The enemy of my enemy is tentatively my ally
Ben Taylor
I do not like the Ohio State Buckeyes. In fact, I might even hate them.
I’ve said it. It’s out. It’s off my chest. I can’t stand the Buckeyes of The Ohio State University. I love the Big Ten; I love Ohio; but the Scarlet and Gray are anathema to me. The idea of rooting for them is almost less appealing than having bamboo shoots shoved under my fingernails (though this may be a slight exaggeration). I consistently hope that they lose every conference game. The only time they are worth rooting for is when they are playing a team from the SEC, and even then, it’s often a toss-up. I don’t like the colors, I don’t like the players, I dislike the hype incessantly surrounding the team and I’m not too keen on most of the fans.
However, I am a big fan of The Penn State University Nittany Lions and, this week, those Nittany Lions took care of the Columbus’ Public Enemy Number One. If the enemy of my (most recent) enemy really is my friend, then I suppose it follows that I must, for a short amount of time at least, find myself aligned with Buckeye nation.
Trust me, this gives me no great degree of pleasure to admit. However, in the spirit of that almost-affectionate feeling the sharing of an enemy temporarily engenders, I thought it might be nice to list some of the things about the team-that-shall-not-be-named from that state up north (which currently ranks behind only OSU, the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Michigan State Spartans on my list of least-favorite Big Ten teams) that make it, for this week at least, the most terrible disgrace of a football team that has ever forced the earth to endure its existence.
1. Maize. This color, as I’m sure is commonly known, is basically just the color yellow ascribed a different moniker in an attempt to make it sound both antiquated and sophisticated all at the same time. Really, it’s just off-yellow. If you’re going to pick a color that’s not very good at being a color (which is what basically all “off” colors are), then why would you pick yellow? Old Gold is one thing, but mere yellow has almost no redeeming qualities. Why would you make one of your colors off-yellow and then name it after corn? Any answer to this is beyond the scope of my comprehension. The color is ridiculous.
2. Blue. The shade of blue that school wears is ugly. Penn State’s is beautiful. Why would they even try to compete in a competition they clearly can’t win? Picking blue as one of their main colors was exceedingly ridiculous.
3. Being nationally ranked. Perhaps this is just a little bit of my post-Sandusky bitterness speaking here coupled with the fact that Penn State has not won a national championship since the year I was born, but why would you even want to root for a team that could? (This may seem to contradict everything I said three weeks ago in my article about winning. But as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” so let’s just move on.)
4. Field goal kicking. Brendan Gibbons has missed three field goals all season. They all came last week against Penn State. Nice work Brendan Gibbons.
That awful team from that state up north couldn’t find a way to win last week against a team that just lost for the first time in its history to Indiana University, which is generally one of the worst football teams in the Big Ten. I’d say that such ineptitude merits more than the small amount of belittling I have been able to include here, even if it does mean finding myself aligned with the fans from Ohio State.
Here’s to many more losses by the team-that-shall-not-be-named from that state up north.