As 2007 winds down I would like to be the first to bid it good riddance.  Not that it was bad year for me personally but it definitely was not the year for the Buckeyes in National Championship games, dropping three between the football, basketball and men’s soccer.  I bring this up because I have spent the last week in Columbus, the Buckeye motherland, visiting my friends and family for the holidays and I have to say that the overall morale was less than what I anticipated for the Buckeye Nation.  It was weird, normally diehard fans offered up such luke warm support for the team – saying things like “I hope we don’t get our butts kicked” or “I just hope they play well” or the slightly more affirmative “I give us a better chance of winning than I gave us in 2002″.  These are the same fans that touted our dominance last year going into the Glendale fiasco, now here we are again and the very same previously rabid fans have seemingly lost all their bite.   So I am calling out all the Buckeye Nation.   Listen – I was in Glendale last year and felt the same pain as the entire Buckeye Nation; but that was LAST YEAR.  That team was different, everyone thought they deserved the championship before the game was played, they got lazy in the month layoff, there were agent and draft distractions and all the fans lost focus in all the hype.  So let go of the past and leave Glendale in 07 and focus on New Orleans as we move into 2008 tonight.  We can’t get caught up looking back at the past – we need to focus on the present – and presently we are a week away from playing in our second consecutive National Championship game.  This team is for real – we have the #1 defense in the nation with playmakers all over the field, a 1400 yard rusher, we have lost only one game by a single TD and does anyone honestly think that Tressel will not be 100% ready for this game?  Now more than ever – the Buckeye Nation needs to awaken and shake New Orleans like only Buckeyes can.  Our team needs us to be foaming at the mouth at the lack of respect our team gets or when you hear someone preaching the “SEC is the best” crap then just look at them with a smile and say “we’ll see” – because we know something they don’t.  This is our shot at redemption and no time for the fans to be sitting on the fence.  Don’t believe the hype you see and read – we deserve to be in this game and we can win.  If you want our team to bring it and play with the swagger of a champion then we as fans have to bring it as well.   

So as the clock strikes midnight wherever you are please know that with the passing of 2007 we move into a new year for the Buckeyes, symbolically and literally.  It is now 2008 – the year of the Buckeyes.