On one of the doors at Ohio State’s indoor practice facility sits not one, but two signs that read ‘Beat Northwestern.’ The giant video board, which once declared the Woody Hayes Athletic Center to be ‘the land of the wolves,’ no longer displays that mantra. “Beat Northwestern,” it reads.
There’s a clear message around the team this week. Nothing else matters.
“It’s gotta be tunnel vision,” senior center Pat Elflein says. “There’s no other option.”
This is hardly a new thing in football and in sports. The “one game at a time” saying is one of the oldest clichés in the book.