No Looking Ahead For Buckeyes

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

BUCKEYES BUZZ: Woody Hayes never hid the fact that he worked on Michigan almost every day of the season.

Whether that's true or not today, coach Jim Tressel would never admit to that.

In fact, even though his team is a 44-point favorite to beat New Mexico State on Saturday, he said he hasn't really sneaked a peek at No. 12 Penn State, waiting in the wings for a game in Happy Valley a week from now.

"In the cold (against Minnesota) - that's the one (Penn State) game I've seen," he said, saying that he saw the Nittany Lions only when preparing for the Golden Gophers last week. "It was an old-school, Big Ten game. Both teams were slamming it in there. That's the most I've seen of them."

HONEST CHIMDI: Every week, Ohio State's coaches and players say that all they need to do to realize the quality of an opponent is to watch them on video.

CB Chimdi Chekwa was asked if he ever watched film of an opposing team and thought, "They're a bad team."

After laughing for several seconds, he conceded, "It happens. Honestly it happens sometimes. But there's always things that teams do well. You're going to focus on the stuff they do well. And what teams did well against us before, they're going to look to do the same things. We have to work on what we've messed up on the past couple of weeks and what they do very good."

Chekwa, by the way, said he didn't watch much of the exciting Iowa-Michigan State game on Saturday night.

"I was bowling," he said. "I watched a little bit of the game. It was up there on the big screen."

For the record, he had games of "130, 120-something and 140."

IT'S OFFICIAL: Ohio State's fourth captain for New Mexico State game is OL Andrew Moses.

Also, the honorary captain for Saturday is Tim Anderson, a DL 2000-03 who played four seasons in the NFL.

WORDS FROM TROY: QB Terrelle Pryor has a lot of advisers, but one that he pays more attention to than most is former Ohio State QB and Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith.

Pryor says they connect whenever possible.

"He just kept on preaching to me, 'Look, man, (when I was a sophomore at Ohio State), I wasn't even playing. I was sitting on the bench and watching quarterbacks throw the ball and make plays,"' Pryor said. "He said, 'You can be better than me.' Everything he says I'm so glued in because I look up to Troy so much you can't imagine it. Whatever words he says, my ears are just pinned open. I sponge it in."

COMING HOME: Trevor Walls was a standout QB at Waverly HS in Southeastern Ohio. But despite great stats and great grades, few major college coaches took a look at him.

Then a Waverly assistant got in touch with an old college friend, Hal Mumme, at the time the coach at New Mexico State. Mumme, a noted developer of QBs, liked what he saw and offered Walls a scholarship.

Now he splits the duties with starter Jeff Fleming.

Walls, a 6-foot-5 redshirt freshman, has completed 52 percent of his passes for two touchdowns with five interceptions.

Tressel said he was aware of Walls but didn't have a detailed scouting report.