COLUMBUS, Ohio -- At Ohio State, the countdown is always to Michigan.

Jim Tressel brought fans roaring to their feet at an Ohio State basketball game the night he was hired a decade ago, promising they would be proud of the Buckeyes "in 310 days in Ann Arbor, Michigan." The Buckeyes won. The Tressel legend was launched by his confident embrace of the rivalry.

"Big game this weekend. Better be ready," Tressel joked before the 2004 game, when Michigan with Chad Henne and Braylon Edwards, among others, had already clinched the Big Ten title, while Ohio State was a struggling 6-4.

His team was certainly ready. OSU won, 37-21.

Every year, Ohio State fans seem to think it's still Bo vs. Woody in "The Game." The Wolverines, however, were 1-9 on the field in the Tressel era, they are 0-7 on the field vs. OSU since 2003, and they wore clown shoes and light-up noses under Rich Rodriguez. Maybe that will change with new coach Brady Hoke.

But for now, the countdown should be to Wisconsin. Dating to 1999, the Badgers and Buckeyes have split their last 10 games. Even Tressel's reign did not extend to the land of dairy products and rent-a-quarterbacks. Tressel was only 4-4 against Wisconsin.

Asked Tuesday if Ohio State's players were pointing to Wisconsin, possibly by savagely ripping off the calendar pages until Saturday night's kickoff, coach Luke Fickell said that "this isn't redemption; this isn't repayment;" that every week is a battle in the Big Ten; that his guys know what the target is this week and they'll know the following week what the target is; and that ...

Zzzzzzz. Huh, what? Sorry. Dozed off there.

When pressed, though, Fickell said he thought it was 34 days until Michigan. (The correct answer, counting from Tuesday, is 32.)It was four days to Wisconsin on Tuesday, for sure.

Wisconsin was the only team to beat Tressel and his tattooed ineligibles last season. It made moot his gamble to win a tainted national championship. Wisconsin is the division rival with the mojo in the new, realigned Big Ten, especially since Joe Paterno became a ceremonial coach at Penn State years ago.

Controversies have flared between the Badgers and Buckeyes too -- over Ohio State players dancing on the midfield "Motion W" in Madison; over Wisconsin players' retaliation on the Block O in Columbus; and, most notoriously, over Ohio State linebacker Robert Reynolds' choking Wisconsin quarterback Jim Sorgi on the bottom of a pile of tacklers in 2003.

OSU cornerback Chris Gamble still hasn't found Bedford's Lee Evans on the out-and-up 79-yard pass Evans caught from back-up Matt Schabert in the last minutes to break a 19-game OSU winning streak that night.

Certainly, there should be plenty for which to play Saturday after Michigan State desperation-heaved Ohio State back into the division race with a last-play, replay-validated touchdown pass to hand the Badgers their first defeat.

Wisconsin is better this year than the team that spoiled Ohio State's 2010 season. That is where Russell Wilson, Badgers quarterback at the moment, comes in. A North Carolina State graduate and three-year starter there, Wilson declared himself a free agent and jumped to Wisconsin, largely because of its big-time offensive line. Auburn, needing a new mercenary to replace Cam Newton, was the runner-up.

College football is in the era of out-and-out guns for hire now, so Fickell, a self-described emotional coach, better have more in his psychological armory than he showed Tuesday.

Fickell has, frankly, not been good in the big games. With OSU down, 17-6, he let Miami consume 8:48 of the fourth quarter, until only 33 seconds remained, without calling a timeout.

Against Nebraska, as a 27-6 lead melted in the rain, Fickell watched Joe Bauserman's memorably inaccurate incompletions kill the clock for the rallying Huskers. Fickell has little input in the offense, but any head coach should have veto power over such ill-conceived play-calling.

But Fickell deserves credit for preventing a victimization mindset among the remaining players. They were sabotaged, not so much by the NCAA, as by their own teammates. The coach preached a "Men of Action" approach. He demanded that the Buckeyes look forward, not backward and play with the ones they have, not the ones they had. It kept the team from fracturing into "Men of Faction."

He has a team that suffered suspension and defection, one that collapsed against Nebraska and re-inflated itself against Illinois without any air game to speak of. Somehow, Ohio State past the season's mid-point is still in the hunt to go to the Rose Bowl.

A win Saturday changes everything. And the clock is ticking. Big game coming. Better be ready.

On Twitter: @LivyPD