Presented without comment.

As always, stats are grabbed from cfbstats.com.

What a strange game that was.

This second look post is going to concentrate mostly on the offense but let me just state that the defense is mostly fine (the loss of Moeller SUCKS but with Nate Oliver’s return, I think we’ll be okay) and let me state the obvious and say Jonathan Hankins is going to be a manimal for years to come. He is a space eater and manhandles opposing linemen. It’s a joy to watch the boy play.

Also, something not many people seem to be talking about is how the wind affected the passing game. Why is that? Doesn’t fit the narrative? Anyway…

(Once I looked at my notes, this was a hot mess. Hopefully I can sum up the situations and that they’ll still make sense).

Let’s talk about the running game (and the offense in general).

I tried to concentrate a couple things watching the game a second time — line push, line assignments and backs finding the hole. During the first quarter, I thought the line was able to get movement up front and actually opened holes for both Saine and Herron which were both missed. This is going to be a common theme for Saine but Boom’s vision got better as the game progressed.

During the second drive of the second quarter, the line opens a HUGE hole that Saine hits but then stutter steps just before the line of scrimmage, right before contact that never actually comes and is subsequently tripped. It’s little things like this that have been plaguing Saine. The pass blocking was mostly okay but near the end of the half, Shugarts whiffs on 3rd and ten block that could have sprung Pryor for a decent run, possibly picking up the first instead of surrending a sack. This came after two missed passes (a poorly thrown ball to Sanz and a Posey drop) that set some bad joojoo in motion.

On the next possession, after the two drops and a sack on the preceding three plays, Pryor needed to calm down. Unfortunately, he tries to force a pass on the very next play into triple coverage and throws an INT. This is a coaching issue here. If there is one serious knock against Pryor, it’s that he presses too much and then makes boneheaded decisions like this. This fact is amplified on the very next possesion to close out the half. The possession starts out with a designed QB run that Pryor gets big yardage, setting up a TD. This comes about 3 minutes too late. When Pryor allowed to use his athleticism, it usually results in a big play and usually calms him down.

The second half was strange and kind of a blur. Losing Pryor was scary, but it was amazing how quickly Tressel went into turtle mode. It’s a credit to Herron that he was able to carry the load. As monkey pointed out, Herron carried the ball 19 times for 89 yards. 4.7 yards a carry is exactly what Tresslball calls for when a lead needs protecting and your superstar is unavailable.

I would have said the offensive line, on a scale of 1 to 5 played at about 3.5. The outside blitzing that Illinois did was troublesome, with both tackles missing pick-ups while helping inside on the defensive ends. This is easily correctable and when the tackles did recognize the blitz, they were mostly able to neutralize it. I’d also like to point out some more obviousness: Boren doesn’t miss blocks and he is really good at pushing people out of the way. I think I saw maybe one missed assignment by Boren.

So what to do about these running backs. Saine is not seeing any running lanes. He isn’t playing to his strengths. He had multiple times to beat defenders to the corners and inexplicably cut things back to the middle of the field. It’s almost as if he’s lost confidence. Boom is still playing like Boom and a 4+ yard per carry average is solid but it isn’t flashy. It is what fans want to see.

So what do you want to see? Who would you rather see in the backfield on Saturday?

[poll id=”6″]

Look, it’s easy.

At this point, five games into the season, OSU is 14th in the country in rushing offense, averaging 235 yards per game. The fact that the load is being shared by at least three players is irrelevant.

As a way of explaining my point, consider this: OSU is leading the conference in TD passes. Yet the team’s best receiver (Sanzenbacher) isn’t even one of the top three receivers in the league. Why? Because those TDs are spread across 6 different receivers.

Therefore, would anyone claim that OSU has a “passing problem” because one of its WRs isn’t getting the majority of the yards and TDs? Then why would the team have a rushing problem, just because more than one back was being used successfully?

Finally, consider what happened against the Illini last Saturday. It was reported that after Pryor returned from his injury late in the 3rd quarter, Tressel pulled him from the running game for safety reasons. At the same time, Saine was either on the sideline or being used as a slot receiver. At that point, the Buckeyes went into full Tresselball mode and did nothing but rush Herron over and over again, the line kept pounding away, the offense kept converting 1st downs, milking the clock, until Boom sauntered around the corner for the backbreaking TD.

The point being, when put in a position to rely on only one back, the team marched right down the field, averaging 4.1 yards per carry, and scored with what appeared to be relative ease.

Having said that, I agree with Saine’s critics in that he’s been dropping off a bit over the last couple of weeks, particularly with what seems to be “vision.” A few times I wondered if Lydell Ross was back on the field. Hopefully, he’ll get past this small slump and improve his consistency. No matter what, though, the Bucks are deep and talented enough to keep what is obviously a solid rushing game going.

Men of the Scarlet and Gray Ballot – Week 6

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama Crimson Tide	—
2	Ohio St. Buckeyes	—
3	Oregon Ducks	—
4	Boise St. Broncos	1
5	TCU Horned Frogs	-1
6	Nebraska Cornhuskers	3
7	Auburn Tigers	4
8	Utah Utes	—
9	Arizona Wildcats	5
10	Michigan St. Spartans	6
11	Oklahoma Sooners	1
12	LSU Tigers	1
13	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	2
14	Michigan Wolverines	4
15	Nevada Wolf Pack	2
16	Iowa Hawkeyes	6
17	Northwestern Wildcats	8
18	Miami Hurricanes	6
19	Wisconsin Badgers	-9
20	Missouri Tigers	—
21	South Carolina Gamecocks	-1
22	Kansas St. Wildcats	1
23	Florida Gators	-17
24	Stanford Cardinal	-17
25	Air Force Falcons	-4
Dropouts: Texas Longhorns

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

I feel mostly good about this. I struggled with ranking Ohio State and Oregon. I thought about flip-flopping the two after Oregon dismantled Stanford (man, how refreshing is it to watch Jim Harbaugh get thoroughly punked?). After comparing the two resumes, I still have to give the edge to Ohio State. The two marquee games for each school (Miami and Stanford) could be viewed as a “push”. The mere fact that Ohio State didn’t play a 1-AA school gives them the slight edge.

Auburn gets the big bump due to last week’s comments urging me to rank them higher and them looking very good five weeks into the season. Michigan State got a nice little bump for their victory over Wisconsin.

Also — have I been too harsh on Stanford and Florida? I deranked those teams with a certain amount of glee.

Comments, suggestions and rebukes in the comments section, please.

Yeah. That sucked.

In a game closer than the final score indicated, the Buckeyes managed to eke out a win. But it wasn’t pretty.

Positives

Uhhh, the Buckeyes won.

The defense played phenomenally once they pulled their heads out of their asses.

The kick and punt coverage wasn’t terrible

Negatives (Might want to sit down, this could take a while…)

The offensive line was terrible on run plays. Terrible. They managed to pick up a few first downs in short yardage, but each time was a minor miracle. No push at all.

The defense started out shaky before finally waking up.

Pryor left the game for a few minutes with a quad injury. As someone who has strained a quad, sprained an ankle, jacked up a knee, and blown out a hammy, let me just say that I’d rather have a strained quad than any of the other options. Hopefully that’s all it is and this doesn’t hurt the offense moving forward.

It seemed to hurt the offense this afternoon, though. At one point Tressel called something like 18 runs in a row, and it wasn’t good. The few series Bauserman played, he was terrible. 1 for 2 with a horrible, horrible interception that he threw despite having all the time in the world.

The announcers in this game were horrendous. I’m hoping that we later find out that it was a joke and we all got punked by the Big Ten Network, that they actually hired two random guys off the street to do commentary.

Meeting Expectations

What I wanted to see and how they fared:

1. Someone not named Terrelle Pryor rushing for over 100 yards for the Buckeyes – Nope
2. Fewer than five penalties by Ohio State while the game is still contested – Yep- 4 for 24 yards
3. A member of Ohio State’s defensive line gobbling up Scheelhaase and leaving him crying on the bench for a series or two – Nope, but they made him uncomfortable on several occasions.
4. The continued reign of Evil Tressel who popped his head up last weekend – Are you kidding?
5. Continued good play from the coverage units of the “special” teams – I’d say yes. They didn’t play terribly.

So there you have it. Here’s hoping Pryor’s injury is not serious. Discuss.

I am going to be busy pretty much all day today doing family-type things, so I probably won’t be able to participate in the live chat, but feel free to join your fellow Buckeye fans in there and feel free to use the comments here to post anything CFB related throughout the day. I’ll probably make it in here near around the Oregon/Stanford game.

Hit the jump for the Live Chat

[Read more…]

You’ll pardon if this is a mite short, but to be honest I’m still basking in the glory that is the Cincinnati Reds’ triumphant return to the playoffs after fifteen years wandering in the desert.

The season starts for real now, as the Buckeyes begin their campaign to win their sixth straight Big Ten title against the Fighting Zooks. The game begins at ten am out here in God’s Country, which means I’ll mercifully be spared hours of watching crappy Disney programming with my kids and will instead be able to focus on the more important things in life.

Due to the fact that, well, they’re terrible, I haven’t gotten to watch Illinois play since the first week of the season, where they got off to a promising start against Missouri before folding in the second half. The question is, which Illinois team will show up tomorrow? They have historically played Tressel pretty close, although their W-L record doesn’t reflect that.

Illinois is led on offense by Nathan Scheelhaase, a redshirt freshman who looked to me like a poor man’s Calista Forcier, who himself is a poor man’s Eric Crouch. A really, really, destitute, so-poor-that-he-was-sent-to-debtor’s-prison-in-Australia poor man’s Eric Crouch. Their best offensive player – at least on NCAA 11 – is Mikel LeShoure who wears jersey number 5.

And … yeah … that’s about all I can tell you about Illinois.

I have expected the Buckeyes to come out flat in every single game they were supposed to dominate so far this year, only to be horribly wrong every time. Hopefully that trend continues.

What I’d like to see tomorrow:

1. Someone not named Terrelle Pryor rushing for over 100 yards for the Buckeyes.
2. Fewer than five penalties by Ohio State while the game is still contested.
3. A member of Ohio State’s defensive line gobbling up Scheelhaase and leaving him crying on the bench for a series or two.
4. The continued reign of Evil Tressel who popped his head up last weekend. Let’s not forget 2007, gentlemen. Illinois hasn’t paid the full price for their impudence yet, if you ask me. And THAT WAS STILL A FUMBLE THE PLAY BEFORE THEIR FIRST TOUCHDOWN IN THAT GAME! ARE YOU F*&$ING KIDDING ME? HOW DO YOU NOW REVIEW THAT?!? Sorry, moving on…
5. Continued good play from the coverage units of the “special” teams. They weren’t bad last week. Let’s keep it up.

Final score prediction*: Buckeyes 41, Illini 17

*all predictions subject to change after the fact. The opinions of Bacon Ninja regarding the outcome of Ohio State games are purely hypothetical and do not necessarily represent his true feelings on the matter. In fact, for the purposes of supersition and jinx avoidance Bacon Ninja offers a generic prediction of Opponents 72, Ohio State 0 for every game this season, unless they are playing an SEC school in which case the prediction will change to Opponents 347, Ohio State negative 30.

Ahead of the Illinois game, let’s bask in the light of some of the highlights from the four non-conference games. This video comes courtesy of MotSaG video guy, MannyCincy. It is, as the kids say, *tight.

*Do the kids still say that? I’m not really sure.

Time for the Numbers! I love it. Your father loves it. Your Aunt Neda watches it every night in the VCR.

Presented without comment. Just for clarification: Illinois’ 100% red zone is based on NINE trips to the red zone. Ohio State has 18 touchdowns scored in the red zone.

As always, stats are grabbed from cfbstats.com.

For the first four weeks of the season I have heard, week after week, from my fellow Buckeye fans the same questions and concerns. What is wrong with the run game? Why doesn’t Berry get more carries? What is wrong with Saine and Herron?

My answer to my fellow Buckeyes is complex lol no it isn’t it is simple. Here goes nothing:

This is nuts. We are 14th in the nation in rushing offense — ahead of MSU, which is a rush first offense. We average 240 yards a game rushing. This is not a RB issue. We are a team and we use a stable of RBs to get the job done. We have a feature back in the Eddie George/Beanie Wells type players in Terrell Pryor. We have scat backs and power backs and receiving backs. Who cares if it isn’t the same person doing all that. As a TEAM the rushing game is just peachy keen, better than most in the Big 10 and Country. If and when we get in a tough game where we need a big running game to help us win there is no doubt we will see a heavy load of Saine and Herron. We just haven’t needed to do that and hopefully never will. We are a pass first offense this year but the rushing game isn’t being ignored. A well balanced team is the best you can hope for — 266 yards a game passing and 240 a game rushing seems pretty awesome to me.

This brings up the point of the day for me — OSU fans nitpicking and never being happy and expecting the worse to always happen. Most OSU fans are glass half empty people. Smile, OSU fans, enjoy the season be happy. The problems that people seem to have with the team are mostly unfounded blown up small situations. Yet some of you week after week act like this team is as bad as Minnesota or Purdue. Step back and look at the big picture of this team and maybe you will find your happy place.