Just a little over a year ago, I posted Jim Tressel’s comments about the importance of November. In part:

You do a lot of work prior to November, but the month of November really is the legacy that you leave.

Last November felt entirely different. Two cupcakes — Northwestern and Illinois — followed by what promised to be one of the biggest games in the history of college football. It felt a little like we were following a script. Like we were working towards something that had been ordained. And despite the fact that the Michigan game was exceedingly tight, I never felt like Ohio State was in jeopardy of losing the game.

And as we moved through December towards the title game, I never felt threatened. I didn’t think there was a chance we’d lose, no matter who the opponent was. Florida? Struggled to get through the season with only one loss. Big deal.

And we know how that turned out.

Though Ohio State is traveling down the same road, this season — this November — feels different. On Saturday, I started to see something I had witnessed before, against Michigan in 1996, against Michigan State in 1998, against Wisconsin in 2003 and 2004. I watched as the game started to slip away, just as it did in those four horrible instances. The 1996 and 1998 games ended what could have been national championship seasons. The two games against Wisconsin were almost worse; although neither carried the same weight, they were both instances of games we should have won, but didn’t. They just sort of slipped away — you looked up and realized that the fourth quarter was almost done, and we weren’t going to come back.

This season has been different the whole way through. The Washington game looked like a test when it was scheduled years ago, and it might have been if the Huskies’ quarterback hadn’t been starting just his third game. The other early games weren’t especially difficult, and we got to the Big Ten schedule without really knowing if the Buckeyes were any good. I was thinking Purdue was going to be tough; it wasn’t. The Kent State game, stuck in the middle of October, actually was a little boring. Penn State? The notion of a repeat of 2005 was terrifying; the reality was that we are better now, and the Nits aren’t nearly as good as they were.

I was actually hoping we’d get a test somewhere along the line, and on Saturday, we did.

The question hasn’t been whether Ohio State would face adversity — instead it’s in seeing how we would respond. The coaches calling the plays on Saturday actually were a little slow to change course, something Tressel admitted after the game, but once they did, the team responded as well as I could have hoped. I feel like I learned a lot more about this year’s team during the second half against Wisconsin than I did in the previous nine-and-a-half games combined.

But there’s still a lot I don’t know. I think we match up against Illinois pretty well. Juice Williams doesn’t throw the ball well, and if there has been one constant for Ohio State this season, it’s that no one runs the ball against us (except maybe for that little guy from Kent). The Badgers want to run, and they could find only 12 yards on the ground.

And then there’s that other team, which has been waiting for this game for an entire year. Their running back passed up the NFL and returned for his senior season, just to beat Ohio State. They’ll be playing for their coach, who will probably retire after this year. They’ll be playing to gain back the respect they lost when they couldn’t beat Appalachian State in the opener.

But that’s looking too far ahead; it’s the third test of November. One is done. The second comes up in just a few days. If this team is to have a legacy that’s remembered for all time, it has to pass the second test first.