The 2010 Ohio State Football season is at last upon us, and with my kids finally growing a bit more autonomous, I can return to blogging about one of my favorite subjects, Ohio State Football.

There are three important things for OSU to accomplish this year in order to have a successful season (one where we beat Michigan, and as a bonus, compete in and win the National Championship).

While I have to present these three things in some sort of order, the order in which I am presenting them is not in order of importance, as they are all equally important.

First, Terrelle Pryor must continue to improve as a passing quarterback.  His first year, he got by with raw physical talent.  He was such a running threat that defenses had to weaken themselves against the pass to stop him and even then they could not often do it.  With such passing opportunities before him, it was not hard to complete passes, even with a throwing style that was clearly not mechanically sound.  While that was good against most opponents, on days when things weren’t working or against top opponents (Texas) it wasn’t enough.

In his sophomore year, Pryor improved his mechanics and started reading defenses better.  His improvement really took off when he was asked to do less rather than more towards the second half of last season.  After the disaster at Purdue last year, it seemed that somehow the lost art of run blocking was revived for the Buckeyes.  Teams defending the Buckeyes had to sell out to stop the run.  Pryor’s throwing style was forced to improve when he injured his knee against New Mexico State and became less mobile (though still far more mobile than most quarterbacks).

This year, he has to prove that he can master the difficult art of throwing over the middle from in the pocket and the game has to slow down for him.  If his technique improves so that he can make those throws over the middle of the field, and if his ability to spot the open player by going through his progression continues to improve, OSU will be a difficult team to stop offensively.  Pryor is in the right place to develop as a quarterback.  Jim Tressel was a QB himself for Baldwin Wallace and used to be OSU’s QB coach back in the early 1980s so he knows what he is doing when it comes to the development of QBs, as Troy Smith showed in 2006.

Second, the OSU offensive line has to continue to improve.  It is unclear whether or not this will continue. The offensive lines for the Buckeyes in the past ten years have all shared three central consistencies: A) they are all big and fast, manned by some of the nation’s top recruits, ten of which have gone on to play in the NFL; B) they have all underperformed and left OSU badly hanging; and C) they have all been coached by offensive line coach Jim Bollman.

Let’s get one thing straight.  I have nothing against Bollman as an offensive coordinator.  But as an offensive line coach, the product just has never been there and likely will never be there.  The lack of a good product has been covered up by the extraordinary talents of Maurice Clarett, Troy Smith, Beanie Wells, and now Terrelle Pryor.  It is enough to beat most teams on most days.  But it continues to be the glaring weakness of this team when we take on top talent like Florida, LSU and Texas in Bowl Games and teams like Texas and USC during the year.

Here is an idea from way out in left field.  Hire Earle Bruce to coach the offensive line.  Earle always had good offensive lines when he coached here.  Earle played as an offensive lineman in college for OSU.  Earle already has an office there at the Woody Hayes Practice Facility as a coach emeritus.  Let Bollman zero in on coordinating the offense and put someone else in charge of that line.  We would be unstoppable.

Third, with the unexpected return of Cameron Heyward for his senior season, OSU’s defensive line is more talented this year than it has been in a long time, but not as deep unless we have some more of those pleasant surprises like John Simon appear out of thin air to start mauling people.  The key factor here is avoiding injury to top quality people.  With a more productive offense this year, and with a running game developing that can keep the defense off the field for long stretches of time, we may just be able to avoid someone getting hurt.  But there has already been a knee or ankle injury to Nathan Williams, one of our top defensive linemen of unknown severity.  We do know that when he was injured, he was seen later on the sidelines on crutches, but that was some time ago, and young people heal fast.

So there you have the three keys to OSU’s success this year. 

There isn’t much else to blog about.  We are loaded at running back (with four guys that could start anywhere in the Big 10), wide receiver and linebacker.  The corners are a bit thin depth-wise, though the top two guys are more than up to snuff and the safeties are killers.  Our new punter looks promising, but we will see how his consistency develops.  Field goal kicking is fine with former professional soccer player Devon Barclay having hit some pretty big and high pressure kicks last year. 

One interesting thing to look for this year will be the use of the Tight End.  We have a freak (in a good way) playing for us named Jake Stoneburner.  He is more than big enough to be a traditional Tight End for OSU, but played WR in high school because of his ridiculous speed.  Jim Tressel has often said that there are three types of players, big, speed, and big speed.  Stoneburner is big speed all the way and if the Spring Game is any indication, he is becoming Pryor’s favorite oversized release valve.

You Should Also Check Out This Post:

More Active Posts: