It seemed little could eclipse the publicity Ohio State received for reaching two straight BCS title games.
Probably nothing deserves to, but Terrelle Pryor has broken all the rules.
The nation's super quarterback recruit is now a Buckeye.
His coronation may not occur immediately because Ohio State already has a quarterback, Todd Boeckman, who reached that BCS game last year.
But it's safe to say Pryor will play often as a freshman. Normally reserved coach Jim Tressel conceded the possibility last month at the Big Ten media gathering.
After watching what Tim Tebow did as a freshman behind Chris Leak at Florida and what Ryan Perrilloux did behind Matt Flynn at LSU _ the teams that kept the Buckeyes from the past two BCS national titles _ Tressel won't hold back his mobile weapon.
"Certainly, it has to be demonstrated in practice that that's the best thing for the team,"
Tressel said. "But absolutely, especially in the early season, we've tried to use multiple quarterbacks. In the course of a season, you never know how health is going to go and so forth. Anytime you can maximize the talent that you have."
It helps Tressel that Boeckman is comfortable having Pryor around.
"Obviously he wants to learn from a veteran player,"
Boeckman said last month. "I want to see what he can do with a ball in his hands."
Tressel has created a culture of competitiveness that has demonstrated itself in recent years by young players emerging and starring.
"The rest of our team would be disappointed if we didn't have that available to anyone, whether they be a corner, a wideout or an offensive lineman,"
Tressel said. "If they deserve to play, if they have the confidence to play, we need them to make our team better. Terrelle has that kind of competition. He, like every other guy, he needs to go out and do it for his own thought process. Then if he deserves to play, he knows he will."
The biggest challenge for a player like Pryor would seem to be the adjustment to college on and off the field. Boeckman said Pryor will have to learn the game's speed, and that won't happen instantly.
Tressel, though, thinks Pryor may be more advanced in learning the schemes than many freshmen.
"The advantage he has is he played 16 games two years in a row, and they did a lot of stuff,"
Tressel said. Coach Ray Reitz at Jeannette (Pa.) High School "did a lot of different things. He did a lot of spread, Wing-T versions, a lot of different things. So he has a little bit of advantage and played so many games, and so many were good games because they were playoff games, and done so many different things that I don't know if we do anything he hasn't done."
"Now he'll need to learn what do we call it, because we probably call it something different. But I don't think there's going to be an unusual strain on him for that."
Even watching the highlight films against lesser competition, it's evident that Pryor's scrambling ability makes him a weapon like Ohio State had with Troy Smith, and maybe even a bit faster.
And if the Buckeyes needed anything else as a top-five team and prohibitive Big Ten favorite, now they have it.
