DaytonDailyNews.com

What's brewing today with

the Ohio State Buckeyes:

Buckeyes buzz

One of the coolest traditions, literally, at Ohio State comes each Thursday before the Michigan game. Students go down to Mirror Lake, some fortified by strong spirits, and jump into the frigid, shallow waters.

Sometimes the ice on the surface has to be broken before the teenage polar bears can make the leap.

Sadly, the football players are usually too busy — or too afraid of incurring the wrath of a coach for catching a cold or spraining an ankle — to join in.

DL Nader Abdallah walked down to the lake last year.

"I had a chance to walk around and look at people doing all of that stuff," he said. "It was amazing because it was freezing cold out there and people were jumping in. People were coming together and having a great time and it shows how much it means."

PK Ryan Pretorius: "One of my ex-roommates bought a wet suit just so he could jump in, wore it, jumped in, then cleaned it off and took it back. It's nuts."

LB James Laurinaitis: "They've got a lot of liquid courage."

He said he regretted missing out on so many of the joys of college life.

"I guess you maybe find yourself wondering what it would be like to tailgate or do this and that but if you think about how lucky you are to be one of 100 guys per year that's on this team, there's nothing in the world I would trade that for," he said. "I can still jump in the lake when I'm 50, right? Get drunk and jump in there?"

Even coach Jim Tressel was asked what it would take to get him to make the leap into Mirror Lake.

"Probably have to shoot me and throw me in there in November," he cracked. "I'm not 19 anymore. We'll let the 19 year olds jump in."

But is he a Kipke?

Michigan has had 12 previous head football coaches. In their first meetings with OSU, those coaches are 10-1-1. The only coach to lose his first game against the Buckeyes was Harry Kipke, whose team lost 7-0 on Oct. 19, 1929.

— Rusty Miller, Associated Press