He was a formidable bulldozer last year even against the stellar cast of Troy Smith and company. Aside from his very strong legs that can plow through the defensive line, he has also a competitive heart that can fire up teammates and belittle many bigger men in the football field. Though small in stature by football standards, any opposing team has to be very concerned of his offensive prowess.
This time though, his offense was just plain ugly offensive.
In one play early into the game, he made a good defensive bump to protect their ball against one rushing unidentified Buckeye. The ball was dead already and while this Buckeye was trying to get up from the ground, Hart shoved him down. Once on his feet, he returned the push.
Throughout the game, I have never seen any Buckeye dish out such an extra dirty tackle of any kind although anybody could have done it especially against their injured quarterback, Chad Henne.
Hart was probably desperate and worried with his own injury and so he tried to put up a courageous mask. On the other end, Beanie Wells has been nursing some injury of his own but his warrior spirit is far superior than Hart. Wells shrugged off pain and dazzled the defense with his record-setting 222 rushing yards and two touchdowns in the fierce, long-storied Ohio State-Michigan rivalry. Hart was held to his lowest 44 rushing yards with such a choking defense.
All in all, Wells, Vernon Gholston and the rest of the Buckeyes simply outclassed Hart and the Wolverines. And that refers not only to athletic terms but to every sense of the word.
...
I wrote this article immediately after the Nov 17 (2007) game. Then, I rewrote this piece into a short version for the comments/opinion section of The Lantern, the official student paper of Ohio State University. My piece was published next issue, Nov 19, as shown below.
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