by Bob Hunter, The Columbus Dispatch , The Columbus Dispatch

That's nice, giving the deposed senior a chance to start, but is this just a one- or two-play gimmick? If that's all this is, it's almost worse than giving a little kid a fat chocolate ice cream cone and then snatching it away ...

No reporter who watched the Boeckman story unfold this year could help but feel for him. He waited four years to become Ohio State's starting quarterback and finally won the job last season. He was named All-Big Ten, helped get the Buckeyes to the national championship game, famously lost, and then came back for another go at it in what would be his sixth and final season.

But when he struggled early, in part because of his own failures and in part because of the failures of the offensive line, the freshman phenom got a promotion after a 35-3 loss to Southern California in the third game of the season. That was pretty much it for Boeckman.

Boeckman was one of the team captains, so coach Jim Tressel continued to send him to postgame interview sessions, where he sat in front of dozens of reporters and a probing wall of TV cameras, answering questions as if he had taken every snap.

It wasn't easy to watch. He seldom smiled. You could tell he was hurting -- who wouldn't be? -- and he would have preferred to be anywhere else.

It seemed ridiculously awkward, a deposed senior having to sit there and answer questions, sometimes about how the kid quarterback had played. And as soon as his "responsibility" had ended, Boeckman was out of the chair as if it had given him a jolt of electricity.

Pryor's talent was just as obvious. In a program with a 105,000-seat stadium, a $3.5 million coach and an insatiable desire for success, Boeckman was collateral damage. This kid Pryor was better than good, and with an offensive line that offered scant protection, his ethereal running skills were precisely what the Buckeyes needed to put the season back on track.

Fans felt sorry for Boeckman, but there weren't many calls for his return to the lineup. He was even booed, or Tressel's decision was booed, when Tressel sent Boeckman into a game to replace Pryor. Boeckman was a victim of circumstances as much as his own limitations, but it was what it was.

So when Tressel admitted that he might use both quarterbacks at the same time in the Fiesta Bowl, it made for a good story, albeit one greeted with skepticism. Did he really have serious plans for the senior, or was he just throwing Boeckman a bone?

"Todd is a special guy," Tressel said afterward. "Every one of us wanted to do all we could to make him part of the plan. And when you have a little bit more time and you are not week to week to week game-planning, it is a little bit easier to do that."

Boeckman was part of the plan. He completed 5 of 11 passes for 110 yards, and with 7:26 left, the game morphed into a made-for-TV movie: Boeckman entered and threw a 5-yard fade in the end zone to a leaping Pryor that cut Texas' lead to 17-15.

There were smiles and even a few gasps in the press box. Even the most jaded journalist couldn't help but see the irony, couldn't help but think that in some mystifying way, the selfless Boeckman had been repaid.

Fans will be haunted for months by Colt McCoy's 26-yard touchdown pass to Quan Cosby with 16 seconds remaining that gave Texas its 24-21 victory. They will probably see safety Anderson Russell's arms slide off the slanting Cosby -- ooooh! -- and the receiver's race to the end zone in their sleep.

But for me, the lasting memory of the 2009 Fiesta Bowl will be Boeckman's touchdown pass to Pryor. In a me-first era, in which egregious egos are on parade every day, it showed that it really can pay to be a good teammate.

In the court of poetic justice, some things are almost as good as a victory.

Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch.

bhunter@dispatch.com

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