I can understand why there are OSU haters in Ann Arbor.  Aside from losing practically every game to OSU since John Cooper left, it is only natural for those in blue and yellow to hate the scarlet and gray.  We’re the United States, and they are the USSR, complete with cold weather, ugly girls, and communism (at least as far as the faculty goes).

But around the nation, it gets a bit harder to understand.  Certainly, if OSU has just beaten your team, it makes sense to hate them.  Not too many Washington Husky fans out there wishing the Buckeyes well.  And I can also understand fans of other teams living here in Columbus getting sick of all the coverage.  But teams that haven’t played OSU in years still hate OSU.

Some have likened it to a phenomenon much like the New York Yankees or the Dallas Cowboys.  They have been so good for so long that admiration has turned to envy and hatred. 

I’m not sure that I have an answer for all this.  If I did, I’m not sure I would write it.  Jim Tressel makes good use of it.  The Columbus Dispatch reported last week that Tressel compiled a DVD full of anti-osu commentary from college football analysts across the nation this year, and he gave a copy of that DVD to each of his players to take home and watch over Christmas Break.  It’s the kind of thing that makes it less likely for the players to want to take their foot off the gas pedal if the game starts going their way, and more likely to work harder to make sure that the game goes their way.  Malcolm Jenkins, one of OSU’s starting CB has noted an “us against the world” mentality on the team and it’s not hard to see Jim Tressel’s hand stirring this particular pot.

So the message for the OSU haters out there is simple:  You might be better off investing your energetic anti-OSU vitriol elsewhere, but OSU might suffer if you do.

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