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Ohio State fans: Bask in our greatness

 
Ohio State fans swarm the field in celebrating their team's 20-27 win in double overtime against Michigan at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2016. (Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press/TNS) 1193721
Ohio State fans swarm the field in celebrating their team's 20-27 win in double overtime against Michigan at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2016. (Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press/TNS) 1193721
Published Dec. 30, 2016

The first thing you need to know about Ohio State fans is that there are a LOT of us. An estimated 500,000 world-wide. If we were all in the same place at the same time, we'd be the largest city in 28 states.

Second, we love the College Football Playoff system. You may remember that when the Buckeyes won the national championship two years ago (their eighth) they were the No. 4 seed by the so-called experts. We knew better, and proved it (with a third-string freshman quarterback, no less), taking down top-seeded Alabama in the semifinal (bet that still stings, huh Tide?) before roasting the Oregon Ducks 42-20 in the final.

A couple of years ago, Ohio State fans finished third in some dude's list of the "10 Dumbest Fan Bases in America." We took great offense. We don't like to finish third in ANYTHING! He called us "uneducated, uncouth, often lacking in basic grammatical comprehension or the most rudimentary logical reasoning." Hey, buddy, we got a poop-load of couth!

Okay, sure, we don't know everything. We still don't know what the hell Jim Tressel was thinking. We don't know at what point Art Schlichter and Maurice Clarett wandered across the Michigan border long enough to get wacky.

But there's a lot of stuff we DO know:

• JT Barrett DEFINITELY made that first down against Michigan (deal with it!), and that was DEFINITELY pass interference in the end zone against Miami in the 2002 championship game. Haters gonna hate.

• Woody Hayes was a football god. He won five national championships and 13 Big Ten titles in his 28 seasons. We loved "3 yards and a cloud of dust." We know that three things can happen when you throw a football, and "two of them are bad." We know who Charlie Bauman is, and we're looking forward to settling that score vs. Clemson on New Year's Eve. We know how much Woody hated that "team up north," and how much he did for the Columbus community behind the scenes, and that his players would run through walls for the man.

• We really appreciate whatever the Gator Nation did to run Urban Meyer off (do you really think he's "spending more time" with his family? LOL.)

• You don't like it when we insisted on calling it THE Ohio State University. We don't care. Often imitated, never duplicated. It's a matter of respect. We've earned it. Just ask us.

• We have the Best Damn Band in the Land. Nobody loves sousaphone players like those chosen to dot the "I" in Script Ohio.

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• We still confuse the letters "M" and "F" sometimes on our T-shirts.

• We can rattle off the names of our Heisman Trophy winners like they were our own kids — Les, Vic, Hopalong, Archie (twice), Eddie and Troy.

• We can't watch an NFL game without spotting an ex-Buckeye. MVP and Rookie of the Year candidate Ezekiel Elliott and San Diego's Joey Bosa are this year's top additions. And ex-Buckeyes make great football pundits. You'll find them everywhere during college and pro football broadcasts.

• We adopted the 1965 rock hit Hang on Sloopy as our unofficial anthem after TBDBITL started playing it at football games that year.

• And long, LONG before there was "Tampa" followed by "Bay" there was "O-H" followed by "I-O". When the Buckeyes get to town, expect to hear it everywhere.

Bottom line: We're good. We know we're good. You know it, too, you just can't admit it. It's okay. We understand.

Oh. And go FSU!

Our honor defend

We will fight to the end

For O-H-I-O

Jack Sheppard (Class of '79) is the former Sports Editor of the Tampa Bay Times and covered the Buckeyes football team for the student newspaper (The Lantern) during Woody Hayes' final season in 1978.