Headed for a big fall - again

Sporting News, The, Nov 4, 1996 by Joe Posnanski

"I'll tell you one thing, though," he says. "It's in our place. We expect to win in our place."

This is what Columbus wants to hear, and you get the sense that slowly Cooper and Columbus have come to an understanding.

He adapts. He will try something, and if it works, he tries it again. He has opened practice, and he has closed it. He has let his players speak to the press before big games, and he has shielded them before others. He has said people should not put undue weight on the Michigan game--"I think sometimes people ignore that we have won a lot of football games around here"--and he has admitted nothing else matters.

And, yes, he has won big games, but he keeps losing the big game. It was the fault of Earle Bruce before him and the biggest criticism of Woody Hayes, who lost more national championships than he won. It has become an Ohio State tradition, and fans complains about it, scream about it, write letters about it, but it remains.

"Nobody has had higher expectations than John Cooper," Cooper says. "It has taken longer than expected to reach that objective. I know that. All of our coaches know that. It has taken us longer than we thought to win a championship. It has taken us longer to get to the Rose Bowl.

"We have come close. In my opinion, we've had as good a football team as anybody two of the last three years. We've got to finish it off. We've put ourselves in position again. We've got to finish it off."

Truth is, nobody knows if John Cooper has the stuff to finish it off. He recruits. He wins games. "They will appreciate him when he's gone," Bruce says knowingly.

But there is something missing, something tough to capture. Breaking through is hard to do, but John Cooper believes it will happen. He builds hopes again, hopes that will crash down on him again, an annual event in Columbus, Ohio. His team is unbeaten, untied and back on the fast track to Pasadena. Michigan waits. The Rose Bowl waits. This road is familiar. And it always has that Hollywood-sad ending.

"Humility here is one week away," Cooper says. "That's why you hope you can keep winning. You have to let this dream keep going. I don't want to wake up."

Cooper laughs at the idea. He knows there are plenty of people who don't want him to wake up, either.

"All you can do is win all your games," John Cooper says. "That will satisfy them. Some of them, anyway."

Joe Posnanski recently was hired as a columnist for the Kansas City Star. He spent 2 1/2 years as a columnist at the Cincinnati Post.