Tuesday Ohio State Reading Room: Buckeyes may be 9-1, but not everyone in Ohio convinced of their greatness

OK, there's a game in Iowa City on Saturday, and it's meaningful. Ohio State-Iowa. Let's get some stuff from our media friends in Ohio.

We start with Tim May of the Columbus Dispatch, who has been covering the Buckeyes for over a quarter-century and is one of Big Ten Country's best football writers. Here is a compilation of notes and nuggets from May about OSU. Excerpts:

Who's hot?

Daniel Herron is smokin', and the more carries he gets, the hotter he gets - 38 carries the past two games, 304 yards, including a career-high 190 against Penn State. One reason is because the more the Buckeyes run, the better the offensive line performs. Exhibit A: Herron's 5-yard TD run that capped a 96-yard drive. Center Michael Brewster and guards Justin Boren and Bryant Browning did a pile-driver on the heart of the Penn State defense.

What's not hot?

The passing game and Terrelle Pryor throwing the ball. Pryor tried just 13 passes, completing eight for 139 yards and two TDs (career total now 52), so on paper it didn't look bad. But there was the interception near the Penn State goal line early in the fourth quarter, and the TD pass to Dane Sanzenbacher actually bounced off DeVier Posey and two defenders before Sanzenbacher saved the day. And there wasn't a pass aimed at Sanzenbacher, the team's leading receiver, all game? That's not a good plan.

May and the Dispatch's Ken Gordon have a back-and-forth about all things Buckeye here. Such as:

GORDON: I think OSU is well-equipped to win out -- IF their heads are on straight, which sometimes I wonder about. But the run game-defense combination serves them well, clearly. It does not, however, give them many style points in voters' minds. The only way OSU can possibly leap-frog over Wisconsin (in the BCS standings)  if both win out is if the Buckeyes just go hog-wild on the Hawkeyes, led by Pryor, their flashiest player. That might impress enough voters. I don't see it happening though -- Pryor going off or OSU passing the Badgers. In some ways, that could work out just fine for the Buckeyes. Does it not boost their prestige more to possibly beat a good SEC team in the Sugar Bowl than it would facing, say, Stanford in the Rose?

MAY: If the Rose loses Oregon to the national title game, the word is it will be compelled to take Boise State or TCU if they are still viable candidates at that point. So OSU vs. either one of those teams would have plenty of intrigue as far as I'm concerned. OSU vs. LSU (or another SEC team) in the Sugar would be interesting from the Buckeyes-can't-beat-an-SEC team angle. At this point, just pushing the two streaks of Big Ten title and BCS game appearances to six should be more than adequate carrots for this team. And if Pryor and the offense do go off, who knows where that sudden attention could take them. Right now, though, I'd be more concerned with blocking Iowa defensive end Adrian Clayborn on a consistent basis.

The Lima News hasn't been represented in a Reading Room before now. It's time. That's the Lima in Ohio, by the way, not Peru.

Jim Naveau of the News asked Buckeye players if they thought Iowa would let down after losing to Northwestern Saturday. You can guess the answer.

“We know it's a challenge playing Iowa here, much less going there. Whether they're coming off a loss or not, I don't think they'll have any trouble getting up for us,” wide receiver Dane Sanzenbacher said after OSU's 38-14 win over Penn State on Saturday.

Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain Dealer doesn't think any Buckeye juniors will leave early for the NFL draft, including quarterback Terrelle Pryor.

Pryor has already said he's staying, but Lesmeries wisely notes this:

I seldom believe players when they talk about their pro futures during the season. They either don't have all the information yet and can't make an informed decision, or they're forced to fudge the truth, because no one in the middle of a season can say that he's gone at the end of the year.

Do I think Pryor will be back? At this point, yes, because I don't think he's done enough to help his draft status.

When most teams are 9-1, their seasons are regarded as unqualified successes. But Sheldon Ocker of the Akron Beacon Journal doesn't know what to make of the Buckeyes. I'm slapping up a few excerpts here.

Are they among the top teams in the country, or have they been overvalued because of the elite stature of their program?

At this moment, I can't answer that. ...

The Buckeyes have been a mystery team all season. One quarter Pryor looks like the next Michael Vick, the next his blunders are reminiscent of an overmatched freshman. The highly touted defensive unit has at times looked like the fabrication of a Hollywood public relations flack. ...

Of course, a Top 10 team is expected to trounce the Indianas and Minnesotas of the world. It's no sin to lose to the Badgers, but it looked like fire and brimstone were closing in when Wisconsin totally embarrassed the Buckeyes.

Hey, but it was only one loss. It's tough to win very game, unless you're Boise State. So maybe the bar was set too high for Ohio State. Maybe the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

Imagine if Ohio State was a mere 8-2 or (gulp) 7-3.