Ohio State freshman QB Terrelle Pryor is still using what ESPN’s Mary May said earlier this season about him not being ready for the big stage as motivation to prove critics wrong.

Pryor got huffy earlier this season before the Minnesota game about some fairly innocuous and well-reasoned comments May said about wanting to see Pryor perform on the big stage. He remains huffy.

“I’d love to battle against Mark May anytime,” Pryor said, before adding, “I don’t worry about what he says. I don’t even watch ‘SportsCenter.'”

Perhaps not. But Pryor clearly has rabbit ears for any perceived criticism, using it as motivational fuel.
“People don’t know what I can do,” he said. “They say I’m overrated. Wait and see. The time will come and you will find out.

“I didn’t prove anything yet. But I like playing with a chip on my shoulder.”

Pryor also put a charge into this Saturday’s Big Ten battle between Ohio State and Penn State when asked how it would feel playing in his home state of Pennsylvania this weekend.

“I don’t care,” Pryor said. “I’m from Ohio now. That’s still my hometown, but this is where I am now. I don’t need to make Penn State happy.”

I like this kid and I like this competitiveness. He seems to walk the line of being cocky and confident, but he doesn’t give off the impression that he’s just another mouthy athlete looking for attention. And you have to like a freshman quarterback that walks into his coaches office before a game and tells him to bench him if he doesn’t get the offense into the end zone on the first drive of the game.

Awful Announcing has video of the humorous, yet awkward exchange between Lou Holtz and Mark May of ESPN’s College Football show, where Lou blasts Texas QB Colt McCoy in one of the network’s on-air debates because he thinks he’s off camera.

That was just amazingly awkward and somehow still hilarious! The guy never ceases to amaze me. I think I’m going to coin a new term in this spot and that is the “Trainwreckability Scale” (which has no affiliation with Simmons’ “Unintentional Comedy Scale”). Right now Lou Holtz’s trainwreckabiltiy is sitting at an easy 95 out of 100. After his pep talk this week, he could shoot past 100.

Oh and the other thing is…..he was right. Colt McCoy was not a great QB last year and there were no stipulations about the debate being just for this year or just for one game.

That’s pretty funny, although obviously nowhere near Chris Berman’s off-camera meltdowns. And as for McCoy, he might not have been a good quarterback last year, but certainly has matured this season. He’s far and away the front-runner for Heisman after his performance against Oklahoma.

ESPN’s Mark May might not think so, but Ohio State freshman quarterback Terelle Pryor is clearly ready for the big stage of college football. Pryor certainly proved that last night in the Buckeyes’ 20-17 victory over Wisconsin.

Forced to pass in those final six minutes with OSU trailing, 17-13, Pryor threw to Brian Hartline for 19 yards, again for 27 yards, and finally hit Ray Small for 13 yards. On the long one to Hartline, who fumbled to teammate Brian Robiskie after the last of a night of savage Wisconsin hits, Pryor went to his third receiver. Coach Jim Tressel loves that kind of poise.

Pryor also made plenty of mistakes, “young” plays as he said. In the first half, he once threw deep for Brandon Saine, covered the way the tabloids cover Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. Wisconsin plucked it like a ripe grape.

He got turned the wrong way on a maximum blitz and had nowhere to put the ball. The result was a 16-yard sack, the second such huge loss he has absorbed in three games.

This is what good teams do to young quarterbacks. They mix it up. They hit him where he thinks they ain’t. They burst the bubble. He seemed caught in an agony of indecision at times, pump-faking, not finding open receivers, then eating the ball for losses.

In the last 90 seconds of the first half, deep in his own territory, Pryor could not find wide receiver DeVier Posey over the middle, although he was as open as a drive-thru window late. The three-and-out gave Wisconsin time to drive for the field goal that gave the Badgers a 10-7 halftime lead.

He could not get it into the end zone in the third quarter from first-and-goal at the 2. A field goal gave Ohio State a 10-10 tie.

The stage had dwarfed the freshman. What did you expect?

How could anyone reinflate a popped bubble?

He trotted onto the field, 80 yards from the touchdown he needed to steal the game. Camp Randall Stadium was rocking, seesawing from side to side on its foundations, as the Buckeyes reeled.

“Big drive,” Tressel told Pryor.

Big finish, too.

Pryor has been outstanding in his development so far and what’s even better is that he’s a fierce competitor. He’s motivated by what guys like May say about him, but not in a detrimental way. (At least not yet anyway.)

People expecting Ohio State to eventually take a step back, forget it. This kid is going to have the Buckeyes competing for a national title for the next couple years. Would have loved to see what he could have done with a full game against USC. OSU still might have lost, but I doubt it would have been the massacre it wound up being.