COLUMBUS — What’s brewing today with the 2009 Ohio State Buckeyes …

BUCKEYES BUZZ: Scarlet, gray, black and blue: That’s the Buckeyes these days.

Aaron Pettrey underwent successful, season-ending surgery to repair the medial collateral ligament in his right (kicking) knee Tuesday.

The rest of the Buckeyes are just bruised and beaten up.

QB Terrelle Pryor was held out of the second half of Saturday’s 45-0 bludgeoning of New Mexico State, in part because he had taken a few hits and was limping. Several observers said he was noticeably favoring the leg as he left the field.

Coach Jim Tressel was asked how Pryor was doing Tuesday as preparations got under way for Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. showdown at Penn State.

“He has ice bags everywhere. He’s got one on his (finger and) all the way down his body with his knees and his ankles and foot and so forth,” Tressel said. “We thought that he had been banged around enough and even when you don’t design things for him to get banged around, he likes to make plays and he attracts a crowd. But he’ll be ready to go.”

Tressel has talked all season about trying to keep Pryor fresh and unhurt. He tries not to run his quarterback as much as many would like, simply because he doesn’t want him to take a beating.

“You never envision things like that (being so bruised); we envision the next play,” Tressel said. “Do we send him down to break up the wedge on the kickoff? No. But when there’s a play that unfolds, we don’t tell him to run the other direction or don’t do what the team needs at that moment. This is a physical game and he’s got over 100 carries. But it’s a physical game and it’s a physical league and there’s more physical to come.”

AND IT WASN’T THE GOV: The most popular and highest paid public figure in the state was there — and so was the governor.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland showed up at Tressel’s weekly news conference Tuesday to discuss the National Child Identification Program, which is backed by the American Football Coaches Association. Wal-Mart provided a $250,000 donation to provide ID kits to 270,000 students in Ohio this month.

For more information, go to www.childidprogram.com

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Tressel was asked by a reporter if extra emphasis was being placed on trying to score early in the game at Penn State: “You put emphasis on trying to score (at any time).”

BIG TEN NOTEBOOK: With three weekends of Big Ten play remaining, seven teams still have a chance to win at least a share of the conference crown. … The only two teams to win Big Ten titles over the last four seasons will meet on Saturday when Penn State hosts Ohio State. … After improving to 6-2 last weekend, Wisconsin joined Iowa (9-0), Penn State (8-1) and Ohio State (7-2) as the fourth Big Ten team to become eligible for bowl competition. … The Big Ten surpassed the 4 million mark in football attendance last weekend for the 17th straight season.

TRESSELESE: Unedited and unabridged transcript of a Tressel answer today: “So it’s a very — it’s a very fast moment in their lives. What we’d like to be able to provide is as much guidance, as much logical thinking, as much reasoning, as much mentoring, parenting, whatever it happens to be to, as you used the phrase, make an impact on kids. Sometimes as teachers and there might be some teachers in the room, but you want people to learn the information now and digest all the lessons now. Well, that doesn’t always happen that way. What you’re hoping is that those seeds you plant some day, they’re able to grow. And maybe they can reach back into some of the experiences, some of the things they’ve learned, some of the things they’ve been exposed to, that we’ll impact their lives and I guess the affirmation of that that we get many times, especially in this age of easy communication, it used to be you had to sit down, write a letter, put a stamp on it and go all the way to the post office. Now you can shoot a thought to someone immediately.”