The script in Ohio features a Vested interest

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The old football coach flashes a look of incredulity, wincing, like you just don't understood.

So you try again: Is the USC game really that important to Ohio State fans?

"What are you talking about?" Earle Bruce says. "We know what this game means."

The former Buckeyes coach still lives in Columbus and hears the buzz around town, the talk that started months ago. The early schedule -- Youngstown State last week and Ohio today -- seems incidental.

"It's almost like, let's get through these first two weeks and get to Week 3," said Matt McCoy, sports director at local radio station WTVN. "That game's been circled for a long time."

No. 1 versus No. 3. Pac-10 versus Big Ten.

By numbers alone, next Saturday's USC-Ohio State matchup at the Coliseum looks like the game of the season, but numbers explain only part of the hype. You have to understand what football means to fans in this city by the Olentangy River.

"I mean, it's everything," said Buckeyes kicker Ryan Pretorius, a transplanted South African who has come to know the ways of the scarlet and gray. "It's a part of their life. Come Saturday, it's what everyone in Ohio does."

Add to this fervor a hunger for redemption.

The Buckeyes faithful have heard rumblings from around the college football world. Their team doesn't play a tough enough nonconference schedule. The Big Ten isn't what it used to be.

They know what outsiders think of Ohio State's two consecutive trips to the national championship game and two blowout losses to Southeastern Conference opponents.

"Everyone's talking about how we can't win," says Matt Lucas, who owns a fan shop a few blocks from Ohio Stadium. "How we can't beat the good teams."

USC offers a chance to prove the naysayers wrong.

Earlier this summer, none other than Carson Palmer -- the former Trojan and current Cincinnati Bengals quarterback -- stoked the fires with blunt comments on a Los Angeles radio show.

"I cannot stand the Buckeyes and having to live in Ohio and hear those people talk about their team, it drives me absolutely nuts," he told KLAC, adding: "I just can't wait for this game to get here so they can come out to the Coliseum and experience L.A. and get an old-fashioned, Pac-10 butt-whupping."

Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel stood up for Palmer, saying he clearly loves his alma mater, but the good people of Columbus were not so forgiving. As radio director McCoy explained: "He took it to another level."