The final two days of the year 2011 are packed with nine bowl games, several of which don’t exactly jump off the page as high-quality affairs. Of the eighteen teams participating, eight carry .500-or-worse records into the matchups; UCLA has a losing record at 6-7. Three of the games are between teams without winning records.

So it looks pretty lackluster on the surface. But there are some intriguing matchups among the detritus. The Pinstripe Bowl between Rutgers and Iowa State, the Insight Bowl between Oklahoma and Iowa and the Sun Bowl between Georgia Tech and Utah might just be compelling. And if nothing else the weekend bowl schedule presents an opportunity to do some advance scouting on guys who will be available for the Browns at Draft time, like Rutgers receiver Mohamed Sanu and Illinois defensive end Whitney Mercilus.

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Northwestern had a two point lead over Ohio State that lasted 18 seconds early in the first half at Value City Arena Wednesday night.

Unfortunately that was their high point as the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes (13-1) destroyed the Wildcats 87-54 in what was the Big Ten season opener for each team.

Buford was the star of the game, scoring a career high 28 points against the Wildcats. The only senior on the team went 5-7 from behind the arch (9-14 overall) while adding nine rebounds and four assists. Three other players reached double-digits as Jared Sullinger scored 17, Deshaun Thomas 16 and Jordan Sibert added 12 points off four 3-pointers. Sullinger also had 11 rebounds, giving him his seventh double-double of the season.

Buford talked about his big performance after the game, “I was just shooting the ball. I was fortunate to be knocking them down and my teammates just kept telling me to shoot.”

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The football teams that venture to far-away places and play in half-empty stadiums in December are not the football teams that played in September, October and November. Several- Southern Miss, Toledo, Arkansas State- will be played between teams with either lame-duck or interim coaches. The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl between Illinois and UCLA is a battle of two teams that fired their head coaches. And there’s really no way of knowing how a team will respond to a coaching change. It may be hungry and sharp (West Virginia in the ’08 Fiesta Bowl); it may be demoralized and disorganized (Cincinnati in the ’10 Sugar Bowl).

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Whether the sanctions levied against Ohio State were too harsh or too lenient may be a matter of perspective.  That won't stop nearly anyone from questioning athletic director Gene Smith's competency, however.

The biggest surprise levied against the Buckeyes was the 2012 bowl ban.  Otherwise it seems like things pretty much went down as expected.  When Ohio State self-imposed a litany of sanctions against the program, all they really did was give the NCAA a little wriggle room to make a few additional tweaks in order to look like it wasn't just simply taking the Buckeyes' word on everything.

So the tweak they made was not the one that was expected mainly because Smith was emphatic time and again that a bowl ban wasn't on the horizon.  So sure was Smith, in fact, that he didn't even contemplate pre-empting the NCAA on that count by making the 6-6 Buckeyes sit home this bowl season instead.

What fans have now is a meaningless Gator Bowl to soothe their feelings when what they really wanted was to hit like the hurricane new head coach Urban Meyer promised for next season, play for the Big Ten title and possibly a national championship.

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