In Case You Missed It

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Miss me? I missed you. We only have so many more times to do this this year, only so many more times to memorialize this strange season in so many picture frames, as it were. It’s hard to believe it’s already week nine, heading toward the double digits.

SPEAKING OF WEEK TEN: The kick-off time for the Illinois game has been set for 3:30 on the ESPN.

BLAME YOU, BLAME ME, BLAME EVERYONE!: There’s not a whole lot more to be said about Saturday’s dismantling of the Penn State bandwagon that YNBA hasn’t already said, but I do want to point out just a couple things. These have probably already been said elsewhere, but bear with me. First off, as YNBA adroitly pointed out, those poor beleaguered Penn State fans have been beating to death that straw-man ref they built. It must feel so good. The cognitive dissonance is palpable. But those guys are actually sane compared to what I read over at BWI (Blue White Illustrated) after the game Saturday night. I’m choosing not to link them because I don’t want to subject you to that nonsense, but feel free to wade into their bizarro world if you want to. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Speaking of complaining about the refs, we all know that the biggest complaint came on the holding call against Penn State’s punt return team. As we often have to do with defending the pass interference call against Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, we must go, as they say, to the scoreboard: SCOREBOARD (via 7-11W).

Let me just set the scene. Bryce Haynes had previously been one of the first Buckeyes down on punt coverage, making a nice tackle the punt before. Penn State’s punt return team is instructed that someone (let’s call him Brad Bars) will be playing the part of Gandalf to Haynes’ Balrog. “You shall not pass” indeed. SCOREBOARD

(Full disclosure: I was a long snapper in high school. I had this, and all manner of other offenses, occur to me on the regular).

And we won’t even get into the Chaos theory that Penn State has to claim in order for that holding call to affect the game. As sportsMonkey pointed out to me this morning during our daily IMs: “so that play in the 2nd quarter… somehow made the OSU defense sack McGloin in the 3rd, then caused him to throw a pick six, then caused Miller to throw an INT, then caused PSU to kick a FG…”

And so on.

THE BEST DEAN SHAZIER IN THE LAND: I told SYR on Friday after Ryan Shazier tweeted:

that I no longer worried about the Buckeyes in this game. Shazier had his coming out party last year against Penn State and was primed for another breakout performance. His third quarter (and really, the whole game’s) performance bore that out. And his effort has been recognized by the B1G, being named Co-Defensive Player of the Week. Much deserved and a great tribute to his friend.

I’LL JUST SLIDE:

“Oh my God, Carlos [Hyde] was like, ‘You all right?’ so I need to practice that,” Miller said.

Yeah, Braxton’s going to have to practice avoiding those hits.

RUN, FAT BOY: Maybe it’s just me, but Jake Stoneburner runs like Tim Tebow.

MISC: No surprise here, Ohio State has cemented itself as the MOST POWERFUL TEAM IN THE BIG TEN. After the Michigan loss, I am obliged to link this. Metric Football: the Liter Bowl.

Comments

  1. Yes, but Stoneburner is our Tebow.

    I wonder if Shazier will continue to wear #48? Didn’t seem to hurt his play any.

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