When preparing for an upcoming opponent who’s the top-ranked team in nation which will be televised to a national audience on a national stage with national title implications, it’s never a good idea to show you hand when playing an inferior team a week before the big showdown.
Lord James Patrick Tressel, also known as “Senator Sweater Vest,” did not want a lifetime contract when it was renewed last week because he does not want to coach football forever. In fact, Treseel wants to teach on the university level once his days of patrolling the sidelines are over.
Personally, I would never want to play Tressel in chess. Why? Because he’s a master strategist. He’s not only a tremendous football coach, but a fantastic field general as well. The Pentagon may be calling when he’s through at Ohio State.
But who knew he was a mad scientist?
It’s generally assumed during football season that Tressel pours in hours and hours of work at his office in the Les Wexner Football Complex at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, though now it seems he also spends considerable amount of time in some basement laboratory on campus.
Sitting out Beanie Wells to rest his sore toe was the smart move to make sure he’s healthy to play against Southern California, next week.
But having robotic clones in place of real players like Todd Boeckman, Brian Robiskie, Brian Hartline, James Laurinaitis and the like is a stroke of pure genius!
Granted, Tressel will have to tweak his robotic clones because they didn’t seem to execute as well as they should. And the very vanilla offensive playbook that he installed into his robots needs to be reprogrammed, too.
One problem with robotic clones is that they have no emotions and the game of football is fueled by them. The robots just seemed to go through the motions, if you will. They also seem to react instead of attack.
On the plus side, since all of Ohio State’s best players took the Ohio game off, they should be well-rested and ready to play next Saturday no matter what ESPN’s Mark May has to say.
Also, I am sure that Southern Cal head coach Pete Carroll will spend more time at his country club this week than in the film room now that Tressel has lulled him and his Trojans into a false sense of security.
Case in point, the Ohio Bobcats were 74th in total defense yielding 407.5 yards per game on average in 2007. Yesterday against the Buckeyes, they held Ohio State to just 272 yards of total offense.
On Ohio State’s five possessions, three of them ended after just three offensive plays and a punt, gaining a grand total of 13 yards.
OSU drew first blood after Lawrence Wilson intercepted a Theo Scott pass and raced down to the OU 24 yard line.
Seven plays netted a measly 15 yards and Ohio State had to settle for a 27-yard Ryan Pretorius field goal to put Ohio State ahead 3-0 with 3:00 left in the first quarter.
Then Malcolm Jenkins picked off a Boo Jackson pass, and the Buckeyes set up shot on their own 39 yard line. Ohio State managed just 32 yards on six plays before Mo Wells was stuffed short on a fourth-and-1 play at the OU 29 yard line.
The Bobcats then mounted their only scoring drive of the day as OU went 72 yards in 11 plays, capped off on a 15-yard run by Donte Harden.
Ohio pushed their lead to 14-6 when Ohio State center Jim Cordle was high and wide on his snap to quarterback Todd Boeckman, who was in shotgun formation. Boeckman then couldn’t come up with the ball in the end zone and the Bobcats’ recovered the loose pigskin for six.
The Buckeyes closed the gap on Boom Herron’s one-yard burst with 2:51 left in the third quarter, but Pretorius missed badly on the PAT, which made the score 14-12 in favor of the Bobcats. Not sure why Tressel didn’t go for two there when you’re down by two.
Ohio State took the lead for good when backup cornerback Shaun Lane recovered a muffed punt before it rolled out-of-bounds at the Ohio 25 yard line. Six plays later, Brandon Saine plowed in from the two to put the Buckeyes up 19-14 with 14:00 remaining in the game.
Ray Small put the game on ice with 5:57 to go when he took a punt 69 yards to the house.
All in all in was a very poor showing by the Buckeyes.
Key Stats of the Game
Ohio State was just 5-of-15 in third down conversions and failed on their only chance on fourth down.
Ohio State managed to get just one sack all day, while Ohio took down OSU quarterbacks on three different occasions.
Boeckman was 16-0f-26 passing for 111 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions.
Herron was OSU’s top rusher with 50 yards on 12 carries while Mo Wells added 48 yards on nine tries.
Small led all receivers with five receptions for 27 yards. Dane Sanzenbacher has four catches for 32 yards.
Up next, Ohio State takes on USC at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Saturday night. Kickoff is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. ET, and it will be televised on ABC.
Hopefully the real players do better than the clones.
Tags: Football by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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