By Paul Daugherty
The Cincinnati Enquirer

TEMPE, Ariz. - Most of us didn't get it about Ohio State. Maybe some of us still don't. We worship at the Temple of Me, so when we saw all those gaudy Miami numbers, those 4.3 times in the 40-yard dash, all that prospective NFL meat on the hoof, we forgot one thing:

Teams can still win titles. Even teams that aren't as gifted as whom they play.

Someone asked Jim Tressel on Saturday morning if he could identify a key play or two from Ohio State's incredible double-overtime Fiesta Bowl win the night before. It was like asking Hawaiians which wave they liked best at Waikiki.

Tressel preferred "the cumulative effect of the way our kids came after it, more than anything individual."

The coach came to the press conference wearing a gray suit, a white shirt and a cloak of piety. A black-cloth W.W.J.D. bracelet clung to his left wrist. Successful football coaches are salesmen and evangelists first and strategists second. Tressel might have concocted a great game plan, especially on defense, to beat the Hurricanes. It was nothing compared with the all-for-one, one-for-all sell-job he did on his players.

"Anything we asked them to consider, they considered with great faith and belief," Tressel said.

Ohio State was spectacular this season the way a lifer on the assembly line is spectacular. The guy with three kids and a mortgage who takes the metal Thermos to work every day for 30 years and never misses a shift. The 2002 Bucks were blue shirts with their first names stitched in script letters above the pocket. It was fitting that Cal Ripken served as the grand marshal of the Fiesta Bowl Parade. Ripken was 30 years on the line. He could play for Ohio State.

The most telling play of this wonderful football game wasn't a sack, touchdown, gorgeous punt or even the questionable fourth-down interference call in the first overtime against Miami's Glenn Sharpe. It was Maurice Clarett running down Sean Taylor and stealing the ball from him.

Third quarter, OSU driving and ahead 14-7. Quarterback Craig Krenzel breaks from his patient norm, gets greedy, throws into the end zone and into double coverage. Taylor picks it off, takes off. Clarett stalks him, catches him, then yanks the ball from his hands. Instead of a momentum-turning takeaway, OSU had the ball back and emerged with a field goal and a 10-point lead.

And right then and there, you knew things weren't going to be as the experts had thought.

Sometimes, football is nothing more than a matter of will. Who will play harder, longer? Who'll give one more shot in the mouth than he takes?

Clarett stole the ball. Will Allen laid a merciless, frightening, telling helmet to the knee of Willis McGahee, ripping McGahee's left ACL. Matt Wilhelm leveled Ken Dorsey with a body blow in the second overtime. Dustin Fox jarred a fumble from Miami wideout Roscoe Parrish's hands after a big gain.

People will say Miami, with five turnovers, gave away the game. Not at all. Four of those turnovers, including all three fumbles, were forced. Ohio State took the game. The Buckeyes worshipped at Tressel's altar. They stayed together, played together and won the game of Last Man Standing.

The taciturn Tressel is either unwilling or unable to articulate that expansively. No matter. His players got it. Maybe now, so will the rest of us.

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com