I am ridiculously reinvigorated in Buckeye football by tonight’s win against Wisconsin. Here is one hour worth of thoughts….
First Highlights from ESPN and Bucknuts below. Mad love to Bucknut’s Eric Porter for working with ESPN and getting this video up and running.
If you got some time to watch the video you will see a couple of things
1) Chris Wells is no doubt the best running back in college football when healthy.
2) Terelle Pryor is freaking awesome and maybe further along then VY was in college.
Ok now what I posted on Bucknuts….
– Lets start with Pryor. He had flashes of greatness as well lapses in decision making. The main thing is that he led us to victory and looked totally calm and composed the entire game. Not rattled a bit by the atmosphere and the tenseness/tightness of the game.
First the bad: Holly Rowe implied he is not yet a vocal leader, but when you play like that and you are just a freshmen, its pretty much a non issue. The pick he threw was really bad. It wasn’t there at all. Needed to check off or run. Saine could have made a better play on it, but hey he is not a receiver. That’s a ball I can see Michael Jenkins making something happen on(either breaking up or hell maybe even ripping it away). Either way it should have never been thrown.
He missed Posey pretty bad when it was right there for the taking on a deep in or drag route. Looking directly at him and didn’t fire him the ball. One thing with Pryor is that the way he throws does not lend well to putting very fine levels of trajectory on throws. So far I am impressed he has avoided some picks on pass plays 15 yards plus and he may have been wary of a late dropping LB into that route, but yeah he has to make that throw.
Also 4 sacks…..many of which occurred after ample time to do something. This is a necessary evil of Pryor. If the blocking is there, he surveys the field, confident in his athletic ability can handle any late breaking pass rushers. This serves our passing game well.
However 2-3x where he did get sacked he had some room to either tuck and run, or at least start stringing the play out by moving around rather then being upright. The good thing is that we were worried about this guy taking off too soon on passing downs ala Michael Vick and maybe VY a bit. Not the case, but if all the routes have been run, nothing is there and the receivers are beginning to improvise, Pryor needs to start improvising himself at that moment and today he was a split second slow resulting in some heavy losses.
The good/great: 15 carries for 20 yards? No not really. Taking out the 4 sacks he had 11 carries for 57 yards (5.2 average). Against Wisconsin that’s a huge boost to the offense. Pryor showed a pretty high football iq, considering he is a freshmen. More on this hopefully tomorrow. But out of all the things we learned today, that is a huge takeaway. Yeah I signaled out a handful of plays he didn’t do what he should have done, but I can find you maybe 2 dozen or so plays where he looked extremely composed and did exactly what he needed to do. His receivers did not help that much today too…… Get use to some scary looking passes. Roethsberger is a guy I see a lot and I feel a lot of his passes barely avoid being intercepted that find their way to be big completions. I am talking 2-3 passes a game where maybe 1-3 guys seem to be within 3 yards away from making a pick at some point on the throw. These are typically Big Ben’s money throws.
Pryor’s throwing mechanics will dictate some of these type of balls, but the thing is that he gets them to where they need to go. I feel like an absolute bonehead for not DVR’ing this game (if someone sends me a DVD, I can break down this game more), but some of Pryor’s best plays were plays that for a second had me worried. It’s actually going to be really interesting seeing Pryor go against Juice. Very similar, but actually very very different at the same time. Juice throws bullets. He isn’t careful and just loves throwing darts down the field. He runs, but runs very differently then TP. Pryor as a passer is really impressing me. Maybe not the actual throws individually, but the body of work thus far is impressive. Tressel is calling some good plays on passing downs, but we need to begin letting him throw maybe 10% more or so ramp him up as the year goes on. 40 runs and 19 passes although with sacks countered in there its actually 36 runs and 23 passes. Down the road in a game like this I would probably begin to start seeing more of a 32-27 split on that amount of plays in favor of running. He forced one dumb one and missed some opps, but everything else were great. He knows the throws he can make down field and those that he can’t. Accuracy is good although you wish certain balls got there a little differently, the point is they get there. The bomb that Robo couldn’t bring in was a very nice throw. Back to Pryor running the ball. He avoids getting blasted which is good. Sometimes he might have to take shot, but the kid knows how to avoid getting lit up. Very important also is that the law of averages dictates that with a lot of new offensive schemes (pitch option, spread read option,) that there are going to be some plays that haunt us (fumble, bad exchange) We had some hiccups but no disasters. Big time credit to coaching staff for having this stuff running pretty darn smoothly after only a couple weeks of going with Pryor. In regards to Pryor he is doing his part and then some making the right reads on his part. If we run 15+ plays a game where Pryor has an option to pitch, handoff, or keep, and we avoid no turnovers he should automatically get a Buckeye sticker. Its a small feat but an important one. Plus those plays were working nicely. This now culminates the TP portion of this post. – Wells is now officially back to being the best running back in football. Do we win against USC with him? No….although I am not 100% convinced but I would imagine the score being more like 28-17 or so.
However we absolutely need to get him and TP against a top 4 team this year (PSU?) (USC Rose Bowl?), or maybe next year (long shot). I worried about the offensive chemistry of a Pryor Wells combo a little bit. However its pretty much the greatest combo since steak and potatoes. Bottom line he is amazing when 100%. Sometimes I worry about burst through the line and pass catching abilities at the NFL level, but right now in this offense with TP, there is absolutely no doubt he is the best RB in the country. In non close games we are going to spell him a lot to keep him fresh/healthy which will hurt his stats (he had all but 1 rb carries today). But in terms of pure talent and performance Moreno, Ringer, Hill, 8 running backs at USC, and whomever else just cannot stack up with what Beanie can do. The whole stiff arm thing is not getting old either. Seriously what are you going to do? When he gets that angle and time to stiff arm in the secondary, you’re pretty much screwed and are going to look bad.
– Receivers…..Not peaking yet and kind of getting worse. Got to give TP some help. Small’s drop in the endzone was atrocious, Robo just isn’t himself, Hartline is having some issues, and nobody has really stepped up. Sanzenbacher seems to keep taking 1-2 forward before shooting himself in the foot consistently. With that in mind, I think you got to bump Posey into the rotation 2x more against Purdue and just see what kind of results that gets. Posey was open too a lot and either didn’t get the ball or didn’t get a good ball thrown his way. BTW, Posey had a great block on the game winning td. Good enough to run option with towards with the game on the line says a lot about how the staff feels about Posey. Great blocking also by Ballard, Boone, and I think Cordle a bit too on that play. – You saw the line rotation going on right? Rehring at RT, Browning at right guard for a couple possessions. Wisky seemed to see it blitzed several times to that side with some success. Not sure of this worked well for us tonight……To be continued……Glad though that we are experimenting with various 6 man rotations, that will allow the top 5 rise to the top and keeps some guys a little fresher. My 2 cents….if Mike Adams is playing well in practice throw him in there too somehow somewhere on the line to see how he does. If we’re having guys out of their normal positions then get big Mike out there and see if he can maul some people….Yeah there is a learning curve and some possible detrimental effects of having him out of position, but the redshirt is gone and he aint doing much at all right now. Him getting 1-2 possessions would further keep this line fresh….. Food for thought….. will Cordle snap it again this year in a close game? – The TE is dead at osu in terms of as a passing target. With WR depth and running options, I am not going to lose sleep over it. Rudolph, Moore, Koger going out of state was the nail in the coffin (no info on Nic at this point). Keep bringing in two 4-5 star receivers a year and prodigal dual threat qb’s and I am fine with it. – The word is we are only going dual threat qb’s now from a recruiting perspective. Pryor is going to open a LOT of eyes on the national front.
– Wearing down energy wise so will keep this defensive analysis short…..
So we played to a draw statistically on all fronts, but we we won. What does that tell me? The war in the trenches swayed back and forth all game long (look at time of possession swings quarter to quarter below) front 5 vs defensive front 7 on both sides of the ball. It was a 15 round heavy weight fight and OSU won the early rounds, lost the middle rounds, but closed strong in the latter rounds. At the end of the day better skill players (QB, RB,DB’s) was the difference. Possession Time OSU Wisky 1st Quarter 8:33 6:27 2nd Quarter 3:31 11:29 3rd Quarter 8:04 6:56 4th Quarter 10:24 4:36 Total 30:32 29:28 Today we showed we can beat a very very physical, experienced, and well coached team….The issue is we haven’t been able to beat physical, experienced, well coached, AND fast teams. Can we though now with TP at QB? Penn State I think may have that lethal combo. Most of the defensive front 7 I would grade out as low B’s…… Homan played very well. Some other guys had some nice plays and asserted some will here and there, but this was a draw in the trenches and I will take that on the road against a veteran and beefy offensive line.
Secondary gets a b+ or A-. Tackling was really really good, especially supporting the run. They had to make a lot of tackles in the open field that could have developed into big runs…..Hill and Clay being beefy was a help to us. A guy like Royster or Ringer could be another story. Let’s break this down real quick. 31 runs to Hill, Clay, and that receiver…. Yardage was definitely given up but out of those 31 plays not one went for more than 17 yards and that is huge. With home field, and that line, if we didn’t tackle in the secondary you would see a small handful of some 20-40 yard runs. Round of Buckeye leaves to all my secondary guys… BTW we shut down PJ Hil and that’s awesome. The LB’s played better keying on him then Hall for whatever reason. Last but not least some love to Pretorius and Trappaso. Good punts and also good fg’s. Yeah the field goal’s were not long, but he banged them through and they were the margin of victory. We miss one, have one blocked,or have a bad snap, its possible right now you are foaming at the mouth right now at our special teams and such……… Update: Analysis on Final interception that sealed game. On second look Freeman also needs some recognition. Wasn’t great all game, but made some big plays. Biggest play you ask? The Jenkins pick Wisconsin stacks their receiver behind Beckum. Jenkins is playing what looks to be a short zone on the left boundary. With Everidge being left handed and their two best receivers on the left side we have Jenkins locking down the outside. Freeman the underneath on that side with I believe Hines over the top of them. Initially Everidge looks right. I think they had something deep that they wanted to maybe get with no Jenkins on that side. It was the first read, and it wasn’t there. PJ Hill is open but only in the right flat. Its not worth it to dump to him, because 80% chance he isn’t going to stop the clock. Everidge looks back to see what he has going on the left. Beckum who releases immediately in front of the WR, has to avoid a press by Jenkins who is right up there. He bends inwards to avoid contact, but gets nicked a bit by MJ. Beckum first priority now is to challenge Freeman underneath then get back to the outside. Freeman sees him coming and…… he pops him pretty good and clean. Beckum stutters and starts peeling to the outside for a corner type route.
Everidge is now wanting to get Beckum 15-20 yards down the field on this corner. Beckum isnt open though and is late getting down the field because of the pop from Freeman. Hines is lurking deep back there with pretty much t nothing to do and Jenkins has an eye on Everidge trying to lead him to a shorter outside route. Its just not there. Maybe you can squeeze it in there, but its not going to easy or pretty but it will be risky. The WR 84 stayed into block but only as a gesture hoping to leak out for a middle seem. He is supposed to be a good option if things break down. In theory if Freeman tangles with Beckum more or follows him just 1 step to the outside, we’re looking at 12-18 yard gain up the middle on that release and vertical route. Freeman recognizes this right as he pops Beckum. Great vision. 84 is now streaking down the middle. He is open. Everidge is staring at Beckum though. It was there for maybe a small gain of 8-10 but by the time Everidge sees it, its not there. Freeman has closed in by then. Pressure come, Everidge goes the right way to his throwing side on the left. He has 4 options. Try to run out of bounds for minimal yards, throw it away, force it to Beckum (now blanketed by Jenkins), or get 84 who starts mirroring Everidges roll. 84 never comes back to the ball, maybe trying to leave the option of Everidge running into the equation. He just goes down field. Freeman is busting his butt, worried that Jenkins can’t handle Beckum and wants to support. 84 can now lose Freeman for a second if he just stops or reverses field, but that throw would be very very hard for Everidge with the pressure coming. He keeps doing what he is doing. Freeman finally arrives at Beckum with 84 still kind of not doing much to help the Badger cause. Jenkins meanwhile has stayed with Beckum through out all the TE’s improvisations to get open. If you saw the way MJ was jumping around there was 0% chance the Beckum was going to shake him. Finally Everidge sees 84 somewhat vacated by Freeman. He fires, but Jenkins is there with great awareness and vision as he slips off of Beckum at the exact moment Freeman flashes to get Beckum and is there to pick it off. The pressure really helped, but besides that a very well played play by 1-2 punch Jenkins and Freeman.
