NEW ORLEANS — Be prepared, because you are about to be inundated with negative publicity surrounding your Ohio State Buckeyes.

Almost a week’s worth, if you will.

I am speaking of ESPN and the national media, of course, which has pummeled the Buckeyes for an entire calendar year.

You will read and hear how the Buckeyes are too slow to compete with a speedy team like LSU. You will read and how the Big Ten’s champion is no match for the champion of the SEC, which could compete with the New England Patriots on a good day.

You will be bombarded with images from last season’s championship game debacle — the 41-14 embarrassment delivered by another SEC team, the Florida Gators.

I mean, by gosh, if they can’t beat a three-loss Illinois team — a team that lost by 32 points to USC in the Rose Bowl — at home, then how can they possibly beat the SEC’s best?

I also have heard all the ESPN types project which team will be the pre-season No. 1 team for 2008 and not one has mentioned the Buckeyes, even though they will lose only two starters on offense and one on defense.

And you will hear those from two-loss Georgia and two-loss USC saying they should be voted national champion in the AP poll should the Buckeyes some how, some way find a way to defeat LSU.

By the time kickoff for the BCS Championship Game rolls around on Monday night, you would never think the Buckeyes would stand a chance to stay on the same field with the vaunted Tigers.

“We understand that people are going to question about last year and people are really going to question I think how legit we are as a team going into this game,” linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “That’s something that’s just a real issue and a real fact. We can’t change that, we just have to try to prepare the best we can and play the best we can.”

They can’t change it for now, other than the way they prepare for the game. As Ohio State fans, the best thing to do now is take it all in, seethe quietly for a week and then hopefully, get the last word by the time the clock strikes midnight on Monday.

This is just how the system works.

The collective media is made of a short attention span and shorter memories. Its last image of the Buckeyes is not of their whipping of Penn State or Michigan on the road. It is of Illinois playing keep-away from them and of the Gators running by them January 8.

Those in Ohio know different. We have seen this Ohio State team dominate every opponent, except the Illini. We have noticed what is likely the fastest defense ever to wear the scarlet and gray. We have been impressed with a team that seems to possess a killer instinct. We have seen them win with a running game one week and a passing game the next. Sure, the schedule was weak, simply because the Big Ten is down, and we know that. And we happened to schedule our neighbors Youngstown State, Kent State and Akron, for some reason.

So to recap: We root for a football team as slow as Forrest Gump‘s mind. Our schedule stunk like a dead walleye lying on the beach during a 90-degree day.

Accept this, too: Ohio State is the Rodney Dangerfield of the college football world.

Soak it all in and grit your teeth with a gleam in your eye.

And take solace in the fact that there is a very good chance that all of it will change come next Monday night.

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