OSU wants to keep momentum on its side

COLUMBUS - Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel didn't mention the only other time before Saturday night's game at Wisconsin that Ohio State played on the road this season at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.

But it wasn't hard to connect his talk about momentum in football games with OSU's first road trip, when it took a 35-3 beating at Southern California three weeks ago.

No. 14 Ohio State (4-1, 1-0 Big Ten) absorbed a number of body blows when it was knocked out at USC.

Among the many things USC had going for it that night was momentum. Ohio State hung with the Trojans for a quarter, trailing only 7-3, but less than a quarter later USC had used a long scoring drive and pass interception return for a touchdown to put the Buckeyes in a 21-3 hole.

The topic of momentum came up because No. 18 Wisconsin (3-1, 0-1 Big Ten) had a 19-0 lead on Michigan with 17-and-a-half minutes to play last week, but lost 27-25.

"When momentum shifts, it's hard to get it stopped," Tressel said. "To me, momentum is a mindset. You see sometimes teams try to hold on, and that's not the way to stop momentum. If that snowball's rolling down the hill, you don't hold on to it, you run around in front of it and you stop it.

"Wisconsin, obviously, is coming off a tough ball game last week. They had the game well in hand, and just like it can happen when momentum shifts, it's hard to get it stopped. That (losing to Michigan) is just going to make a very good team a much better team as we go into their house."

While Tressel didn't connect the dots between USC and this week, safety Anderson Russell did. He figures the Badgers will try to stop the negative momentum created by a loss much the same way OSU did the week after its only loss.

"I definitely know how we came out after the USC game, things were a lot more intense in practice that entire week. I would imagine Wisconsin's coaches would do the same thing with them," Russell said. "Our team really came out with a chip on our shoulders for the Troy game. I would imagine they would come out the same way, so we have to be ready for that."

One thing the Buckeyes know they will have to contend with is a power running game. While other teams have incorporated elements of the spread offense into their game, the Badgers mostly run it the old-fashioned way, with big backs behind huge offensive linemen.

P.J. Hill, a 236-pound junior tailback, has gained 449 yards this season after rushing for 1,569 yards and 1,236 yards in his first two seasons.

Current coach Bret Bielema has followed in the footsteps of former coach Barry Alvarez when it comes to running the ball. Alvarez once had a 1,000-yard rusher for 10 straight seasons.

"They definitely do like to run the ball a lot. It changes up our defense because we know we're not going to be in a nickel (five defensive backs) as much," Russell said.

"USC ran the ball quite a bit but Wisconsin runs the ball differently than they do. It's going to be a change-up for us, seeing a team that runs the ball in between the tackles like they do. We definitely have become accustomed to the spread. But at the same time we're ready to play physical against the run," he said.

Ohio State beat Wisconsin 38-17 last season at Ohio Stadium, but trailed 17-10 late in the third quarter before running off 28 unanswered points.

This will be OSU's first trip to Wisconsin since 2003. Ohio State is 3-2-1 in its last six trips to Camp Randall Stadium, where Wisconsin has lost only one Big Ten game the last four seasons. Tressel is 2-3 against Wisconsin, the only Big Ten team to hold a career advantage over him.