Right: Dude, aren’t you the lead singer of KoRn? Troy linebacker Bear “Insert Your Own Nickname Here” Woods.
Courtesy of troytrojans.com

On Saturday, the Ohio State Buckeyes will go through their second pack of Trojans as Sun Belt Conference member Troy ventures from the state of Alabama for a high-noon showdown in Ohio Stadium.

Troy University, located coincidentally enough in Troy, Alabama, is also the home of country music star Hank Williams Jr..

As for the Troy Trojans football team, they have been playing at the Division I-A (FBS) level since 2001, and are coached by Larry Blakeney, who’s in his 18th season. He has led the program to three Southland Football League titles and two Sun Belt Conference titles, as well as guided the Trojans to seven FCS playoff appearances and two FBS bowl games. Blakeney boasts an overall record of 136-68-1 as head coach at Troy.

In Troy’s press release, the letterhead on the front page states, “We’re About To Light It Up.” Well, you just might want to put down that hash pipe, Jethro.

Sure, Troy defeated Division I-AA member Alcorn State 65-0 last Saturday. It’s also the same Alcorn team that lost 29-0 to Grambling State a week before.

In Troy’s season-opener, the Trojans defeated Middle Tennessee State 31-17, though the Trojans had a 24-3 lead entering the fourth quarter.

These Trojans are led by 6-foot-2, 206-pound sophomore quarterback Jamie Hampton, who has thrown for 459 yards on 43-of-69 passing with five touchdowns and three interceptions. Hampton battled two other QBs during spring practice to win the job.

Hampton’s two favorite targets are 5-foot-9, 176-pound sophomore flanker Jerrel Jernigan (14 rec., 137 yards, TD), and 5-foot-7, 170-pound wide receiver Kennard Burton (10 rec., 111 yards).

While the Trojans have attempted 85 passes in two games, Troy will run the ball on occasion. DuJuan Harris, a 5-foot-7, 190-pound running back has toted the rock 28 times for 187 yards and three touchdowns. Three other backs have 10 or more carries, including Hampton, who has 86 yards in 17 attempts, so he can tuck the ball and run if needed.

The offensive line has three seniors who start and the trio tips the scales at over 300 pounds each.

Defensively, the Trojans are lead by 6-foot, 231-pound junior middle linebacker Boris Lee (28 total tackles, 3 TFLs, INT), 6-foot, 228-pound junior weakside linebacker Bear “Insert Your Own Nickname Here” Woods (24 tackles, 2 TFLs, 3 sacks), and 6-foot-1, 191-pound senior free safety Sherrod Martin (15 tackles, 3 INTs).

Bulletin Board Material?

While Ohio State was busy getting hammered by the USC Trojans, the Troy Trojans were playing at the same time against Alcorn State, so the players were unable to view the game live with the rest of the nation. But they did watch Ohio State struggle against Ohio a week before.

With that, Troy safety Tavares Williams had this to say to Drew Champlin of the Dothan Eagle:

We feel like we could beat Ohio. After that game, we were ready to see. If they don’t have Beanie, it’s going to be a long night. After that, they’ve got to try to outrun us with those small speedy backs. I think we’re faster than them. I think we can use our speed to our advantage. The last couple of years, they’ve gone against speed and they’ve lost.”

In the same interview, he was asked what Troy’s chances are if Ohio State running back Chris Wells plays or not:

With Beanie, I think we’ve got a good chance. Without Beanie, I think we’ve got a great chance to win. It takes away what they want to do and that’s come out and power it right at us.”

No. 13 Ohio State (2-1) vs. Troy Trojans (2-0)

Date: Saturday, September 20
Time: 12:00 PM ET
Place: Ohio Stadium – capacity 101,568
TV: Big Ten Network will televise the game. Thom Brennaman will call the play-by-play with analysis from Charles Davis. Charissa “I Am Hotter Than Erin Andrews” Thompson is the sideline reporter.
Radio: WBNS-AM 1460 The Fan in Columbus is the flagship station for the 73-station Ohio State Radio Network. The Jim Tressel Pregame Show airs 30 minutes prior to kickoff. “Big Daddy” Paul Keels will call the play-by-play and will be assisted by former Buckeye Jim Lachey in the booth and Marty Bannister on the sidelines.
Weather from 10 TV: Mostly sunny skies and a game time temperature of 73 degrees.
Latest Line: Ohio State is a 20 1/2-point favorite. The Over & Under is 46 1/2.
Series History: This is the first meeting between the two schools.

Analysis and Prediction

So we know Beanie Wells won’t play. Should it matter against Troy? No.

What matters most is who gets the majority of the snaps at quarterback. The future is now, and Terrelle Pryor needs to be the one getting the bulk of the action. With two very winnable games in the next two weeks before Ohio State travels to Madison to take on Wisconsin, Pryor needs all of the experience he can get.

I am no longer certain that Todd Boeckman can win you a Big Ten title, and with the national title likely down the toilet with that embarrassing performance against USC, it’s time to give what was suppose to be the future signal-caller the opportunity now.

It also time for one of the backup running backs to emerge from the pack. Boom Herron is assumed to get the starting nod.

It would also be a good time for the offensive line to get off their collective fat asses and start blocking someone. To take a line from one of my favorite movies, Major League, “What’s this ole bull$hit!?” The matador blocking scheme is not how it’s done.

On the defensive side of the football for the Buckeyes, it’s time to start attacking instead of reacting. And as a unit, they must improve very soon, or it may be time to look for a new coordinator after the season is over.

I still think Chris Spielman would be a great choice, and he could light a fire to get these guys going.

As for the game, Troy might be fast, but are rather small. They might to be able to move the ball at times and may rack up their fair share of yards, but I see the Buckeye defense bending, not breaking.

Offensively, Ohio State may not light up the scoreboard like they should against an inferior team, but with Pryor hopefully getting the bulk of the snaps at quarterback, they may finally looked like a (somewhat) well-oiled machine.

Ohio State 33, Troy 13

Tags: Football by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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Right: Coach Tressel in front of the firing, er, I mean media squad.
Courtesy of ohiostatebuckeyes.com

Well, it’s that time of the week (three days late due to the power outages) where Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel addresses the media at his press conference which is normally held at the the Jack Nicklaus Museum, but was moved to the Waffle House on Rome-Hilliard Rd. after last Saturday’s performance.

Look, I love Jimmy T. just like most Buckeye fans do, and he’s the father I never had, even though that given our ages that’s not quite possible unless he was sexually active early in high school. Be that as it may, there needs to be some changes.

Instead of letting Coach Tressel rehash the debacle in southern California, let’s skipped ahead to where he talks about Troy in his opening statements:

Troy has got excellent speed. They thrashed Middle Tennessee pretty good, and we all know what Middle Tennessee has done the last couple weeks, they beat Maryland and ended up on the half yard line or something and should have or could have or whatever beat Kentucky, and Troy had their way with them. And so we know Troy is an excellent football team. Great speed. Great tradition. Their whole personality is made up on the fact that 10 years ago they wanted to be Division I and they said their road to Division I is to go to every great stadium in America and introduce themselves to that team, they’ve been to Nebraska, LSU, Missouri, Florida State, Mississippi State, South Carolina, on and on and on. That’s the way they’re building their program, and they’ve been wanting to schedule us for a couple years and we finally found a spot to get them in and they can’t wait to stake claim to visiting a Big Ten stadium and letting people know who they are. So it will be a great challenge for our guys, one that we’re very capable of confronting and I’m anxious to get out on the practice field and go from there.”

As soon as Coach Tressel takes questions from the media, the first one is about quarterback Todd Boeckman and whether or not he’s has lost any confidence in him or was his performance based on poor line play?

You know, I think, like I told the team when we met on Sunday, or Monday, I guess it was, what we have to work on is what we are doing in the game of football that we need to do better. No one has changed any thinking about who they are. Now, is it disappointing that we had a couple turnovers? Absolutely. Is that a problem? Yes. Do I think he’s capable of not having those turnovers and doing what we need to do? Yes. Are some of those things in part because we weren’t as good as we could have been on the offensive line? Yes. We weren’t as good as we could have been out wide? Yes. And everything in between.”

Now on to the $64,000 question about who will be the starting quarterback and how many snaps each will get vs. Troy and whether or not they would alternate in the middle of drives:

I liked how it worked when we did things well. On the plays when we didn’t, I wish we would have done something else, but I don’t think it was a bad thing. You know, I don’t know how many plays like in the long drive we had, I don’t know how many of the plays Todd was in or how many Terrelle was in or that kind of thing:as we got done with the Tuesday game plan, what we’re going to work on on Tuesday, you divide it up into various situational things and so forth, at the end of the evening, getting it done, I asked the question, how should we go about practicing our quarterbacks and how do you envision how much of the time each is going to play throwing it out to the offensive staff. And everyone likes to have an opinion, and you craft your own opinion by the logic of others, and so with the things that we’re doing today, we came to the consensus that Terrelle was going to do about 65% of them and Todd was going to do about 35% of them in part because so many of them Todd has done so many times already and we know what he can do. That’s certainly affected by what Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday looks like and that’s certainly affected by what Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday looks like.”

Though I think Terrelle Pryor gives Ohio State a better chance to win and with the Buckeyes having two very winnable games coming up he should start and get most of the snaps, but coach Tressel was asked if both will spilt time 50/50:

We said if we had a game last night (Monday) with what we were planning to do, that we envisioned that it would be 50/50, but it will be affected by what we do in practice, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and obviously what occurs during the course of the game.”

Later in the press conference, Coach Tressel was asked about the fact that some of the USC players said they knew what Ohio State was going to do before you did it, and whether that concerned him:

That’s kind of a typical response when you win, is that, man, things went just the way we planned them and we knew they were going to do that blitz and this and that and we knew that Southern Cal was going to do what they were doing, we didn’t execute against it. So is that concerning? I don’t think you can blow it off and say, are we tipping someone off or this and that, or do we have a tendency to zone blitz at this time or whatever, but you’re really a good team when they know what you’re in and they can’t do anything about it. That’s when you become the best.”

Tags: Football by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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