Whatever the reason, Gonzalez noticed a difference in how Illinois approached the Buckeyes last week and how everyone else has this year. Simply put, Illinois wasn't afraid.

"That was the first team I feel like played with no fear," Gonzalez said. "Prior to that game, I think defenses, for whatever reason, and maybe teams in general, have played with a slight bit of fear. But that Illinois team came out with absolutely no fear whatsoever and gave us everything that they had. That's why they had so much success on Saturday night."

Coach Jim Tressel admitted yesterday that the play-calling wasn't as balanced as he would've liked during Saturday's 17-10 win over Illinois. In truth, the Buckeyes couldn't move the ball running or throwing.

On seven possessions in the second half, they handed the ball to Antonio Pittman six times to begin the drive. The one time they threw the ball, it was a pass to Pittman that lost 3 yards.

Despite all the running calls, Ohio State averaged just 2.4 yards per carry. Pittman carried a career-high 32 times, but gained just 58 yards in what was easily the most disappointing half of the season offensively. Faced with a number of third-and-long situations, Ohio State's offensive line couldn't hold off Illinois.

"I'm not sure we were as balanced with our attack as we could have been and we didn't execute on early downs," Tressel said. "Then we got behind the count and we let them come storming the castle pretty good. One thing leads to another and all of a sudden your momentum has changed."

Tressel was pleased with how the offense performed for the first 40 minutes, but all of that changed over the last 20.

Troy Smith threw for 9 yards in the second half, he was hit more than he has been all year, he was sacked three times and hurried six others.

"I don't want to infer that we didn't play well at all there, because if you turn the film off at halftime, it doesn't look much different than any of the four or five games prior to it," Tressel said. "Turn it back on, we didn't do the things you need to do."

As the second half unfolded, it would've been an ideal time to run Chris Wells at the Illini defense to try and soften up the interior. But that wasn't an option following Wells' third fumble in four games and fourth fumble of the season.

While fumbling isn't new to Wells, serving a penalty for it is. Saturday was the first time Wells was benched for one of his fumbles.

Tressel said provided he has a good week of practice, he'll return as the backup when Ohio State travels to Northwestern this weekend. But the question remains whether or not Tressel can trust Wells to hold onto the ball against Michigan, which leads the Big Ten with 11 fumble recoveries.

"I'd like to think that he'll, one day, get that under control and I'm hoping it's this day," Tressel said. "I still believe today that if we're going to become a very good team, then he's going to have to be part of it."

Whether or not anything was exposed at Illinois, when the Buckeyes' offense was held to a season-low in points and yards, won't be known until this week. Northwestern has struggled defensively for much of the year, but it held Michigan to 17 points two weeks ago and beat Iowa on the road last week, 21-7. In the five weeks prior to that, the Wildcats were allowing 35 points a game.

Gonzalez, for one, doesn't expect anyone else to fear the top-ranked Buckeyes the rest of the way.

"I don't know what fear does for anyone," he said. "I don't know why you would fear anything. I don't anticipate Northwestern fearing us, I don't anticipate Michigan fearing us and I don't anticipate whoever we play in the bowl game fearing us. There's no point.

"To be perfectly honest, I didn't anticipate anyone prior to these teams doing the same thing. For some reason, I didn't feel teams were playing hard against us. Maybe that had to do with fear, but that was clearly not the case with Illinois and won't be with Northwestern or Michigan."

jlloyd@morningjournal.com