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What's brewing today with the 2009 Ohio State Buckeyes

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COLUMBUS -- What's brewing today with the 2009 Ohio State Buckeyes ...

BUCKEYES BUZZ: Thousands of students walked or jumped into the shallow, cold, dirty waters of Mirror Lake in the middle of Ohio State's campus last night, an annual tradition on the Thursday before Ohio State's football team plays Michigan in the regular-season ending game.

It's sort of a fun, crazy-college-kid kind of a thing to do, like cramming into a phone booth in the 1950s.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that before, during and after last year's big swim, Ohio State's College of Earth Sciences monitored the water quality at the lake.

Those pocket-protector guys found that the lake's temperature went up 3 degrees throughout the night, and the ammonia level surged. Body heat likely accounts for the rise in temperature. The ammonia level points to people urinating in the water.

Earlier in the week, football players were asked if they walked over to the lake to watch the annual rite.

"There are going to be 30,000 people jumping into a lake on Thursday just because it is tradition," punter Jon Thoma said. "It is so much fun seeing those things and you don't want to let your campus down, you don't want to let your coaches, families or teammates down. There is just so much going through this."

S Kurt Coleman reluctantly admitted that he always goes down to Mirror Lake.

"I like to stand in the background because sometimes people get into fights and whatnot," he said. "Actually it's a great scene. It's something that you have to experience. I'm never going to jump in because I'm not that crazy, but it's one of the best times in college. That's part of the tradition at Ohio State to jump in right before Michigan."

DT Doug Worthington said he was going but wouldn't get wet.

"I'll just watch. Seeing those fans out there, they're getting after it, they're jumping in the lake," he said. "It's just a great college feel. It lets you know your fans are behind you and they take the game as serious."

The key bit of advice is this, for anyone wanting to join the throng in the future: If you want to partake of the tradition of jumping into Mirror Lake, you'd better keep your mouth shut.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Only 11 teams have participated in the BCS Championship in its 11-year history. ... The rest have been shut out." - Woody Paige, Denver Post.

INJURY REPORT: Coach Jim Tressel said Thursday that the Buckeyes would be completely healthy for Saturday's game.

Several days a week, team trainers meet with coaches to talk in detail about players' injuries and availability.

"Everyone will be ready," Tressel said. "That's an easy one. The trainers spent less time in our staff meeting than they've ever spent."

OUT OF CHARACTER: OL Jim Cordle was the offensive captain for last week's dramatic win over Iowa that clinched the Big Ten's Rose Bowl berth and earned the Buckeyes at least a share of the Big Ten title.

He sat patiently while first Tressel and then the three defensive captains calmly talked about the victory during postgame interviews. When it came his time, however, he took some water and splashed it in his face and beckoned everyone to loosen up and celebrate.

His family was surprised he did it. So were his teammates. Cordle isn't exactly a cut-up.

He admitted he'd never done anything like it before.

"No, I can't remember anything like that. Especially around here," he said. "You get so brainwashed by all the Tresselisms that you just kind of have things planned out. It was off the wall."

DARWINISM: Asked whether Michigan's new defensive coordinator, former Syracuse head coach Greg Robinson, has changed the way the Wolverines play, Tressel said, "They're conceptually different and in the midst of evolution, like everyone is. Because every week, that's what's very difficult about coaching defense in college is that conceptually you face different things so often in the course of the year that you're in a constant evolution. Yeah, conceptually they're different, now I think if you put a whole smattering of plays in and didn't tell anyone which year it was, you couldn't pick every play that was '09 and every play that was '08. Because there's only so many ways you can line up 11 guys. But if you had to say, is their base defense the same, the one they put in the first day of spring ball? Probably not."