Mission Accomplished?

OSU FootballWhen you schedule a game with an opponent like New Mexico State, especially in the middle of the season, you can really only hope to accomplish a few things. You obviously need to win, convincingly. You have the chance to try out a few new wrinkles in your play calling. You must avoid injury of key players and you have to take the opportunity to get playing time for as many players as you can.

The only real winner of a match-up like this is obviously the athletic department of New Mexico State. They get paid and their football team gets to pay the price. Ohio State gains nothing from thumping them. Perhaps the New Mexico State athletes get a chance to taste of playing in an environment such as the Horseshoe, playing against elite athletes like Thaddeus Gibson and Terrelle Pryor. Ask New Mexico State QB #9 Jeff Fleming how much fun that is.

So we come out of Saturday’s game accomplishing most of the goals this game offered. If Aaron Pettrey had escaped unscathed, we’d say things went according to plan. But the way he’s been kicking the ball, maybe his injury was a blessing in disguise, a chance to work out any kinks he may have let sneak in to his technique.

Everything on defense went just about perfect. Only allowing two first downs was domination. The longest play from scrimmage was a 13 yard scramble by the aforementioned quarterback, Fleming. The defense also took the ball away three times, once in the endzone for a score. Holding a Division 1A school to under 100 yards of offense earns this Buckeye unit that rotated in a lot of reserves a million Buckeye Leaves.

The offense was Favre-like (it looked like they were just having fun). The trick play was fun to watch, I don’t care what those dunderheads on the radio say about it. Why not try something different? We’ve been saying Pryor should be a wide receiver (never meaning it, of course) and he was actually Posey’s first option. We should be happy, right? Of course, Posey looked him off to go deep to Sanzenbacher. Ironic.

Everything wasn’t perfect on offense. It was apparent that the Aggies were determined to stop the run and had moderate success at first. Of course the Buckeye line wore them out and there are just too many athletes to through at them. They were overpowered and overmatched. Seriously, how many backs carried the rock for Ohio State? Six? Eight? That was impressive.

One thing in the passing game I noticed was that the receivers seem to be out of sync at times with Pryor’s passing. It seems like they are used to his balls being under thrown and are have been slowing down on their deep routes. Couple this with Pryor’s passes appearing to be better thrown is causing for lots of missed opportunities. Almost as if a little trust has been lost. Let’s hope they get back on the same page.

All of that leads us to the next three weeks. Murderer’s row, if by murderers you mean a couple of slap fighting pansies and whatever abomination of a team Michigan is going to field on the 21st.

Comments

  1. Funny to watch JT pull out the tricky onside kick & a reverse pass to jump start his offense against hapless New Mexico yet can’t find those plays with the creativity against a USC.
    Anyone know how bad Terrelle’s hamstring injury is, hope we didn’t let Bauserman get too rusty without any playing time earlier this season?

  2. With Pryor playing inconsistently pretty much all year, Bauserman was never going to see the field.

    Pryor needed the reps.

    PS. I hope Pryor never gets injured, because Bauserman looked terrible.

  3. Other than 2 perfect throws Bauserman looked like a QB who hasn’t been getting much practice time. Johnny, don’t know if you ever saw the 2008 Spring Game but back then a lot of people thought he was clearly the best QB on the field. I understand Tressel is wanting to establish Pryor as the leader of this team and all, but basic player management dictates keeping your backup ready with reps at opportune times and we’ve seen very little of that this season. Just wondering if anyone had more insight.

  4. If we were going by spring games Taurian Washington would have won the Heisman and Terrelle Pryor would have been the 1st overall pick in the upcoming NFL draft.

    Bauserman also played horribly in the 2009 spring game, throwing a pick in the endzone.

    Bauserman gets reps during the week and prepares each and every week to be the starter. He has a full understanding of the weekly offensive game planning, however because of his limited athletic ability is limited to what he can do.

    Like every other program in HS/college/pro the starter gets the bulk of the reps in practice compared to the backup.

    When it does come time for the backups to play, they better be ready. Joe Bauserman clearly wasn’t ready.

    PS. The fade route is one of the easiest balls to throw. Simply lob it up there and let your guy beat the CB.

  5. Thanks for the info. Terrelle says he’s ready and looking forward to playing in Happy Valley. Again he’ll have his chance again to win his first important game.

  6. I just emailed someone very close to the team.

    Here is what he had to say about Pryor vs. Bauserman:

    “The gap between TP and Joe B. is Atlantic Oceanish”

  7. Great so we have two QBs who couldn’t complete 50% of their passes against the 111th ranked team out of 120. An offensive line that seems problematic. Will Happy Valley be a disaster, we always play them close but against a good defense Pryor has yet to perform well, what do you think?

  8. NMSU’s pass defense was ranked in the top 30 in the country…not bad.

    With more shots deep in the verticle passing game vs. man coverage a lower percentage was bound to happen.

    Happy Valley could very well be a huge disaster. Ohio State’s offensive line is average at best and is banged up. There will be tons of bootlegs and rollouts by Pryor to get him away from pressure.

    If Ohio State wins the turnover batter, they win the game.

Leave a Reply to jimmy JCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: