I found it interesting that Chris Spielman found it necessary to defend Michigan State head coach, Mark Dantonio, as not being a dirty coach during the broadcast of the Michigan/Michigan State football game. I believe this occurred right after William Gholston was caught on camera violently wrenching Denard Robinson’s head at the bottom of the pile (I’ll have to double check to be sure when his comments were made during the game).

I guess Spielman felt it imperative to say something as Michigan State had 6 personal foul penalties during the game. At least two were on William Gholston – one for roughing the passer and one for punching an opposing player in the head/head gear. Urban Meyer openly wondered on two occasions why Gholston was still in the game after the punching incident. Spielman had no response for this.

Dantonio’s decision to put Gholston back out in the game after the two personal fouls suggests that he supports and encourages dirty play by his players. Dantonio left Marcus Rush in the game after he drew a 15 yard Roughing the Passer penalty for body slamming Denard Robinson with less than 5 minutes remaining in the game (which was reminiscent of the cheap shot taken on Mike Martin during the 2010 game resulting in a lower leg injury that hampered him for the rest of 2010).

I think former OSU players and coaches must generally support one another despite how egregious their actions are. Dantonio defended Tressel despite Tressel’s cheating and lying. Spielman must have felt that he had to return the favor by supporting Dantonio’s dirty style of play.

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.

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.

LeGarrette Blount paid a high price for punching Boise State’s Byron Hout and probably deserved to be suspended for the season. But what about Hout? He definitely got part of what he deserved – a punch in the mouth. If you want to talk smack and win without class then he definitely deserved a shot in the mouth. Maybe next time he’ll think twice before shooting off his mouth. I also feel that a one game suspension is in order for Hout. He showed a complete lack of professionalism on the field. By not punishing Hout, his coach, team and university appear to be endorsing such cowardly chatter. Boise State players won’t be deterred from future smack talk.

I suspect Blount will be reinstated towards the end of the season once all this dies down.

“Two of the losses were in national championships (which is far more forgivable than this group ever got credit for) . . .” – Let’s not forget that their play indicated that they shouldn’t have been in those games in the first place if not for the easy Big Ten road to the NC.

“one was to a Texas team that probably belonged in the national championship,” – Texas belonged in the national championship game and their play at the Fiesta Bowl reflected where they would have rather been.

“one was to a USC team that would probably win the national championship if there was some sort of a playoff,” – which was a decisive blowout of OSU.

“one was to a Penn State team that won the Big Ten title and played in the Rose Bowl,” – Penn State was later blown out by USC in the Rose Bowl.

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.

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.