnati Bearcats last Saturday. Who's fault is it? The players? The coaches? "Can't Be Myself"'s?

"I'm not exactly sure," Coach Jim Tressel said at the post-game press conference. "Cincinnati has a really great team. We just couldn't get away from injuries, mistakes and technical difficulties."

The most noticeable element missing from the game was Maurice Clarett.  Out of the game due to minor knee surgery earlier in the week, Maurice watched the Buckeyes struggle throughout the day and witnessed a few of the offensive linemen helped off the field

"We had several injuries and were plagued with way too many penalties," Tressel sighs. "Some of which were caused by us, the coaches. ...Twelve guys on the field, what the Christ."

It seems that the Buckeye's newest good luck charm, "Can't Be Myself", the hit song by Columbus' Watershed, kept the team together. "Yeah, I think that song kept us going," says linebacker Matt Wilhelm.  "It was great hearing it in the stadium when we played [during the home games], but since this was an away game, we all were given MP3 players so we could listen to it whenever we needed that extra kick in the ass."

Several players reported that their MP3 players were not working. "It would play fine for the first 30, 45 seconds then it would just skip," says cornerback Dustin Fox. "Who's inspired by that?"

"Nobody," says Ohio State's Athletic Director, Andy Geiger. "It's very disturbing when we have the talent, but our technology gums up the works." Plans to have the song piped directly into the helmets is now on hold.

For their next away game versus Northwestern, the Ohio State administration has gone right to the song's source. "We have arranged for Watershed to play a few songs for the team in Chicago," Geiger says. "They were going to be in Chicago. We were going to be in Chicago. We all just sort of looked at each other and said, 'What if...?'""

"It'll be great." Tressel said. "Watershed will rock and our boys will crush."

the saga continues...