Thursday morning, an 8:30 a.m. press conference included offensive coordinator Jim Bollman, offensive tackles Alex Boone and Kirk Barton, wide receivers Brian Hartline and Brian Robiskie and running back Beanie Wells. The Buckeyes started practice at 11 a.m. at the New Orleans Saints practice facility.

BCS Media Site: www.sugarbowlmedia.com  

An Interview With:
OHIO STATE
COACH JIM BOLLMAN
BEANIE WELLS
KIRK BARTON
BRIAN ROBISKIE
ALEX BOONE
BRIAN HARTLINE

TODD STEWART: Good morning
everyone, thanks for joining us. I'd like Jim and the
two players to give us a brief statement about what
it means to be part of a national championship and
then we'll take your questions.
Would you like to start with some opening
comments.

JIM BOLLMAN: Sure. It's an honor for us
to be here. Very thankful to be here. You know,
we've been fortunate to have prior experience in
similar roles, and it's the result of a very long, hard
journey to get here.
Never an easy thing to do for anyone, and
again, just thankful again to have the opportunity.

BEANIE WELLS: Like Coach said, it's an
honor to be here. It's a blessing for us just to get
another shot at a national championship. I look at
it as if we're an army going to battle for Ohio State
pride once again.

KIRK BARTON: You know, echoing their
thoughts. We're very excited to be down here.
We're hungry. And on behalf of the program, we're
just excited to be in New Orleans for the national
championship game.

TODD STEWART: At this time we'll take
questions.

Q. Kirk, how much different has this
been, preparation-wise, this year compared to
last year? Seems a lot of people are making a
lot out of the preparations you guys are coming
down with less time, you're practicing
differently. How much different is it? 

KIRK BARTON: To me it's been pretty
different. But everything's been positive.
Everything we've changed has been for the better.
We changed a couple of things we did
during practice. We came down later. I was in
favor of both of those, because I'm a captain, so I
have a little bit of input.
But I'm excited about the things we've
changed. And, you know, we're hungry this year.
We can't wait to get to practice today and start
working.

Q. Beanie, this LSU defense is
probably as fast and physical as you've seen.
Talk about the challenges of facing a defense
like LSU's? 

BEANIE WELLS: LSU is a great football
team and they have a great defense. I mean,
that's just something that we've been preparing for
since we found out we were going to be playing
LSU.
I mean, I think our guys are up to the
challenge. I don't think we're going to back down
at all. We're going to go out there and give it our
all.

Q. Beanie, and for all three of you, can
you talk about the Michigan game and kind of
how that was -- we heard you were vocal before
the game. You became not only a leader on the
field, but kind of in the dressing room, in the
locker room. Talk about how you want to strap
the team on you, I guess, whatever, and what
you guys saw and I guess the maturity you've
seen out of Beanie? 

BEANIE WELLS: It's just something that
January 3, 2008
visit our archives at asapsports.com
Ohio State - 01.03.08.doc 2
at that moment I felt that I needed to speak up,
because when you're playing a team like Michigan,
you don't want anything to go wrong. You want
everybody to just be zeroed in on that moment.
Just to give it our all at that time. 

Q. What made you feel that was the
time? You feel like you are maybe one of the
leaders now on the team? 

BEANIE WELLS: Yeah, a little bit I guess I
feel I'm a leader. We've got guys like Kurt Bartley
(phonetic) from the top all the way down, and I'm
just, I guess, a sidekick to him. 

Q. Kirk, this season was so much
different from last season for you guys in a lot
of ways because of the expectations and
because you guys were number one all year.
First of all, how did this season, the way it
played out, compare to last year? And also at
the end there, when things were out of your
hands, was that at all fun for you guys? Could
you appreciate the nature of the craziness that
went on to get you guys into this or was it just
nerve-racking? 

KIRK BARTON: I mean, it was our fault
that it was out of our hands. Obviously we slipped
up towards the end of the season. But it is
nerve-racking when you have to sit and watch a
couple of games and you know your life depends
on what they do. Because obviously this is where
we wanted to be at. And we lost control of that late
in the season. But thankfully a couple of balls
bounced our way and we were able to get back
here.
But compared to last season, you know it's
just kind of a different mentality. Because we
have -- you know, a lot of people doubted us going
into the season.
I mean, I was at the Big Ten conference
and nobody picked us higher than third. Some
picked us fourth. And they said watch out for a
couple other teams that could even vault in front of
us. It was kind of a feeling of we worked pretty
hard in the winter and worked very hard in the
summer. And we just wanted to see what we
could do. Thankfully we've been able to play well
and get back to this stage. 

Q. In some ways is this season maybe
a little more satisfying because you did prove
people wrong and there wasn't as much
expected of you? 

KIRK BARTON: We don't really care what
the pundits and critics pick us at, because as you
can see during the bowl season a lot of them have
been wrong.
But it was satisfying that internally we had
that belief, and we were able to believe in each
other. And our staff believed in us. And we were
able to get back to where we wanted to be at. 

Q. Kirk, this is actually a question for
Coach Bollman as well. How much do you
guys have to prove in terms of protection in
this game? Because Florida really got after
Troy Smith last year. Did you sort of take that
personal and considering that you had guys
like Highsmith and Pittman and Glenn Dorsey
that you'll have to keep away from Todd. Do
you feel like you have something to prove
coming into this game? 

KIRK BARTON: In every game you feel
like the most important part of the game is up front,
protection-wise and run blocking. But in passing
game, can't be efficient without good protection.
It's impossible. It's something that we focus on this
entire year, because we had a new quarterback.
And we had to make sure he was comfortable in
the pocket so he could develop himself.
Because if he was always hurt he would
never be able to really get a good grasp of what he
could do. So we focused on that the entire
season, the entire off season. So that was
something we definitely thought about. 

Q. Coach, can you elaborate? 

JIM BOLLMAN: Not reflecting on that
game last year as much as that and there's a lot of
reasons for those things happening. Aside from
those people you mentioned being great football
players. Some other things that we were trying to
accomplish or didn't accomplish at that moment.
But I agree with him that these guys do a really
good job pressuring, and very athletic, very tough,
very strong, very physical. And that's gotta be an
important part of our game this week. We've got to
do a good job. 

Q. Comparable to the Florida's
defensive line at all? 

JIM BOLLMAN: I wouldn't even go there. 

Q. Why not? 

JIM BOLLMAN: Comparable to Florida's
defensive line? We all know about Dorsey being
very, very tough inside. And I think he's probably
the best person that we've played against all
season as an inside player. Then these guys are
very, very quick and running really, really well on
the outside.
You know, comparable to Florida, I don't
know. We'll see. But they're very, very good.
They're very, very good.
They're much bigger. I'll say this, they're
much bigger. Period. 

Q. Jim, could you talk a little bit about
the maturity of Kirk? He kind of came in five
years ago as a quiet-spoken, shy kid. I don't
think he's leaving that way now. 

JIM BOLLMAN: (Chuckling) Kirk was a
tight end. Some people would debate that, I
guess. He was the guy that -- he was a very good
blocker, very tough guy who happened to play tight
end for his high school because that was the most
valuable place for him to play. And he's matured
every year, gotten much bigger and stronger every
year. And in my 30 years of doing this, I don't
know that I've ever had anybody that's worked
harder off the field to improve himself to get to
where he is. He's really done a great job. 

Q. Kirk and Beanie, now that you guys
are here, you see the LSU flags. You hear all
about LSU on the radio. Are you guys aware of
how much of a non-neutral site this will be? 

BEANIE WELLS: Of course we are. We
know that we're going to have to come ready,
because we are in their territory. So, I mean, that's
something that we've been emphasizing to our
team that we're not at a neutral site really. We're
basically -- it's basically a home game for them so
we know we have to be prepared for that. 

KIRK BARTON: I mean it was kind of like
in Rocky IV when he goes to Russia, gets off the
plane and the KGB is with him. My favorite scene
in that movie is when he's running down the road
and they get in the car and try to follow him and
then he goes off the road and they crash.
As far as running my laps around the city
tonight, I'll probably have some people chasing
after me with their flags and stuff. But that's kind of
what it's like. I mean -- I know it's funny I say that.
But you know where you stand when you're in
Louisiana, because they have a lot of -- they love
their Tigers down here. It's very evident. That's
just how it is. It would be the same way if they had
a bowl game in Columbus.
It's a lot of fun being in an environment like
this. 

Q. Coach Bollman and Kirk, how much
of a personal challenge is it to your group, and
again, Kirk, the offensive line group, to control
a guy like Glenn Dorsey, highly decorated? 

KIRK BARTON: I mean, he's obviously --
he might be one of the most decorated defensive
players in history. I've never seen a guy who
swept every award the way he did this year. It's
obviously going to be a great challenge for us.
He's a tremendous player. Their whole
front is tremendous. We've been studying them for
about five weeks now and they're definitely one of
the top units I've ever faced. And it's going to be a
big challenge. It's going to be a big key to the
game.
So, yeah, it's something we're working for
and we're studying every day. 

Q. Beanie, I know players don't like to
take one game and make it "the" game, but do
you feel like this is your opportunity to kind of
break out on the national stage against a
defense like LSU? 

BEANIE WELLS: You know, that's
something I'm not even focused on, breaking out
on a national stage, or whatever. I'm just really
worried about playing my role and helping this
team be successful.

Q. Coach, concerning Todd Boeckman.
How much has he progressed from the
beginning of the season until now and how
pleased are you with that progress? 

JIM BOLLMAN: I think Todd's progress
has been great and it's pretty much reflective of the
whole offense. You can always say that there's a
lot of people around him, a quarterback maybe
doesn't have to make a play, but I don't know that
you can really do that either, because sooner or
later in a football game a quarterback's gotta make
a play. He's gotta make a great throw. He's gotta
make a great decision, which is the number one
thing.
And I'm sure throughout the season he's
had a throw here or there that we'd like for him to
take back that he'd like to take back, but he's done
a really good job, I think, continually improving,
and done a good job in bowl preparation.
But, again, it's reflective of a lot of guys
around him, too. And I think that's been part of our
success on offense, where you never know exactly
who was going to be the guy to step up. Some
people were asking Beanie a couple of questions
about some of his big games later in the year.
Well, it's just a matter of using your
personnel a lot of times in how things evolve in a
football game. You never know what's going to
happen in a football game. You never know -- you
have some preparation ideas on match-ups, but
when you get into a game you never know exactly
what's going to happen, where an injury is going to
occur, where somebody might have a weakness.
And somebody remarked earlier about the
Michigan game. That was a game where no one
could catch the ball. So we're going to run the
football and Beanie stepped up. It was a great day
for him and us.

Q. Beanie and Kirk, you guys have
talked about how last year at the bowl site,
maybe you guys lost your edge a little bit down
there because you're too familiar. I know you
haven't been here a long time, but can you
sense a different attitude in the team down here
as opposed to a year ago? 

BEANIE WELLS: I could immediately, as
soon as we got here. Last year we were out there
a while and it was more like a vacation. This year
everybody's taking it more like a business trip, like
we're down here for a purpose. That's just to go
out there and give it our all in a football game.
Last year, I really didn't sense that at all
from our team. 

KIRK BARTON: Definitely changed it up.
And we're pretty excited, like I said, to get out to
practice. I mean, last year we were kind of
lackadaisical and this year there's more urgency.
Because when you have an opportunity like this,
you know, you can't just fill in all the dots like stay
at the same hotel, do the same routine and then
expect the same outcome.
I mean, that might have been the case last
year, but this year it's different. And, like I said,
we're just excited -- I've never been this excited to
be out to practice. I just want to go out and
practice today. That's all I think about now.
Because we only have so many opportunities and
we have to take advantage of them. 

Q. Kirk, you mentioned a minute ago
about playing a bowl game in Columbus.
That's one of the different type of proposals
out there for a playoff. How do you feel about
the idea of playing one, two, or three more
games? 

KIRK BARTON: I don't think that's ever
really going to happen, to be honest. But that's not
a decision I can make. Obviously I have five days
of eligibility left. So it's not going to affect me.
I think it would be harder because the bowl
system really -- it lifts mid-level programs up, in my
mind, because a lot of teams can say -- like 32
teams can say they won a bowl game this year.
They use that for recruiting. The next year they go
to a bigger bowl and they win that one.
It kind of adds to the parity. If you have a
playoff and eight teams in it and everyone else is
sitting home for Christmas, it's kind of like teams --
there won't be as much parity in college football. A
lot of teams get really better during December bowl
practice because you get a look at the young guys
and scrimmage more and do those types of things.
I think the BCS is better for the pairitive
college football, but that's just my opinion. 

Q. For all of you guys, you've done well
on offense this year in terms of starting the
game right, jumping out early. Beanie, you
were talking earlier about the home field
advantage here that LSU might have. Is it more
important in a game like this to jump out early
and maybe take their crowd out of it or just the
same importance as any game, you like to start
early?

BEANIE WELLS: You know, to me it's the
same with any game. You always want to start off
early and get things rolling. But if it doesn't start off
early, we just know that we're going to be in a
dogfight and we have to continue to play hard and
play hard football that we know how to play. 

JIM BOLLMAN: You gotta anticipate --
whenever you get in a BCS game, you gotta
anticipate you're playing a great football team.
And this is our fifth time doing this. And it doesn't
matter how exactly the first two or three snaps go.
I can remember our first national
championship game, we were coming off the
sideline and had a delay game penalty. So there's
going to be some nerves involved, people are
going to be anxious. It's important that you get in a
rhythm at some point in the game that you'd rather
not wait too long.

TODD STEWART: Thank you, gentlemen.
As you look to me left to right, we now
have wide receiver Brian Robiskie and Alex Boone
visit our archives at asapsports.com
Ohio State - 01.03.08.doc 5
and Brian Hartline.

BRIAN ROBISKIE: I think just first and
foremost for me to have an opportunity to play in
this game, I think two years in a row, it's been big.
I think that for me I was a guy that got a chance to
come down here in the summers with my dad
being that he's from this area and I think that for
me to come back and I have a lot of family still
down here, I think for me to get a chance to get to
the game and be here it's been a blessing for me.

ALEX BOONE: Basically playing in a
game this year, second time in a row it's obviously
a great feeling for us. Last year we got
embarrassed. And everybody remembers that and
that's all anyone wants to talk about. Now they're
saying we don't deserve to be here.
They can say what they want and we feel
a different way. But obviously it's a blessing for us
to be here. Not a lot of people even get the
chance to go one time. Now we're back here
again for a repeat. So this year we know what's at
stake. We're not taking anything for granted
anymore. We're a team and we're going to play
like a team and there's no superstars and that's
just the way it is.
And we're going to have some fun and
play some football and do our best.

BRIAN HARTLINE: I'd like to thank
everybody for being here I'd like to thank the BCS
committee for inviting us back. And we're ready to
realize that we are very blessed this year to come
back and redeem ourselves from last year. It was
definitely a disappointment last year.
Well-deserved, though, with the mind-set that we
had. But this year is a lot different than last year.
We're very anxious. The hotel is great that
we're staying at. And I'm really glad we get to
come down to New Orleans and enjoy this great
city, especially the past couple of years they've
had and bring some excitement back down here.
So it's an honor, thank you, and we're ready to
play.

TODD STEWART: Questions.
Q. Alex, this one is to you. We've
heard a lot about the Glenn Dorseys and all the
awards. If you could just talk about the LSU
defensive line collectively and what challenges
they pose for you? 

ALEX BOONE: I think the challenges they
pose for us is they're a very physical team. You
watch them and they're tough. They get to the
ball. They're great pass rushers. They can stop
the run. I think that what we'll have to do is we'll
have to come together and say this is going to be a
tough game.
Obviously we know that. We'll have to
play for 60 or more minutes, whatever it takes. But
they're a physical team. They're a very physical
defensive line, which I like. Some of the guys
might not. But we know that we're going to have to
work our asses off this whole game. We'll have to
do whatever it takes.

Q. All three guys, a year ago you guys
were huge favorites. Just talk about the
mind-set coming in here as underdogs. And,
Alex, you kind of said it, in talking to the folks
down here, they're really not giving Ohio State
much of a chance. It's the same stuff we've
said: the SEC speed, too physical, too fast.
Just your mind-set and what you may have
learned a year ago and now coming in here as
an underdog?

ALEX BOONE: I think what's better about
this year, last year everyone was like, man, you
guys are going to win. You guys got Troy, you got
Teddy, Gonzo, you have all these superstars, you
can't lose. This year it's like, who do you have?
You have Beanie and James, that's great, but who
else?
I think this year we're just a blue-collar
team. No one knows who we are. We're just
playing for ourselves and that's the mind-set right
now, we're going to play for ourselves and nobody
else and we deserve this. Last year people kept
saying, you're going to win, you're going to win.
You start to think, we're going to win. Maybe we
don't have to practice as hard as we are.
This year it's opposite. You're too slow,
you're not going to make it, you don't hit hard
enough. We've been taking practices up another
level and running and hitting as hard as we can
and I think it's going to be different.

BRIAN HARTLINE: I think it's big because
we've been a huge away team this year. We went
into the handful of hostile environments, we've
played a lot better on the road than at home. This
is a perfect situation for us to have our backs
against the wall. And no way we're going to win a
hostile environment, away crowd. And I think
that's going to be the biggest thing for us. It's
going to be like second to us hopefully for us this
year.
Again, maybe one of those tough notice
kind of teams that might take it on the chin every
once in a while, but for us to go away we play
really well away, and everyone has been saying
that's it's kind of a home game for them, away for
us. Sounds good to me, kind of like that hostile
environment. There's really no room for error, and
it's a good way to treat it. 

Q. Following up on the speed question,
you can go down the line on this, Brian, Alex
and Brian. Right now Ohio State is 0-8 in the
SEC in bowl games. I guess everybody is
using that to talk about last year's failure
against Florida. Have you talked about that
you've never beaten the SEC in a bowl game?

BRIAN ROBISKIE: That's not something
that we've talked about. I think this team is
completely different than any of those other eight
teams. I think that every year no matter what
game that is being played, I mean, that individual
team going against that SEC team or whatever it
may be. And I think that those past games,
whatever the record may be, if it was 0-8, 8-0, has
no influence on this season and this game that's
going to be played. We know that and we know
that what happens on Monday is going to be a
result of what we've done this past year and what
we've been doing over the course of the past
month and for the next couple of days.

BRIAN HARTLINE: Sounds good, Brian
(smiling). 

Q. Alex and Brian? 

ALEX BOONE: I think that obviously the
record that we have against SEC teams are not --
we're not good at all. But obviously it just comes
down on the SEC teams played harder than we did
and that's how it went. I've only played against
them one time, so I can't vouch for the other
games.
But, I mean, that's it, plain and simple.
They played better than we did.

BRIAN HARTLINE: Ditto.

ALEX BOONE: Yeah (laughter).

Q. Alex and Brian, all three of you guys
came in in the class of 2005, how aware are you
that this class has been kind of the core of this
team and they're a little bit representative, like
you said, Alex, blue-collar, wasn't really highly
regarded recruiting class, whatever that means.
Do you all talk about that or are you all a
tight-knit group?

BRIAN HARTLINE: I take notice of it.
Your whole team, we understand that. But there's
a point where you take pride in your own class. It's
kind of just like high school how the fourth graders
are better than the fifth graders kind of thing.
So it's definitely -- I've taken notice of it.
I'm not sure about the other guys. But I'm proud of
who I'm with. I was redshirted like them, so
sometimes you forget about who is in what class,
but it's all the '05 class. And overall it is a great
class. Hopefully we get a handful of guys that can
leave and the NFL will come back and compete
again next year, heading into the drafts, I think it
will be an outstanding class overall.
So it's real exciting. I'm proud of
everybody. I'm proud of who I came in with, but
personally I have taken notice of it and it's been a
lot of fun.

ALEX BOONE: Absolutely. I've taken
notice. Obviously this team -- this is basically our
class. This team we've kind of taken over and we
took over a lot last year.
But like Brian said, I'm very proud of our
class we came in with. I love these guys to death
and I'd do anything for one of them. They're like
my brothers.

Q. Brian, you talked about this earlier
with hostile environment. You guys were at
Michigan, at Penn State, 108-, 110,000 people.
How did the team deal with those hostile
environments? And I don't think it will help
you in this situation where you're talking about
80,000, but still a hostile environment?

BRIAN HARTLINE: I think it's definitely
going to help. Probably 80-, 90,000, close to that,
LSU fans is probably comparative to 110,000 Penn
State fans, from what I've understood. It will
definitely help us. I know at Purdue, at Penn
State, at Michigan, we came out, strike, scored on
the first drive, did the whole thing. We came out
firing. We didn't shy away from the crowd or
playing at night, that kind of thing, that whole
situation. So hopefully it will be pretty similar. The
weight of the BCS championship will just put a little
more fire into it. Overall, I don't expect us shying
away from any kind of feeling of the masses of
people. And all the LSU Tiger fans.
We've been warned about how LSU, the
fans have latched onto that kind of team, and
between the hurricane and just the whole situation
of being down in New Orleans and Louisiana, that
LSU fans have kind of latched onto it with the New
Orleans Saints and Tigers and take it very
personal. So I'm sure they're heckuva fans within
that Superdome, and I don't expect anything less.

Q. Take a "us against the world" type
of mentality?

BRIAN HARTLINE: Yeah, I think so.
Because that just makes your team come together
even more. If you don't, that's when you kind of
get embarrassed, to have that situation to require
our team to come together to perform has nothing
but kind of pushed us in the right direction for the
game in general, anyway. So I think if anything
that's just going to help us coming in. Think you're
going to dominate a game that you might -- like
last year, you might not even do. Maybe even
harder.
I think the situation at hand is even going
to help us. 

Q. Brian, you talked about your
Louisiana ties, I guess. Talk about your history
with your father playing for LSU and maybe
your affiliation with the tigers as a young boy if
you had any, were you recruited, did you make
any campus visits, go to any games, et cetera?

BRIAN ROBISKIE: It was never me going
as far as coming to any games. I never got a
chance to do that. Being recruited, that was a
school I talked to very briefly. It was nothing very
serious as to me coming down to visit or anything
like that. I think that we were just talking about mai
tais. Coming down here was just something I did
like most kids, I just came in the summers, coming
when I had time off. Coming to visit. A lot of my
family doing a lot of the same things, fishing and
hanging out with them and doing things like that,
that was the extent of it.

Q. For all of you, a lot is made of the
layoff. Was last year between the Michigan
game and this game, first of all, is it a big deal
as everybody makes it and if it is did you
change anything to keep up your energy, keep
up your motivation, keep your speed, that sort
of thing?

BRIAN ROBISKIE: I think the biggest
thing we did this year, obviously we didn't come to
New Orleans as early as we might have been in
Phoenix last year. I think that with us this year,
with us coming out here, now it's more like a game
week. I think we've taken that approach that we've
got five days until game day and that's how we're
going to look at it.
I think just going back to our practices, I
mean, like Alex was saying earlier, just the
intensity of all of our practices has increased that
much more, just because of all the guys that were
there last year and were part of that game. I think
for all of us to have that experience and to come
back this year and to have this opportunity, again, I
think nobody wants to take it for granted and
everybody is working that much harder.

BRIAN HARTLINE: Personally, it's hard to
say sometimes, because it would be kind of nice to
do a little test see if there's any way that we have
this layoff and then somehow turn around and then
the following year not have the layoff and just kind
of compare. But it's kind of hard to do with the
inconsistency of college football and teams and
things like that.
But in general, it's gotta be difficult. I
mean, think about rusty and how different teams
are -- although, a little more of extended period of
time -- the first couple of games of the season than
they are Game 7 through 10 or 12.
So personally I think there is a little bit of a
change, I think coming out you could be rusty, but
again I think it's on a team-to-team basis and how
they are prepared throughout the bowl week.
But, again, I think it's just kind of hit or
miss year in, year out. Sometimes there is an
effect, just with personalities of the team going into
a 50-day layoff as compared to a 25- or 30-day
layoff. But at times I think it does but I think it's
been a lot different this year than it was last year
you see the intensity and the preparation we've
had this year compared to last year's team.

Q. Robiskie and Alex, as players,
you're in this, can you guys appreciate the
strangeness of this season, not just for Ohio
State, but for everybody? Do you sit back
week-to-week and go, oh, man, this team lost,
and then at the end of the season when it really
affected you, could you enjoy sitting back
watching these games that affected you so
much?

ALEX BOONE: I don't think week-to-week
you really think about it, but coming into the
season you think about all the teams that went
down and think, wow, this is a crazy season.
Going into the last week I was kind of like
maybe something crazy could happen this week.
And both teams, number one and number two,
went down. You think about the season. You're
right: it's been crazy. It's been off the wall and a
lot of people were like, maybe this wasn't a good
year for anybody. But that's football. Anything can
happen any day. You gotta understand that when
you play this game. You can't ever take anything
for granted. So it's a great game.

BRIAN ROBISKIE: I think just looking at
from the start of the season to the last week, you
had upsets every week. And it caused a lot of the
rankings and the polls to -- they were continuously
changing. Before the Illinois game, I think that
maybe that we didn't obviously want to be one of
those teams, but that was something we were able
to control and we didn't. And I think that obviously
after the Michigan game, you know, we were one
of those teams that was sitting back and we were
watching the polls continue to change and
fortunately we're having this opportunity again.

Q. Alex, I read a quote from Beanie
after the first game of the year where he said, I
feel like trash, because he didn't feel like he
played well in his first start when he got the
chance to be the guy, and obviously he's taken
off in the last Michigan game, how he played so
well. Just as the guy who blocks for him, how
far as he progressed during the year and
become the back?

ALEX BOONE: Well, the one thing I've
noticed about Beanie, whenever you try to talk to
him in a game he'll never respond, ever. And I
always thought it was because he was mad at me
about something, but I realized he's so focused he
doesn't notice me trying to ask him something. I
think that this year that's what he's done. He's just
more focused on the game. He sees the field
better. He's got a clearer mind.
He's come a long way from last year and
last year was a great season for him. And this
year he's had an even better season. Obviously
the sky's the limit for him. He could even go up. I
think this year he's more focused and seeing the
field a lot better.

Q. All three of you, you took this DVD
home over break. How much did you guys
watch that over break and what was each of
your favorite parts of it?

ALEX BOONE: I'm going to say this, okay,
so I watched the DVD with my grandma, right?
She's a crazy lady. But I love her to death. And
we watched it together because she said she
wanted to watch it. So we're watching it and she
was going off at the TV. I mean, 10 minutes of
straight bashing us. I mean, someone is going to
get pissed off, right? And I didn't really take it to
heart. My grandma is folding clothes and going
nuts. I gotta remind her she's a little older, calm
down.
Obviously you watch films like that and you
realize just how much everybody hates you. But at
the end, who cares? Who cares what anybody
thinks but us. This is our team. None of those
people are going to play come Monday night. So
anything they say, do, I mean, it doesn't matter.
This is our team and we're going to play. I think it
was a great thing to watch because it made us
more humble. Right before we went home for
Christmas break, everyone was feeling good. I
think everyone was getting ready to go home and
make some bad decisions with eating and stuff like
that.
So it made us more humbled, I think.

BRIAN HARTLINE: The only thing that it
made me think was sitting there looking at it,
listening to it, I'm thinking, okay, so if we win, how
many of these guys are going to actually accept it
and actually apologize or admit they were wrong?
And I would say probably the majority of them
never would. So I kind of laughed at it wanted to
shrug it off.
But if we lose, there's going to be a lot of
big-headed people out there that think they're
geniuses or there's going to be a lot of liars. So I
couldn't really decide which one to go with. So I
just kind of hope -- that's what catches my mind,
how everyone acknowledges how much of a crazy
season it's been. But they can't acknowledge that
we have a chance to win. I don't understand it.
Because Pitt can beat West Virginia and West
Virginia can destroy Oklahoma, but we can't have
a chance to beat LSU.
So, again, we just want to play the game.
We're anxious, we're here, but overall we can't
really listen to the outside things. We just took
care of within and that's kind of the mentality we've
had anyways.

BRIAN ROBISKIE: I think the biggest
thing for me, what I got from the video, I think just
watching it, I think our coaches obviously said
that -- I mean, this is what people are saying about
you. This is what people have to say. I mean, we
didn't need a video. I think any of us could turn on
the TV every day and they're saying something.
All they did was take it, put it into a little 10-,
15-minute video.
But I think the biggest thing we have to do,
and we all realize it, is that while we want to get
caught up in proving a lot of these people wrong,
we can't do that.
We know that all we have to do is do what
we've been practicing this past month, continue to
focus on what we've been focusing on and try to
reach this goal. And that's it.

Q. Guys, it's going to be the hat versus
the vest on the coaching sidelines there. Could
you talk about the vest and what does he bring
to the table and why do you guys admire him
as a coach?

ALEX BOONE: Class. He brings class to
the table. Obviously that's one of the things he
stresses most on us that we should always play
with class and obviously he's a genius. He's
smart. He knows a lot about football. I think just
by watching him coach you can see what kind of a
guy he is. He gets you fired up in a different sort of
way. He's not off the wall, bonkers, you really don't
even know if he's happy, sad, anything.
But, I mean, like I said, though, he brings a
lot of class to the table, and that's what he teaches
us.

BRIAN ROBISKIE: I can't talk about
Coach Miles too much. I've had a chance to play
for him. He has to be a pretty good coach to have
his team in that game. But just talking about
Coach Tressel, I think the person that you see kind
of in the media and doing all the interviews, he's
the same with us. He's not like he's a coach that
goes and acts one way with a certain crowd and
comes back and acts completely different with us.
I think the kind of guy he is is kind of very
representative of the team and how we represent
ourselves.

BRIAN HARTLINE: Really, with Coach
Tressel, I think it's one guy that I'm actually proud
to say I can play for. There's a handful, and not
just because he put together this staff. When they
say who is really influential in your life, immediately
comes Coach Tressel and his staff. So he's
impacted who I am. He's impacted so many
people across the country.
To really be able to -- if someone asks you
who you are, to be able to look at them and sit with
them and say, I'm an Ohio State football player,
and to have it really totally describe you, it's really
in the fall of Coach Tressel, between academics,
class, kind of your personality, how well-rounded
you are, and then the football dedication is, again,
all due to Coach Tressel.
And maybe a decade ago, half decade
ago, maybe you couldn't say that, maybe mid-'90s
or so. But now with Ohio State football, you can
describe yourself as Ohio State football player and
you're a well-rounded person. And that truly is
Coach Tressel's doing.

Q. Can you talk about how many family
members in the Robiskie clan will be here that
your dad may lead the cheers in the section up
there or whatever?

BRIAN ROBISKIE: I know there's going to
be a lot of people that didn't get tickets. They're
going to be watching. There's more people that
aren't going to have them than people I could get
tickets for. But for everybody that's going to be at
the game they're going to have the jerseys and
there should be a good little section of them. But I
think for everybody that didn't make it, they'll have
their jerseys in front of the TV.

Q. You'll feel that. Know that they're
there?

BRIAN ROBISKIE: I'll know that they're
there. I know my biggest supporter, my
grandfather, he passed recently. And I think that
just throughout this whole season, like I said, he
was one of my biggest supporters coming in. And I
think that I just kept telling him that I wanted to
have an opportunity to come out here and play
being that he was sick and this would be an easier
trip for him. And I think that with him passing and
not being able to make it, I think that the rest of my
family are coming. They'll be here to support me.
And I think I'm grateful for that. 

TODD STEWART: Thank you, gentlemen.
FastScripts by ASAP Sports