Ohio State-Northwestern Preview

11/11/2006 5:49 AM

By CHRIS ALTRUDA
STATS Editor

Ohio State learned all about the dangers of looking ahead to its clash with archrival Michigan in its last outing.

The top-ranked Buckeyes hope to apply those lessons learned Saturday when they play Northwestern in their last game before their highly anticipated contest with the No. 2 Wolverines on Nov. 18.

On Sunday, the Buckeyes (10-0, 6-0 Big Ten) became the first team to be unanimously selected No. 1 in the AP poll since Oklahoma accomplished the feat Nov. 30, 2003. But Jim Tressel's team - also No. 1 in the latest Bowl Championship Series standings - put itself in a precarious position last Saturday, nearly squandering a 17-point halftime lead before holding off Illinois 17-10.

``We're 10 weeks through it and hopefully we can learn a lot from what we haven't done as well,'' said Tressel, whose team has the nation's longest winning streak at 17 games, also the third-longest in school history.

``We'll grow from this game. We have guys who are more than willing to look at themselves with our coaching staff to find ways to get better and go from there.''

Ohio State was held to season lows in points, total yards (224) and passing yards (108) against the Illini. Quarterback and Heisman Trophy front-runner Troy Smith failed to throw a touchdown pass for the first time this season, and his 108 yards were his fewest since compiling 77 last year against Northwestern.

``A win is a win any which way you look at it,'' said Smith, who also ran for 75 yards and two touchdowns in three quarters of Ohio State's 48-7 rout of Northwestern last year. ``Whether you score 50 points or 17 - not the way you want to - who cares? We won today and will continue to grow.''

Smith, who leads the Big Ten and is sixth in the nation in passing efficiency, has thrown for 2,006 yards and 22 touchdowns while being intercepted just three times. He has completed 61 of 96 passes for 797 yards and eight TDs in four road games.

Northwestern (3-7, 1-5) is trying to defeat a No. 1 team for only the second time in 19 tries, with the lone victory coming in its first attempt - a 6-0 victory over Minnesota on Oct. 31, 1936. The Wildcats have failed on five previous occasions to defeat a top-ranked Buckeyes' squad, most recently a 36-10 loss on Oct. 24, 1998.

But Northwestern enters this game coming off its biggest win of the season, a 21-7 victory last Saturday at Iowa that snapped a six-game losing streak. C.J. Bacher threw for 218 yards and a touchdown, and Tyrell Sutton amassed 168 of the Wildcats' 225 rushing yards to give first-year coach Pat Fitzgerald something to build on.

``We've been through as much adversity as you can possibly go through as a football team,'' said Fitzgerald, who took over this summer after Randy Walker died of a heart attack. ``It feels good to get that monkey off our back.''

Sutton, a sophomore who has 833 yards this season, enters with 2,307 career rushing yards and is 159 shy of passing Greg Boykin for sixth place on the school's all-time list.

Ohio State is 57-14-1 against Northwestern, but the Wildcats ended a 24-game winless streak in the last game at Ryan Field by upsetting the Buckeyes 33-27 in overtime on Oct. 2, 2004, for their first home win in the series since 1958.