COLUMBUS - One more game on the ledge. One last walk in a metal suit through the thunderstorm. On Jan. 3, Ohio State will play for the national championship.

Here's to you, Buckeye fans. How do you feel about holding your breath for three more hours?

Watching the Buckeyes is more fun than a ticking package in the passenger seat. They walked the cliff again Saturday. The 14-9 tiptoe past the heathen Michigan Wolverines put the Buckeyes in the Fiesta Bowl and gave them a chance to win it all for the first time in 32 years.

They didn't make it look easy. They never do.

"What an electric day," coach Jim Tressel decided. Yeah, it was four quarters on a cattle prod.

What do you say about a team that wins even when it has the ball 10 fewer minutes than the other guys and runs 41 fewer plays?

For three-plus quarters, Michigan carved up Ohio State's dream season in 3-yard chunks. The Wolverines ran between their tackles and right between OSU's eyes. On successive second-quarter drives, Michigan used 16 and 19 plays. Michigan body-punched the Bucks at will, yet led just 9-7 at halftime.

Meanwhile, OSU could use Maurice Clarett only in spots. The star freshman running back was his team's pulse in the first half, yet at one point came off the field doubled over in ache from his ailing left shoulder. "He was in a lot of pain," Coach Tressel said. "Every time you hit on it, the arm goes numb." It's hard to shoulder your team's offensive load when you've only got one good shoulder.

With 8:30 left, the score was still 9-7. For an Ohio Stadium-record crowd of 105,539, the familiar heart palpitations were settling in. The 2002 Buckeyes are like Ike and Tina Turner doing Proud Mary. They don't do things nice and easy. They do them nice ... and rough.

It was quarterback Craig Krenzel again, sprinkling magic dust, being exactly as good as the situation requires. On 3rd-and-8 from the Michigan 41, he scrambled seven yards, his leap toward the first-down marker landing a foot short.

No problem. Krenzel ran the sneak for the first down, then produced the biggest play of the season, throwing 26 yards to an all-alone Clarett at the Michigan 6. "He was so wide open, I underthrew him a little," Krenzel said.

By then, the Wolverines had to feel they'd been Buckeyed, just like Illinois, Purdue and the four other teams OSU has beaten by seven or less this year. Tailback Maurice Hall made it official, taking an option pitch three yards into the end zone.

How do they keep doing this?

"This is a scrappy, tough, talented, smart bunch of folks," CoachTressel said.

"I don't know. Our guys play good, sound football. Mostly, we play with heart," Krenzel said.

Clarett took a stab at it. "We make plays when it counts. People can say what they want. We're 13-0."

This is it, in a buckeye shell:

They play. They keep playing. The clock runs out. They're ahead.

We've had 13 weeks of "They're not that good." Between now and Jan. 3 will be five weeks of "Miami's going to kill those guys."

That could be. Regardless, it has been some ride. The minefield has been crossed, so far.

"We're one step away from winning the national championship," all-American safety Michael Doss noted. No telling how interesting that step might be.