Priceless!

My 1st "M" game was all I expected (and more). Despite a slow start (it was only 14-7 at the half) and a bitterly cold temperature, the Buckeyes prevailed 42-7. The win was the largest Ohio State has had in 40 years and clinched another Big 10 championship (tied with Penn State). It was the team's 5th straight win against M, the first time they have beaten them 5 times in row in the history of the series. It also gave M their 9th loss making them the worst team in M history, and the worst team in the history of the rivalry. A colleague told me this week that Ohio State is the only major college football team to have never lost 8 games in a season. I checked and the Buckeyes only lost 7 games in one season, and that was over 100 years ago (1897)! The Buckeyes will also become the team with the most appearances in the AP poll at the end of this season (passing M). Still a lot of scenarios as to which bowl the team will play in, with the worst case being the Buckeyes "settling" for a New Year's Day game. Overall, it was another great season.

I also got to try out my new camera. Here are a few pictures from gameday.

The Turner family getting ready to go to the game (except for Alex, who had a babysitter).

An OSU fan saluting M.

Gretchen anticipating the exciting game.

It was Senior Day. This is my student Marcus being introduced.

During the Senior introductions, one of the loudest ovations was for Tyson Gentry. Tyson was paralyzed during spring practice a couple of years ago.

Marcus and the defense preparing to stop M on the goal line (our seats were really close to the field).

All-American defensive back Malcolm Jenkins

After the game, fans stormed the field. The officers made a triangle to protect the goal post (OSU also greases up both goal posts to make it nearly impossible to hang on. You could see the material from where we were sitting).

The team singing Carmen Ohio (our school song) after the game, led by freshman sensation Terrelle Pryor (#2).

It's "M" Week!

Road Trip

One of my graduate students is interning with the Northwestern football team. Since Ohio State was playing the Wildcats this weekend, a colleague (Dr. Chad Seifried) and I made the trip to Evanston to do a "site visit". Since the game kicked off at noon (11 am Evanston time), we had to leave Columbus at 4 am. Evanston is a great little suburb north of Chicago and we arrived there around 9:15. We had to park near campus and walk about 20 minutes to the stadium. Weather was an issue because it was in the mid 30s and very windy (the stadium is basically on Lake Michigan). However, it never really rained (as was expected) and only drizzled a small amount. We met my student and he gave us some really good tickets (around the 35 yard line, 35 rows up). It's a small stadium (around 47,000), so there really aren't any bad seats; but, it seemed liked we were really close to the action. The Buckeyes played a great game, winning 45-10. We got to go out onto the field after the game and chatted with my student for a while. We then went and waited for the Buckeyes to leave their locker room and head to their bus so we could talk to a few of the players that we had in class (traffic was so bad, we were not going to be able leave fast; it seemed like there was only 1 major road that left Evanston to get to the highway). We then journeyed back to my car and started the trip back. We stopped in Indiana to eat dinner and to catch the end of the Penn State game (Chad is a graduate of PSU). We made it back to my house just after midnight. To say I was a little tired would be an understatement. I was up for just over 22 hours, but it was well worth it; we had a great time and it was a fantastic road trip. Here are a couple of game photos.

The Tooth Fairy (and our 100th blog post)

Last week, Briana lost her 1st tooth and had a visit from the Tooth Fairy.She was really excited because many of her classmates had already lost teeth. She was also happy to add to her savings.

This is our 100th blog posting. Hopefully, there will be many more to come.