Small smacked silly, Beanie botches ballcarrying, Gonzo gets gonged

The Lantern - Sports

Notebook

David Briggs

Issue date: 10/30/06 Section: Sports

The Ohio Stadium grounds crew has taken plenty of heat recently, so sorry to pile on.

But the new field, which was replaced more than a month ago for about $100,000, continues to devolve. On Saturday, parts of the field looked as if they had been steamrolled: paint covered numerous bare spots and the discolored grass was spongy throughout.

"They just replaced the field, right?" Minnesota coach Glen Mason said. "They need a new gardener. If they have a weakness, it's a lousy field..."

I don't know if they are going to replace it again between now and M******n, but I think they should. This is odd too. Ohio Field had been one of the best natural grass fields around until this year. I hate to say this, but, as I said before, they might have to think about installing field turf.

Small knocked out, Pitcock has concussion

Ray Small laid motionless for a few moments Saturday after taking a brutal - and cheap - shot to the chin from Minnesota cornerback Dominic Jones...

That was a vicious hit and, yes, it was illegal! It was clearly helmet to helmet and it should have been flagged!!!

All is forgiven

Chris Wells sat alone on the Buckeyes bench.

The freshman tailback had just coughed away his third fumble of the season and he doubted he would get another call...

He definitely needs to work on tucking the ball away.

Troy and Justin, sittin' in a tree

Before Justin Zwick could reach the sideline after his one-yard dive into the endzone late Saturday, he was jubilantly mauled by Troy Smith.

"If anybody was going to be there for him, I was," Smith said. "And tell him how happy I was for him..."

That's what makes him (Troy) the undeniable leader of this team!

Quotable

"The funny thing is that even though we won last year, defensively our stats were so terrible that for us, it was kind of a loss. We used that as motivation, because to us, it was like playing a team that beat us last year." - OSU defensive end Jay Richardson on last year's defense giving up 578 yards of total offense to Minnesota.

Extra points

The Buckeyes' helmets were adorned Saturday with the initials of Andrew Polakowski, the OSU student who was recently suffocated by a residence hall elevator ... Smith hasn't thrown an interception in his last 120 pass attempts ... Under Tressel, OSU is 44-3 when taking a lead into half-time ... The Buckeyes have scored at least 24 points in 16-straight games.

Well, now on to Illinois!