It is approximately 140 miles (that’s a two-hour drive, folks) between Crappy Furniture Value City Arena in Columbus, Ohio and Progressive Field in Cleveland where duhOSU faced Michigan on Sunday. Yet, for Ohio State head coach, Mark Osiecki, it was much more than that. In fact it was so draining the Buckeyes required “time off for physical and mental reasons.” And, he has supplied us with another classic excuse after yet another duhOSU loss.

As you may recall, Osiecki said that classwork was the reason for the Buckeyes’ poor preparation leading to a loss to Miami back on December 9. Um, it’s college hockey, pal. Well now, he’s given us these reasons for last night’s 4-3 loss to Ferris State — in Columbus.

“We are just disappointed. We tried to be smart after last weekend with the travel and playing outdoors. We gave some time off for physical and mental reasons. We didn’t do a good enough job with the preparation.”

So, I guess the Buckeyes were simply unable to rebound from the “physical and mental stress” of a 280-mile roundtrip to Cleveland and still manage to play a home game the following weekend. If Osiecki is continually struggling with “preparation,” shouldn’t someone tell him college hockey games are played weekly and that you actually have quite a bit of time to prepare? In fact, Western Michigan head coach Andy Murray told USCHO beat writer Paula C. Weston just this week that he felt college teams are “well prepared.”

“You see how well prepared the teams are for each game because the coaches have a full week to prepare them,” said Murray. “The work of the coaches at this level is extraordinary.”

At some point you just have to stop making excuses — especially laughable ones. If Osiecki can’t get his team prepared, well, that speaks volumes about where that program is headed. The fact of the matter is that Ohio State is crashing back to the earth with a gigantic thud and all is becoming right in the world once more.

Only duhOSU folks.