Jim Tressel, who is right 99 percent of the time once said that a team makes its most dramatic improvement between its first and second games.  Oh my goodness.  Folks, this may not be the season.

Let’s tell it like it is.  Forget Beanie Wells and his injury.  The offensive line simply stunk up the joint.  They were getting punked by guys who were 30 pounds lighter and a few tenths of a second slower.

There were no holes to run through.  There was no time for receivers to get open.  It is time to tell it like it is.  If these guys can’t handle the defensive line of the OU Bobcats, also known as the “fighting field mice”, they are going to get knocked into the 14th dimension by the USC Trojans. 

As the game wore on, it might have seemed to some like the Buckeye offensive line was improving.  Don’t believe the hype.  OU was just wearing down.  They couldn’t roll fresh guys in and you started seeing people with hands on their hips.  Tired guys who couldn’t fight, and couldn’t rotate out.

USC will not get tired against the Buckeyes.  They will not have that problem. 

The grade for the OSU offensive line?  F.  As in “F you.”

I’m not sure where this lack of interest comes from with the OSU offensive line.  Maybe they are used to blocking half heartedly because Beanie will still break one even with a middling effort.  Gentlemen, you better start your engines.  75% efforts are not going to get the job done in L.A.  These guys are Laker Fast Break Quick and can throw tanks around.  They have seen and can deal with 300 pound guys.

On to happier subjects.  The defense looked good in some ways.  There were way too many successful scrambles by an admittedly athletic OU QB (I don’t see USC’s Sanchez getting many of those type of yards) but the Defensive Line did get some pretty consistent penetration. 

But there were also times when Boo Jackson, the OU QB just flat missed guys running open in (and sometimes past) the secondary (I don’t see USC’s QB missing those passes) or had receivers who just flat dropped balls.  I will give them credit for getting some takeaways, but I would have rather seen a few more punts than I did from the Bobcats after three and outs.

We have to remember that Donald Washington did not play as he was serving his second and final game of suspension.  A better corner might have made a bit of a difference on some of those plays.  I hope that he is not rusty. 

The grade for the OSU Defense overall?  B.  But a B is not going to do it against USC.  And USC is not comparable to the Bobcats.

QB play from Todd Boeckman wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t up against a very stout defense (though it must have seemed like he was given the porous nature of the OSU offensive line).  Some nice throws, but many of them resulted in 2 yard gains.  He still showed a tendency to throw into double coverage, but this happened only once.  I can’t really fault him for much else, and he took off with some very nice runs when there was open space in front of him.

I don’t know what to make of the play-calling.  I am hoping that the OSU offensive brain trust was hiding the playbook from USC, and that this was the cause for the very vanilla nature of the offense.  It seemed like OU knew throughout the first half where every play was going and when. 

I will give hats off to the special teams play though.  Two players in particular stood out.  One was Ray Small, whose early punt returns presaged his later return for 6.  You can say all you want about how there was a block in the back, and there clearly was.  But I don’t know that it affected the play’s result.  Even if it had, we still would have had the ball on their side of the field even after a penalty.  I can certainly say that it did not affect my respect for what Ray Small did both with the return team and on the few occasions where Boeckman threw him the ball.  He was fighting for and getting some tough yards after the catch and that impressed me.

The other special teams player of note was punter A.J. Trapasso.  Very consistent, and consistently long.  This after kicking not one punt last week.  To quote the theme song from the Jeffersons, “Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

The kicking team was good on kickoffs and good on coverages.  I give Ryan Pretorious a pass on missing any field goal attempt which is for more that 50 yards, but I have to criticize him on the missed extra point.

All I can say is, OSU better get better, and get better fast.  You are playing USC next week, and the nation is going to be howling with derisive laughter if the offensive line puts out an effort against the Trojans like we saw today.  Beanie Wells, or no Beanie Wells.

You can talk all you want about how a win is a win.  Well a loss is a loss too, if you play like this next week.

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