Ohio State Buckeyes Recap : Week 2

The Ohio State Buckeyes once again performed in front of a national audience and once again failed to come out on top.  Many Buckeye supporters and national pundits alike are pointing to Ohio State performing better and have nothing to be ashamed of.  Excuse me; we are not talking about directional-tech-A&M- university.  This is Ohio State!  There are no such things as moral victories in Columbus.  The fact is Ohio State made critical mistakes, poor coaching decisions and laid an egg when it mattered most.  The last three seasons and this USC performance are very similar to the John Cooper era notwithstanding the Michigan victories.

The fact is at places like USC, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio State and a few others, unlike Pro Football, they have superior talent 85% of their games.  Using that figure, an average season for these schools should be 10-2. There are times where this isn’t always the case but that is rare.  Many point to the SEC, which is frankly a ridiculous argument.  Florida has superior talent over everyone in the conference with Alabama being the only possible exception.  For Ohio State, Penn State is the only team in the Big Ten with equal talent.  That has been the case since 2006.  With that being said, the Buckeyes face one tough team outside of the conference and Penn State on an average season.  Anything below 10-2 means the Buckeyes lost games where they had superior talent. This explains why Pete Carroll, Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier and the like cannot win at the pro level.  In the pros they are competing on a level playing surface.  In college they are kings, in the pros they were lowly peasant’s i.e. average coaches.  Many apologists point to those coaches mentioned not being able to use their motivational talents but in reality they cannot out strategize opponents like a Bill Belichick can, they can only win if they have superior talent.  So what does this say about the Buckeyes?  The coaching staff isn’t making a difference on the field, only on the recruiting trail. 

Offense:  The Buckeyes were horrible offensively although the offensive line played much better than recent big game blunders.  The running game suffered but this was a direct result of the Trojans stuffing the box.  Inexplicably, QB Terrelle Pryor did not audible out of the running plays.  Boom Herron ran hard but the sledding was tough.  RB Brandon Saine was used as a receiver and could not be covered by the USC linebackers yet wasn’t used in critical junctures.  The passing game was putrid with part of the issues surrounding Pryor’s inexperience but the bigger problem was surrounding the conservative play calling.  Pryor has supreme athletic ability which can change games from the pocket.  Instead, Coach Tressel called option plays which essentially boxed Pryor in.  The perfect analogy is setting screens for a player like LeBron James; you are bringing defenders to him instead of giving him space to work his magic.  In key 3rd and 4th down short yardage situations, the Buckeyes would either get cute or run it up the gut against a stacked USC defense.  Pryor’s athletic ability was taken out of the equation.  To quote Herm Edwards, you play to win the game.  No matter what Pryor’s long range goals are, Tressel needs to put him in the best positions TO WIN THE GAME.  On this night, that didn’t happen. 

Defense: The Buckeye defense was very effective.  The D-Line roughed up the much ballyhooed O-Line of the Trojans for most of the game.  The Linebackers, especially Brian Rolle, filled gaps and applied pressure to freshmen QB Matt Barkley.  However, yet again, strategically the Buckeyes were outcoached in critical situations.  Similar to the end of last season’s Fiesta Bowl loss to Texas and week one’s matchup against Navy, the Buckeyes defense looked lost in the 2 minute drill.  Even worse, facing a banged up freshmen QB, in front of 105,000 screaming Buckeye fans, the defense didn’t stack the line and apply pressure.  Barkley was given a one read option and the Buckeyes didn’t force him to make multiple reads.  The Buckeyes stayed with a vanilla defense and similar to the losses to Florida and LSU, they kept their base defense on the field in crucial 3rd and long situations.  This resulted in Ross Homan covering Joe McKnight.  Homan is a good player but the fact is very few professional linebackers could cover McKnight one-on-one in that situation; a catastrophic blunder by defensive coordinator Jim Heacock.

Coaching: If Ohio State was a professional organization, the owner would force Coach Tressel to relinquish his play calling duties and hire a true offensive coordinator.  His style of play calling and conservative game management will create close games against inferior foes and losses against teams with equal talent.  The offensive line play has been brutal throughout Tressel’s tenure including the 2002 championship team.  The defensive strategy was horrible in key situations yet again in a big game.  Heacock kept linebackers in the game versus both Florida and LSU’s quick slot receivers, which resulted in Ohio State appearing not to have speed as players like Percy Harvin ran free.  Few if any linebackers could cover that type of speed in space.  Winning defenses would have went nickel and slowed down the onslaught.  Evidently, Heacock didn’t learn his lesson as he applied the same strategy against one of the quickest running backs in the nation, Joe McKnight.  Overall, Jim Tressel has done a very good job at Ohio State and he will always bring class and dignity to the position.  However, his typical post game press conference-“we played hard”, isn’t satisfying the Buckeye faithful who are looking for some fire and passion.  Coach Tressel needs to evaluate this coaching staff and make necessary changes.  Coach Tressel is very loyal and this loyalty has hurt him.  The Buckeyes have a friendly schedule for the rest of the season with the only tough games being at Penn St. and at Michigan.  The 2010 season will set up even better as all difficult games will be held at the Shoe.  The future is still bright in Columbus despite the setbacks.  The question is: will Tressel put away his stubborn ways?  Only he knows the answer.

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