Anderson Russell Alive and Well

Russell, in happier times

via photos.cleveland.com

So Anderson Russell got off considerably better than Ryan Hamby did for (supposedly) choking away a game against Texas.

"It's something that happens," Russell said. "You're going to get beat (sometimes) if you play DB. So it's over and done with. On to this year."

[...]

Safety Kurt Coleman said: "That night, I sat down with (Russell) and said, 'Hey, it could have happened to anybody.' He was kind of discouraged at first, as anybody else would with everybody kind of pointing the finger at him.

Contrast this with what happened to Ryan Hamby, who committed his supposed choke job in the third freaking quarter against Texas, while Ohio State had a lead:

Hamby, you may recall, is the Ohio State tight end who received numerous death threats after bobbling, then dropping a wide-open touchdown catch in the much-watched Buckeyes-Longhorns game on Sept. 10. Pretty disgusting. Three months later, you would think all would finally be forgotten, but judging by my inbox, there are still plenty of Ohioans who blame Hamby for the Buckeyes falling short of the Rose Bowl (never mind that they lost a second game, to Penn State)....

That's from a Stewart Mandel piece written THREE-AND-A-HALF MONTHS AFTER the Hamby drop, when the loss apparently still stung for some. Of course, there are some good reasons for this. Chief among these is that that rowdy night in Columbus was Texas' (and really, Vince Young's) only brush with mortality that season prior to the title game. That being said, the second loss to Texas may have been a little bit more gut-wrenching because it would have been the first time since 2006 Ohio State had won a game of any national significance, and since the program has been shat on all over since by both the media and fans of teams who haven't even beat us in recent memory, a win may have been even more crucial now to the progam overall than one in 2005 would have been. So first, I applaud most of my fellow Ohio State fans for taking it easy on Anderson. But secondly and most importantly, I applaud young Anderson for keeping his head up. I don't want that moment to define his career, and I get the feeling he's determined to make sure that's not the case.