CHICAGO - They kept checking their cell phones on the bus, hoping for any bit of information, any hint of a score or a yardage or whether or not their chance at another Big Ten championship still remained.

Ohio State had lost to Penn State a week earlier, putting the Buckeyes behind in the race for the Big Ten title and another shot at the Rose Bowl. Having dispatched Northwestern earlier that November day, 45-10, Kurt Coleman and his teammates started to hear rumblings of an upset in Iowa City.

Without access to a television, they did the next best thing.

“We were on the bus back and I couldn’t explain it,” Coleman said. “We had our phones, listening. It was a great feeling knowing we’re still in the title hunt if we beat Michigan the next week.

“It was a great bus ride back. It definitely made my night. Made my night.”

Iowa upset Penn State that night, allowing Ohio State to end up tying for the Big Ten title. While the Buckeyes didn’t go to Pasadena, they kept alive the streak.

For the past four years, it has been Ohio State and then everybody else in the Big Ten. In the span, they’ve been to two BCS title games and two Fiesta Bowls. They’ve dominated as the class of the Big Ten, which has brought national criticism when it comes to bowl games but adulation for the rest of the year.

It also has given something else to Ohio State: Pressure.

There’s often the feeling that builds among successful programs. When Syracuse lacrosse made 22 straight Final Fours, players openly talked about not wanting to be the senior class or part of the team to break the streak. The same sort of conversations likely happened at North Carolina, where the women’s soccer program had been dominant over the past two decades.

And at UCLA, when John Wooden and his team won 88 straight games, the coach openly said his team faced mounting pressure with each win.

Welcome to your new reality, Ohio State.

“It’s something that you don’t want to let go, coming in here and everybody winning Big Ten championships,” defensive end Doug Worthington said. “It’s the norm, but the norm that you can’t settle in.”

Ohio State saw that last year when Penn State beat the Buckeyes in late November setting up that bus ride.

After that loss and part of the next week, Ohio State’s players couldn’t help but wonder if this was it, if this was the year the dominance finally ended.

Yet they regrouped and with a bit of help, the streak lived on for another year.

“You don’t want to be the team that stops the streak,” Coleman said. “Like the Michigan streak we have, you don’t want to be the senior class that loses to Michigan. You don’t want to have that feeling.

“When we go out there, we’re trying to prove we’re the best.”

That hasn’t been an issue lately within the Big Ten. And the Buckeyes are poised for another run. Sophomore quarterback Terrelle Pryor was named the conference’s preseason offensive Player of the Year.

This year, though, could pose a challenge. Penn State appears poised to make a run at another Rose Bowl. Other teams are lurking and Ohio State has to replace running back Beanie Wells and Ohio State coach Jim Tressel called this year’s Buckeyes the youngest he can remember in his tenure.

Yet Ohio State, unsurprisingly, was picked to win the league again in the preseason. Just another thing to add to the list.

The youth could be an issue. Tight end Jake Ballard remembered when he was a freshman. He played with a Heisman Trophy winner in quarterback Troy Smith and reached the BCS title game.

Even now, he said that was “overwhelming.” It is also what he figured would happen.

“You expect to come to Ohio State and have an opportunity to win the Big Ten and maybe go farther and have the opportunity to play for a national championship,” Ballard said. “I think it’s kind of, you look forward to the task and that’s why you come to a big school like this, to win a championship.

“Or, get a chance to.”

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for annarbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558 or by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com.