Figuring out strength of schedule is always a tough thing to do.  That goes for during the season as well, but before the season, it is just so much darn guess work.  When you schedule a team like the Miami Hurricanes, you do it so far back that you have no idea whether or not they are going to be contenders or tomato cans.  Now they appear to be one of the better teams in the ACC, but that is faint praise indeed.  That is like saying:  “Jeez, that is one big microbe.  Take a look at that sucker, Frank!”

But good or bad, OSU will play them at home after working off the rust against Marshall.  Marshall is what you should be looking for in the first game of the season.  You will likely beat them, but they are always going to bring a certain level of excellence that will challenge your players and give the coaches plenty of film with which to show the players that they still have a lot of work to do.

After playing the Hurricanes, a shadow of who they were in 2002, OSU steps down a notch to play OU and Central Michigan.  I think that these teams are going to be at the same level as Marshall and OSU should come away 4-0 at that point with some valuable experience.  If the Hurricanes really aren’t a good team though, it will concern me that we will be an untested 4-0 going to our first away game in Illinois. 

Concern or not, I think we will beat Illinois.  Next up will be Indiana, and I just don’t see how we lose that game, especially since it will be played here in Columbus.

That brings us to the first real danger game of the season.  The Buckeyes will have to travel to Camp Randall and beat the Badgers.  Wisconsin has a tremendous offensive line which predictably yields them a good running game.  If OSU can avoid injury to any starting defensive linemen in the games leading up to that one and if Terrelle Pryor and the OSU running game can keep the Badgers off the field or so far back on the score that they cannot play catch up by running the ball, we have a good shot at winning that game.  That puts us at 7-0.

The next game is Purdue.  We lost to Purdue last year at Ross-Ade Stadium in a driving rainstorm with a QB with a hurt knee.  I can guarantee that OSU will not be playing the game at Ross-Ade Stadium this year, and it seems unlikely that Pryor will have an injured knee again.  While the weather may not be wonderful, I doubt that we will again see the kind of day meteorologically that we did last year.  A win there will put us to 8-0.

A trip to Minnesota (and I highly recommend that you go, Minneapolis is one cool place to party, especially in the bars on the Nicolette Mallway, hit “The Local” and drink a “Big Ginger” for me) would seem a likely candidate for a win to propel us to 9-0.  With Alabama playing in the SEC, a loss for them by then is certainly possible and we could be ranked number one in the nation.

Now we come to the third big game, Penn State.  I think we win this one since we are playing it at home and I don’t see Pryor making the mistakes against the Nittany Lions he has made in the past this time around.  That puts us at 10-0.  Two games left.

That brings us to our fourth big game, at Iowa.  These guys played us tough last year, and we needed a high pressure kick from Devon Barclay to put us over the edge.  Iowa does not have the talent to match up with us, but they certainly have the drive to make up for lack of talent.  That team is pretty confident in their own house, and I have to say that if we are going to lose one during the regular season (and I don’t think we are) then it will be this game.  That puts us at 11-0.

Lastly, the biggest game of the season, is Michigan.  That puts us at 12-0.

At this point it is too difficult to predict Glendale opponents.  The last three games will decide whether OSU will win the national championship.  Only one of those games is going to be a cakewalk.

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.

As I predicted, their first drive went for points.  But after that, it seemed like OSU had made the adjustment.  The next two or three Navy possessions saw them stopped for basically no gain.  The trouble with Navy’s offense is that you cannot make any mistakes.  When you are dealing in high probability 3 to 4 yards per carry, you can’t be in second and 15.

But they started moving the ball again.  True, they didn’t get anywhere during the first half, but that wasn’t due to stopping them straight up, but rather by turnovers to OSU.

It is very tricky to figure out just what Navy is going to do when it is running the ball.  The QB puts the ball into the hands of the Fullback for a split second and as a defender you don’t know whom to cover.  Sometimes the QB pulls it back and runs it, sometimes the Fullback dives for a four yard gain.

This Defensive Line for OSU was much vaunted coming into this game, but int he second half, Navy was wearing them out.  I saw hands on hips quite a bit, and some missed tackles that led to Navy points with their QB running right up the middle. 

I’m not quite so concerned about the pass defense, though Anderson Russell got burned twice.  But as a member of the secondary in a game where 80 to 90 percent of the offense is running, it might have said more about the secondary’s concentration than ability that some balls got by them.

I also was not concerned about the lack of pressure on the Navy QB.  Rushing Navy is pointless.  They make their yards on the ground, not through five and seven step drops.  You are better off staying home and covering those diving runners and looking out for the cut blocking. 

As for OSU’s offense, I was surprised that the Offensive Line was not able to get much push on the Navy defenders.  Those guys were outweighed by 30 to 40 pounds to a man and yet OSU running backs were getting hit at the line of scrimmage.  While it doesn’t do much good to get pressure on Terrelle Pryor (because he will just evade it and make a big play with his feet), Navy was able to get pressure on Bauserman while he was in there and they were quite effective.  If you can’t block Navy’s pass rush, I don’t know how you can block USC’s pash rush. 

Navy does not play a weird defense.  It is early to say it, but it sounds like our offensive line woes are not over, and won’t be over until there is a coaching change regarding the offensive line.

Terrelle Pryor played well.  He tucked it and ran only on designed plays for that purpose.  He had several passes dropped.  He was responsible for the one interception as he threw the ball high and I thought that he had done that several times but was bailed out by receivers with the ability to get up in the air.  Dane Sanzenbacher, for all his many talents, isn’t able to elevate like Jake Ballard or Devier Posey.  So throwing it high to him on Third and Long isn’t the best idea.

I was impressed with Brandon Saine.  He exhibited a refusal to go down after the first contact, often piling up four to five more yards after getting hit at the line.  He just kept his feet going and fell down for another half yard.  That impressed me.

Boom Herron had more yards than Saine (just under 80) but he had more chances as well.

The bottom line is that OSU needs to improve a hell of a lot before next week.  People who know football will tell you that a team’s greatest improvement takes place between the first and the second games.  I hope so.  It sure didn’t work that way last year.

Before this game, I had a lot of optimism going into the USC game.  At this point, I don’t see how we are going to beat them unless that freshman QB of theirs turns it over several times.

On special teams, all I can say is that we have one hell of a kicker.  I can also say that I never saw Ray Small on the field, either to catch a pass or return a punt.  Hmmm.

First, any scoring done in the second half against Navy should be disregarded as a barometer for OSU prowess.  Navy’s first teamers may be able to stay with OSU’s starters for a while, but once they start to tire, Navy’s second level athletes will not be able to stay with our second level people (whom Tressel regularly rotates in).

Second, look for how quickly OSU’s defense adapts to Navy’s Flexbone offense.  Teams have trouble with defending this at first since few other teams run it and you really can’t simulate it in practice.   If OSU adapts quickly then they will have a very good defense indeed.  If Navy can move the ball consistently and scores throughout the game, then that is a sign that OSU is in for a long year defensively.  Further, since Navy does not throw the ball much, this will not be much of a test for our one untested defensive position, that of cornerback.

Third, look for OSU to keep the playbook tightly shut.  Tressel does not want to show USC any sort of game film whatsoever. 

I’d love to blog more, and have a lot more to say (like how well Devon Torrence v. Andre Amos will do vs. the Navy running game, but the game is about to start and other tasks intrude when you have a four and a two year old.

As an OSU fan, I could not agree with him more.  Rodriguez has been an important pipeline of talent for OSU’s offensive line.  Justin Boren, a Michigan recruit, and a fellow who started on the offensive line for U of M as a true freshman (and playing well in the victory over Florida in 2007), left Big Blue last year and enrolled at OSU after he found Rich Rod’s coaching atmosphere to be less than family friendly when compared to Lllllloyd Carr’s.  We will need a guy with playing experience next year given the graduations on the OSU O Line this year, and thanks to Rich Rod, we will get one just in time.

Further, Rich Rod has shown an alarming (if you are a Michigan fan) grasp of the fundamentals of coaching.  Little things like not getting the plays in to the defense in the game against OSU were obvious even to the likes of Bob Griese, who commented on the fact that seniors on the Michigan defense were yelling at their coaches for not getting the play calls in.  As a coach, an argument can be made that you can’t improve the talent on a team that you have just taken over.  But you certainly can get your play calls in in time to have your players attempt to execute them. 

This may have been going on all year, but we would not have known it because the Michigan players were afraid of getting benched or kicked off the team if they expressed such outrage in earlier games.  But this being the last game that these seniors would ever play for Michigan (there being no bowl game in sight for teams with 9 losses), they likely felt free to exercise their rights to free speech.

So I say keep paying the man for the product he has put out.  I say keep doing it for at least 11 years, or at least however long John Cooper was at OSU.  Go Blue is right on this one.

Pro scouts notice you when you get hit in the back field and still turn in 55 yard runs.  If Chris Wells had been able to avoid the turf toe injury in the first game and had any kind of consistent blocking this year, he would have been closing in on 2000 yards.  I’ve said it all year on this website.  A running back like Chris Wells comes along once every 25 years.  He has been sadly wasted by this offensive line.  Whoever the offensive line coach is at OSU, he (or she) needs to lose his (or her) job.  Though Chris Wells said last year that he was going to stay at OSU all four years, it is hard to justify not going to the NFL when you will be the number one running back picked as a Junior.  It is also hard to justify staying if you are going to be running behind another crappy OSU offensive line next year.

The thing that you have to love the most about Chris Wells is the stiff arm.  As one writer at the www.the-ozone.net put it, he stiff arms defenders so hard into the turf that he appears to have something against turf.

The other half of the equation is Terrelle Pryor.  He ran for over 100 yards against Illinois last week.  He has a long, graceful stride that makes it look like he his going slower than he is.  The trouble is that everyone else is moving much slower than Pryor.  Because of this, defensive players seem to take bad angles at him, and he can make those who take good angles miss, either with a move to the inside, or with a stiff arm that he is learning from Chris Wells.

Early on when he first took over for Todd Boeckman, he had a very limited passing repetoire.  But that has grown steadily, as has his ability to go through progressions rather than simply taking off running when the first receiver is covered.  His touchdown pass to Dane Sanzenbacher last week against Illinois was proof of this.  Now when Pryor takes off running, it is almost always on a design run play.  OSU is putting a lot more QB draws in with TEs and other offensive linemen slipping downfield to block.  He usually gets about 15 to 25 yards on these plays until the other team assigns a player to “spy” on him.  But this takes a defender out of the passing defense, and he is becoming a better passer with each passing day. 

He still has some work to do on his fundamentals, but his footwork is getting better and his reading of the field is getting better too.  It is going to be pretty easy to be an OSU fan over the next few years, especially if they get their offensive line problems worked out. 

Were I in charge of the OSU universe, I would hire former OSU head football coach Earle Bruce to come back and be the offensive line coach.  Earle was an offensive lineman in college and he knows the fundamentals.

If the score gets big in this game, it is going to be because of interceptions run back for touchdowns by the likes of Donald Washington and Kurt Coleman, and it is going to be because of the fumbles caused by linebackers getting to MIchigan QBs a lot sooner than they are used to.  LB Laurinatis and CBs Donald Washington and Kurt Coleman have a sneaky way of playing a bit out of position, and then relying upon their speed to close on a poorly thrown ball.  Look for this in The Game.

OSU is going to want to send a message in this game.  Not to Michigan, but to the rest of college football.  We are a different team than the one that lost in Los Angeles back in September.  OSU needs to make the case that we are deserving of a BCS bowl should PSU or Oregon State lose between now and the end of the regular season.  At that point, there are some bowls that are going to have to make a choice between a resurgent OSU and teams like Boise State and Utah who haven’t played a soul and whose fans don’t travel well.

So I think we can all rest assured that the defense is not the problem.  The real problem is the offense.  This should be a bit galling for a team who thought that they had hired an offensive genius.  It is, of course, too early to judge Rich Rodriguez as he has yet to recruit any players into the system and is stuck with Llllllloyd Carr’s talent.  But some of the problems are of his own making.  Let’s take two big name transfers.


Michigan has one offensive lineman starting for this team who started for the team that beat Tim Tebow and Florida last year.  Some of that is due to graduation.  But some of it is due to bringing in a culture that pissed Justin Boren off enough to transfer to arch rival OSU.  Whenever you see a Michigan QB flushed out of the pocket this season, you should be thinking about the loss of experience and leadership that went south (literally) to Columbus.  It is all the more surprising given that Justin Boren’s dad was a stand out linebacker at the U of M during the 1980s.  To hear Boren tell it, the “family values” atmosphere is no longer part of the U of M culture.

While QBs are only as good as their offensive lines, Michigan’s top QBs this year Threat and Sheridan, aren’t very good at all.  Threat is injured right now, so it isn’t fair to judge him by his recent performances.  But Sheridan is abysmal.  In the loss to Northwestern last week he was 8 for 29 for 61 yards.  That’s less than a one third completion rate, and on some pretty short passes.

Oh for the likes of Ryan Mallett, who transferred when he saw Rich Rodriguez coming.  A drop back passer, he assumed he had no role to play in a spread offense.  But there is always something to be said for a guy who can throw down the field and over the middle.  If your QBs are limited to short passing and screens, it is just too easy to defend.

That leaves Michigan’s hopes centering around the running game.  They have some good running backs, Brandon Minor is a proven commodity (though banged up right now) and Sam McGuffie shows a great deal of promise.  But you can’t be one dimensional and beat OSU.  You have to come at OSU from all angles and not make mistakes.  You also can’t have turnovers.  And Michigan’s QBs throw a lot of footballs to the wrong areas.

Looking at Michigan’s schedule this year, they have only played one team with a really good defense, and that is Penn State.  They will not have seen a defense like OSU’s yet.  OSU’s defense isn’t built like PSU’s.  They are built around strength and great defensive line play.  Our defense has a good defensive line, but the real blend of talent and experience is in the Linebackers and the secondary.  With three top cornerbacks like Malcolm Jenkins, Chimdi Chekwa, and Donald Washington, there aren’t going to be many openings for Michigan’s QBs to throw into.

The defense played pretty well, holding Penn State to 13 points, 7 of which resulted from a turnover putting the Nittany Lions in good field position.  But the offensive line is a boat anchor for this team.  Just like the defense was doing it all with smoke and mirrors back in 2006 and got exposed against Florida, the offensive line has been doing what they are doing this year with the same smoke and mirrors.  The line is fundamentally unsound.


I don’t think its talent.  These guys are big, fast, and were all highly recruited by schools everywhere.  I think it’s coaching.  One of the local radio hosts said he had spoken with an assistant high school coach who had seen some OSU practices.  He said that the coaching staff at OSU had eschewed blocking sleds.  I don’t know if that’s true.  Perhaps it was a practice or two where they did not use them.  But if it is true, how do you prepare an offensive line without the tools of the trade?

The results are clear as they can be.  Doug Datish is playing in the NFL.  Kirk Barton is playing in the NFL.  But these guys were not exactly setting the world on fire when they were at OSU.  Chris Wells is a once every 25 years running back, but is wasted by this offensive line. 

Another coaching note:  When Justin Zwick became ineffective due to lack of a running game, Tressel had no problem going with Troy Smith who brought his own rushing ability to the game and it made a difference.  The same was true when Todd Boeckman was benched because of his lack of mobility in the face of an incompetent offensive line.  Football is a tough game, even for fifth year seniors like Boeckman and you have to swallow hard and move on.

But the converse should be true for Pryor.  When you have Penn State putting 8 guys in the box and selling out to stop the run, you have to make them pay for that.  Pryor made them pay a few times with good throws to Sanzenbacher and Robiskie, but I thought the better plan would have been to rotate Boeckman in and out like they did with the USC Trojans.  PSU simply wasn’t getting a great deal of pressure on Pryor.  He had time to throw.  But he doesn’t (yet) have the comfort level doing that.  If Boeckman had come in for a few plays he would have had that same time to throw, and he is a better pure passer than Pryor.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying bench Pryor.  I’m saying use all of your weapons.  If the rejoinder to that is that PSU would have simply backed four of the eight men out of the box whenever Boeckman came in, then great.  Run Chris Wells at them and wear them out. 

This isn’t rocket science people.  I understand that every game for Pryor is a valuable learning experience, and that his true pay off is down the road.  But with players leaving college earlier and earlier for the NFL, each season needs to stand on its own. 

This game was lost by the coaching staff for the two reasons stated above.  1) Consistent inability to effectively and fundamentally build a sold offensive line out of some pretty good athletes; and 2) Inflexibility in the offensive game plan in the failure to use all of the team’s many assets.

We didn’t score an offensive touchdown against them, and we didn’t really come close to doing so either.

We have the worst offensive line in the Big Ten.

It is time to call a spade a spade.  These guys just aren’t any good.  They have plays where they perform up to expectations, but you can never count on any type of consistency out of them.  That works just fine if you have someone like Chris Wells running the ball who pretty much doesn’t care about the opposing defensive line and its penetration.  He just breaks out the stiff arm, puts the opposing defender on his can, and looks to rack up the yards by running into the open space.

But it is clear that with Wells’ foot injury, he can’t really push off his right foot and so all he has is the stiff-arm.  Still, he nearly gained 100 yards today.  But it was sad to watch him getting hit in the backfield and at the line of scrimmage on nearly every play.

Chris Wells is the kind of running back that comes along once every 25 years.  This offensive line is wasting him.

I was very impressed with Terrelle Pryor today.  It is frustrating when your offensive line stinks.  Many freshmen get frustrated and try to do too much and end up throwing an interception.  But Pryor kept his wits about him at all times, knowing that so long as he didn’t turn the ball over we would win the game on field goals.  It is a rare freshman QB who understands that 1) there are times when playing like Craig Krenzel will win the game for you, and 2) that winning the game is the most important measure of a QB. 

I’m afraid that I have to say that what is wrong with this offensive line is coaching.  These guys were all highly recruited out of high school, so it isn’t the talent level that keeps them from running over the likes of Purdue.  Either they don’t have the techniques down, or they don’t understand the blocking schemes, or the blocking schemes just don’t work. 

I’m not knowledgeable enough as a football analyst to say what is wrong with the coaching staff, but our offensive line has not been good for quite some time.  Tressel is going to have to get rid of some staff this year who are either too long in the tooth or don’t have any teeth to begin with.

As for the Defense, a nice game.  The defensive line still makes me wonder.  They got no pressure on Curtis Painter all day long, and Kory Sheets got through them without much trouble on a lot of occasions, but you can’t argue with allowing only three points.  You can say that it’s Purdue, but Purdue isn’t a bad team because their offense stinks.  It is their defense that sinks them.  However, this level of competition is not Florida or LSU offensively.

I have to keep coming back to it though.  If you don’t have a good defensive line, you don’t have a good defense.  You can get a lot done with smoke and mirrors, but you are going to get exposed in the bowl game.  It’s happened the last two years in a row, and it happened out in Los Angeles this year.

I think we are in for a test against MSU next week at East Lansing.  If Chris Wells foot is not near 90% we are going to lose that game.

There were the normal freshman mistakes.  We had an illegal movement because the play clock was down to a second or two and Boom Herron had to get into position then or not at all and the ball was snapped as he was moving forward.  That one was on Pryor since the team lined up so late.  But it is to be expected. 

With this offensive line, Boeckman just isn’t going to effective.  Give Todd Boeckman USC’s offensive line and he will be a better QB choice than Terrelle Pryor.  But you have to work with what you have.  Right now we need a mobile QB and man have we ever got one. 

The thing that makes me the most excited about Pryor is that even as a rookie, he is using his speed and mobility not to get yards with his feet (though that happens), but rather to create space and keep plays alive longer.  All of his TDs were down field throws, so all of the dink and dunk stuff we saw during the USC game was not evidence of an inability to throw the ball deep. 

Barring injury, I don’t see us going back to Boeckman, and with Chris Wells coming back (eventually), I see Pryor’s job getting a lot easier.  All I can say at this point is that Minnesota better have its ducks in a row next week, because they are going to be up against it.