Archives for September 2009

Thursdays from MotSaG’s West Coast Bunker…

OSU FootballThe week of impending doom is upon us. The Boys from Troy will invade the Horseshoe this weekend. From what we at MotSaG can tell, this looks to be an epic beatdown just waiting to happen. I mean really it is the perfect storm for a team to come into Columbus and win with a freshman quarterback in front of 105,000 crazed and mildly intoxicated OSU fans.

It just makes sense…right?

So let’s just recap some of this week’s happenings with the USC game looming and some other interesting tidbits that have occurred over the last 7 or so days…

  • USC freshman quarterback Matt Barkley already talking to OSU fans telling them to “Bring it on…” Trust me Matt. They wont be cheering for you…they’ll be cheering the Song Girls….and OSU.
  • In an “Allow me to retort moment,” Terrelle Pryor says it has already been “broughten” (via Twitter) with a simple yet effective “It’s on…”
  • Terrelle Pryor saluting PETA in his own particular idiom (or Vick eyeblack stickers) and then (in a moment of sheer awesomeness displayed by the OSU SID for allowing this to happen) TP spoke about his reasoning for the eyeblack stickers. Penn State fans immediately pile-on and say that this is why he isnt enrolled at State College (ya know…because he speaks like a 19 year old kid)…or they could go the rational route and say that he didnt want to attend their fine institution in the middle of a corn field…or play quarterback in college and become a running back.
  • Media states obvious…USC has an unbelievable backfield with a few viable options that consist of Chuck Norris, Bill Brasky (and his 253 illegitimate children, which he carries in his left sock…with heavy tape…of course), and a living and independently mobile piece of Tim Tebow’s leg hair.
  • Calling it now…Regardless of the result for USC in C-Bus, USC is going down in Seattle the following week. Bad week for USC to play Washington, who always plays USC tough in Husky Stadium.
  • In other news, Michigan beat a MAC team and its return to glory is in full swing
  • In other other news, Notre Dame beat Nevada and its fans are already making bowl arrangements to Pasadena
  • While it was a little while back, our fair and balanced (in a Fox News kinda way) compadre Brian over at MGoBlog (and no I am not linking and giving that site any traffic from this post, as childish as that sounds) decided to take a swipe at the ‘civility’ of OSU fans and the responsibility of OSU blogs and other outlets to condone ill feelings towards a Gray Decker and his “Fists of Fury” escapade on Tyler Moeller’s face. Ironically, this post on The Sporting Blog drew the ire of our buddy Jeff at the BBC who had some sensitive content incorrectly attributed, “HTML-mistakenly tagged” as originating from his site. Jeff…Did you ever get your apology from Brian? While most of us appreciate Brian’s writing ability, eloquent wit, and occaisional LOLCATZ! humor; character and maturity has never been a strong point for him (Kittenz after Appy State?…and more recently “The Rosenberg Involuntarily Voluntary Practice Jihad”).
  • Well at least UM fans in SE Michigan that didnt go to UM (roughly 95% from a survey I made up for this bullet) are past crayons…skipped LOGO…and moved onto MS-Paint. Some solid work over there boys. Can you guys put together a purple unicorn for me? Maybe one with confetti for flames coming out if its nostrils?
  • A side note…this time of year makes people care about baseball even less….unless you are a Yankee or Red Sox fan because ESPN LOOOOVES you, but God hates you, so it is a wash…
  • In Proper Football (Soccer) news, the US Men’s National Team won its World Cup qualifiers against El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobago in the last week. They are at the top of the CONCACAF group and are pretty much a shoe-in for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Premier League picks back up this weekend. I am flying into C-Bus and will be at Tommy Keegan’s Saturday morning taking in Liverpool-Burnley and Tottenham-Manchester United. Stop by and say “Hello Govna” before the long day of waiting for the big game at 8PM.

~YNBA~

Apparently hating Ohio State runs in the family

USCIt sounds like Carson’s little brother, Jordan Palmer, has taken up the mantle of bad-mouthing Ohio State and its fans on a local LA sports radio talk-show. If you’ll remember, Carson had some choice words for OSU fans this time last year. This year it’s Jordan’s turn.

I don’t have the exact quote but i did hear the entire clip on 97.1 The Fan this afternoon on the drive home. The gist of the comment was:

I hate Ohio State fans and their stupid Ohio State decals and their dumb state pride and I can’t wait until USC comes in to the ‘Shoe and WE beat the Buckeyes again.

Yes, he did say “we”. For those of you who might remember, Carson Palmer played at USC. Jordan, on the other hand, played at that perennial power house UTEP.

The same Jordan Palmer who received a vote in the Heisman from, you guessed it, his brother.

If anyone has the audio, I’ll be your best friend for life.

2009 Blogpoll Ballot, Week #1 (final)

With help from the crowd:

Rank Team
1 Florida
2 Texas
3 Southern Cal
4 Alabama
5 Oklahoma State
6 Penn State
7 Mississippi
8 Brigham Young
9 Ohio State
10 California
11 Boise State
12 LSU
13 Georgia Tech
14 Oklahoma
15 TCU
16 Nebraska
17 Utah
18 Notre Dame
19 Oregon State
20 North Carolina
21 Kansas
22 Cincinnati
23 Miami (Florida)
24 Virginia Tech
25 Pittsburgh

Fill in the blank

FootballVia Doc. Saturday, we get this choice quote from all-universe freshman Matt Barkley about his performance, after finishing off San Jose State

Among other things, Barkley was asked by a reporter on the field what he had learned about himself as a quarterback.

“That this is fun. This is easy. This is what I was made to do,” Barkley said.

I asked Barkley if there was anything that was difficult.

“The run up the tunnel at halftime,” he said. “That was brutal.”

So let’s have a little fun. Fill in the blank for Mr. Barkley:

Among other things, Barkley was asked by a reporter on the field what he learned about playing in the Horseshoe against the Ohio State Defense.

“_______________________________,” he said. “That was brutal.”

New defensive backfield

OSU FootballLooks like the Buckeyes are retooling the defensive backfield going in to the USC game. Jermale Hines is in as strong safety, Kurt Coleman moves over to free safety and Anderson Russell is the odd man out.

Not really, I guess. The Buckeyes will probably be in a lot of nickel looks and Russell will be in there.

No need to panic, but Holy Moses on a Croissant, shuffling people around makes me nervous.

Navy Game Recap and Roundup

OSU FootballThe end is nigh.

At least that’s what a lot of people would sure like you to believe. Yes, we saw the game. Yes, it was A LOT closer than it should have been. Yes, Navy is a good team that went to a Bowl Game last year and will go to one this year. But some of the concern Buckeye fans are feeling may not necessarily be so.

First and foremost — that thing that might be called fate or destiny or things don’t always go your way:

Saine Facemask no-call

Had this been called, the Buckeyes are in the red zone and most likely score. The score is no longer suddenly close. It’s 36-14 with about six minutes to go. The Buckeyes cruise, cover the spread and take care of business. Instead, we turn Ricky Dobbs into David and almost catch a slingshot to the forehead. Luckily, we have our Goliath, one Brian Rolle. Order is temporarily restored until chaos breaks out in Buckeye Nation. Doubts are sown, fingers are pointed and “Oh NO, we suck again!”.

I’m not saying things are rosy. I’ve been a glass-mostly full kinda-guy for a long time. But things are not perfect. But let’s do a little Navy game recap and then leave it in the rear-view mirror.

A few Silver Bullet points:

  • Line play: was it that bad? I am in the camp that thinks the line still has issues. I need to go back and watch the game again, but outside of Boren, I wasn’t impressed. Browning looks tentative, Brewster missed assignments and the full backs (who are, for the most part, a sixth lineman) looked confused. In the camp of “it isn’t that bad” is Jeff Amey at The-Ozone. Solid points, but I’m not sold.
  • Linebackers: Brian Rolle and Ross Homan played good, if not completely consistent. Rolle is a spark-plug that is going to be fun to watch and Homan played solid. On the other hand, the Austin Spitler did not impress with his performance against Navy. When you look slow against Navy, that’s a very bad thing. The thought of him keeping up with USC’s backs is already giving me nightmares. How about working in a little Eighty-yen?
  • Defensive Backs: If Homan gives me nightmares, the DBs are apocalyptic visions of DOOM. Kurt Coleman started out slow, was taking bad angles and was out of place, but ended the game with some nice plays. Anderson, rightfully so, has taken the brunt of the blame for the 85 yard Dobbs pass and lacking in the run support department. This game may cost him playing time, as word out of practice is that Jermale Hines is working with the first team. Chekwa and Amos let Navy WRs beat them, which is nigh unacceptable.
  • The Rest of the Offense: It warmed my cold, dead heart to no end to see Saine healthy and running hard. Others have said he seemed to avoid contact, but I didn’t see it. Herron looked a little tentative, but still has a motor. Pryor gets a B+ for his effort. Most of his passes looked okay, but they are still floating occasionally and his footwork still has room for improvement.

I could go on, but others have covered this ground. Preparations are already in full-effect for USC, but things need to improve drastically before Saturday. No “chilling out” this week.

2009 Blogpoll Ballot, Week #1 (draft)

We skipped the first week of the Blogpoll for a couple reasons. I’d like to say it was about sticking to our principles (that we think preseason polls are dodgy at best) but it was really about not getting it submitted on time.

This year, we’re trying a new way to doing these things. In years past, since we have multiple writers here at the site, we’ve each filled out a ballot that I’ve aggregated together and submitted as a group effort. This year, I’m going to put the ballot together and present it here for everyone to comment and discuss. We’ll make the necessary adjustments and then submit a final ballot each Wednesday.

So I present our first Blogpoll ballot for your derision and correction:

Rank Team
1 Tebows
2 Texas
3 Southern Cal
4 Alabama
5 Mississippi
6 Oklahoma State
7 Ohio State
8 Penn State
9 Brigham Young
10 California
11 Boise State
12 LSU
13 Georgia Tech
14 Oklahoma
15 TCU
16 Nebraska
17 Utah
18 Notre Dame
19 Oregon State
20 North Carolina
21 Kansas
22 Miami (Florida)
23 Cincinnati
24 Virginia Tech
25 Michigan

1-10, I’m pretty confident in. 11-20, I’m shaky. 21-25 is a crapshoot. Yes, I threw Michigan in there. No, I don’t know why. I also struggle ranking teams that are winless (Oklahoma, Virginia Tech) but I don’t know how to handle teams that I thought would eventually be top-ten teams.

So please, straighten this out. Help me submit the perfect ballot.

Week #1: OSU vs. Naval Academy Live-ish Blog

We’re trying something new this season for our gameday live blogs. We normally do a somewhat live, but not really live, blog during the games, with the comments open for all who want to join in. This week, we’re trying out the live blogging widget, Cover it Live, with some of our fellow live bloggers. This is a trail run, to see how it goes for the remainder for the season. We’re still leaving the comments open for all to use. Let us know what you prefer. You’ll find the CiL widget below.

Update: Standby, currently struggling with technical difficulties.

Update 2: If we can’t get the widget working, we’ll revert to the open thread format.

Update 3: TA-DA:

Week #1: Naval Academy – Open Thread

FINALLY! It felt like this day would never get here, where we were sat less than twenty-four hours until kick-off.

Because I wore myself out writing last night, I’m making this one short. For starters, let’s look around the Buckeye web for previews: The O-Zone, Buckeye Commentary, Buckeye Planet, and our good pals at Eleven Warriors.

A few bullet points:

  • Starting against Navy seems like a double edged sword. On one hand, the defense should learn discipline and assignments. On the other hand, we’ll never see an offense like this again
  • Everyone is talking about it: the chop-block technique vital to the triple option attack. The makes it imperative that the offense get on the board early and often. Let the back-ups take the punishment. Someone is going to get hurt. This seems inevitable. The possibility makes me nervous.
  • Playing the run so much this week may pay off dividends for next week’s game against USC, since they may have to rely heavily on the run to take the burden off freshman Matt Barkley (if he is still the starter in week two).
  • Plenty of players should see the field this week. I’m looking forward to seeing the future of the Buckeyes in the third and fourth quarters.

Predictions

As we’ve done in the past, we plan on awarding prizes. Unfortunately they aren’t quite ready, so this week will be a warm up for the rest of the season. This week we’ve got three questions:

  • Final Score
  • Can the Buckeyes hold the triple-option attack to under 178 yards? How many yards do they give up?
  • Name one newcomer (non-starter from last year) to have the biggest impact on the game.

el Kaiser’s predictions
Final score: OSU 38 Navy 10
Rush defense: Yes, 159 yards
Newcomer: Brain Rolle

Sylvester Yon-Rambo’s predictions
Final score: OSU 52 Navy 3
Rush defense: Yes, 87 yards
Newcomer: Justin Boren

sportsMonkey’s predictions
Final score: OSU 27, Navy 13
Rush defense: Yes, 175 yards
Newcomer: Berry

Don’t let them thru that line (2009 Defensive Preview)

OSU FootballWith the offensive preview out of the way, let’s take a quick (read: short) look at the defensive unit that we’ll see during the 2009 season. In the manner of the previous post, we’ll look at what we know and what we don’t. Dreams and fears. Lots to talk about. Let’s get to it.

What we know

We can safely say that Ohio State will always field a formidable defense. Occasionally, we’ll get a defense that is dominating. This year, I think as this front seven develops as a unit, we’ll be leaning toward the latter.

We know we’ll be fronting some manimals on the defensive line. Maximus and Hammerhead at the ends, Worthington and Larimore in the middle and a bevy of guys to rotate in: Rose, Wilson, Denlinger. Scary. Will the illustrious College Football Gods please give us one healthy year of Lawrence Wilson? You didn’t smile on Beanie last year. How about a mulligan?

gibson_denlinger

We’ll discuss the linebackers in the next section, but I do know this: I can’t wait to see Brian Rolle play. I honestly fear for opposing teams, as I think he may actually kill someone.

The defensive backfield is also a source of unknowns, but we should have a measure of security knowing Anderson Russel and Kurt Coleman will be patroling the middle of the field quite well. I don’t think there’s a lot to be worried there.

What we don’t know

The cornerback position. Chimdi Chekwa is the only CB will extended play experience. Andre Amos and Devon Torrence are battling for the other CB position. Amos has been tagged as the starter for the Navy game, but Torrence will push for playing time. Redshirt freshman Travis Howard could see some play time. I also hope (and expect) we get heavy doses of Jermale Hines. Not only does the defense suffer when he isn’t in there, it’s we fans who suffer.

amos_russell

Then there’s the linebackers. The future there has been cloudy since earlier this month when Tyler Moeller was lost for the season. We were all planning on seeing Tyler everywhere on defense. Now, we’ve got three relatively new faces with a whole lot of potential and not a whole lot of playing time. Spitler and Homan have seen a lot of the field, but playing behind Little Animal and Marcus Freeman will have an effect on your playing time.

So who will be the break out linebacker? My money is behind Brian Rolle, but I’m waiting for Etienne Sabino to show us something and Dorian Bell has a lot of people buzzed, if he sees the field. But what I’ve seen and heard of Rolle, the guy has a one-track mind and a one-speed gearbox: full speed.

What we fear

I personally fear I’m overestimating the team on the defensive side of the ball. A lot of people are saying this front four is one of the best in the country. I’m inclined to believe the same. But I have this nagging doubt that it won’t turn out that way. Injury or overconfidence or youthful mistakes. I hope we can avoid this while these kids grow up.

I mentioned it in the offensive preview, and I’ll say it again here: My psyche can’t take another really bad game with everyone watching. I try my best to avoid what others say about my beloved Buckeyes, but I can only ignore so much. One big game, say, against USC would go a long way in rebuilding that eroding OSU aura.

What we hope

This one is easy:

Mongol General Tressel: Wrong! Thaddeus, what is best in life?
Thaddeus: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!
Mongol General Tressel: That is good.

To the pain!