Right: Freshman quarterback Terrelle Pryor on the run against Troy in the first quarter.
AP Photo

First, let me point out that Troy is a very good football team. They get a lot of guys who had originally signed with SEC schools only to transfer to play for the Trojans. They should win the Sun Belt Conference and go to a bowl game.

Be that as it may, it was not an impressive performance by Ohio State, who went to defeat Troy 28-10.

I thought for the first three quarters the Buckeye defense played back on their heels. I have said this before and will say it again, OSU needs to attack, not react.

I also thought that the tackling was poor which was quite evident on Troy’s only touchdown of the game when Jamie Hampton passed to Jerrel Jernigan for a 45-yard TD. There were several missed tackles on that play and the players downfield also had a hard time shedding their blocks.

One thing that I did notice and thought it was a great move by defensive coordinator Jim Heacock and his staff was getting the likes of Todd Denlinger, Nader Abdallah, Dexter Larimore and the big tackles out of the game against the spread and bringing on a defensive line full of smaller, quicker ends with Robert Rose, Cameron Heyward, Lawrence Wilson, Thaddeus Gibson, and Curtis Terry.

I was also impressed with the play of strong safety Jermale Hines (7 tackles) who almost had a pick-six in the end zone, and free safety Kurt Coleman (7 tackles, 2 INTs).

Offensively, for his first collegiate start as a true freshman, Terrelle Pryor was very good. He was 10-of-16 passing for 139 yards and four touchdowns. He also rushed for another 66 yards on 14 carries.

For the most part, Pryor made some really good decisions. Granted, Coach Tressel just gave him the car keys so he’s not going to open up the play book, yet. But as each week passes by and the more Terrelle learns, the offensive game plan will be less conservative.

There are two plays that you can rip out of that play book right now. I have never been a big fan of the option since it’s easy to defend, and you can throw out the reverse play since that fooled no one the two times it was ran.

Of course, I would love to see Ohio State throw the ball downfield more, since you can see what happens when they do. All four of Terrelle’s touchdown passes were for 10 yards or more, including a 39-yarder to Brian Hartline in the second quarter, and a 38-yarder to Brian Robiskie in the fourth stanza.

I still find it hard to believe that there’s talk about Pryor and Todd Boeckman splitting time at quarterback. After seeing Pryor take just about every snap against Troy, why go back now? Just doesn’t make any sense. If he struggles then that’s fine, but otherwise, leave him in.

Justin Zwick struggled during the 2004 season and was replaced by Troy Smith. As they say, the rest was history.

I also though Boom Herron had a productive day, rushing for 94 yards on 20 carries. He has clearly taken over the starting job with Beanie Wells hobbled with an injury. Brandon Saine and Mo Wells combined for six rushing attempts for 18 yards.

More to come tomorrow!

Tags: Football by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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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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Right: Kosta who? Ohio State’s next great center, B.J. Mullens.
Matt Barker Photo

After the Ohio State football team’s complete meltdown in southern California last Saturday night, let’s briefly switch the focus to Thad Matta’s basketball Buckeyes.

The 2008-09 edition of the men’s basketball team will have many new faces. Out of the 12 scholarship players, there are no seniors. The only senior listed on the roster is walk-on guard Danny Peters, son of Dan Peters, the Buckeyes’ associate director of basketball operations.

Of those 12 scholarship players, seven return with previous experience but just two starters, 6-foot-5 junior swingman David Lighty, and 6-foot-7 sophomore guard/forward Evan Turner.

Lighty is the top returning scorer after averaging 9.0 pointer per game, fourth-best last season, and Turner poured in 8.5 points per game, which was fifth on last year’s roster.

Ohio State had to replace last season’s top three scorers, point guard Jamar Butler, center Kosta Koufos, and forward Othello Hunter.

The Buckeyes should have no problem filling the void after Koufos left after his freshman year with incoming freshman B.J. Mullens, who was the top-rated player in the class of 2009 by rivals.com, just like Greg Oden was when he was a high school senior two years ago.

Of course, just like Oden, he’s expected to be one of the first players taken in the 2009 NBA Draft, so if you think he will stay beyond his freshman year you would be sadly mistaken.

The 7-foot-1, 265-pound Mullens graduated from Canal Winchester in suburban Columbus, and committed to Ohio State during his freshman year of high school.

During his senior season for the Indians, Mullens averaged 26 points and 15 rebounds. Like Oden, he’s your conventional, back-to-the-basket center with a much better shooting touch. Unlike Koufos, it’s unlikely he will be launching three-pointers from beyond the arc.

Other freshman who will make an impact is 6-foot-5 guard William Buford from Toledo’s Libbey High School. Buford was rated the 19th-best prospect in the nation, the fourth-best shooting guard, and the second-best talent in the state of Ohio right behind Mullens.

Buford was named Mr. Ohio Basketball after averaging 23 points and 11 rebounds during his senior campaign, and was also selected as a McDonald’s and Jordan Brand All-American.

Other freshman from the class of 2009 include 6-foot-1 point guard Anthony Crater, who was a 2008 McDonald’s All-American nominee after averaging 16 points and eight assists at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire during his senior year.

A native of Flint, Michigan, Crater played at Southwestern Academy in Flint before transferring to the prep school. At Southwestern, Crater was a two-time All-Michigan performer and was voted Class B Player of the Year by the Associated Press following his junior year.

Also in the mix is 6-foot-3 freshman shooting guard Walter Offutt from Indianapolis’ Warren Central High School.

Offutt tore his ACL back in December and sat out most of his senior year while rehabilitating the injury.

Two junior college transfers were added to the roster which include 6-foot-8 sophomore forward Nikola Kecman, and 6-foot-2 point guard Jeremie Simmons.

Kecman transferred to Ohio State after spending a season at Eastern Arizona College and averaged 13.4 points while shooting 170-of-301 (.565) from the field, and 35-of-80 (.438) in three-pointers.

Simmons was the 2008 Junior College Division II Player of the Year after spending two seasons at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, and led Mott to Division II National Junior College Athletics Association National Championship each of the last two seasons.

As a sophomore, Simmons was named a first-team NJCAA All-American after averaging 21.2 points per game on 268-of-555 (.483) from the field goals, and 122-of-289 (.422) from three-point land.

The roster is bolstered by veterans with 6-foot-6 sophomore guard Jon Diebler, 6-foot-1 guard P.J. Hill, and 6-foot-8 forward Dallas Lauderdale.

Diebler, Ohio’s Mr. Basketball in 2007, averaged 5.9 points in 21.1 minutes per game as a freshman for the Buckeyes.

Lauderdale, who saw increased playing time as the season wore on last year, averaged 0.9 points and 1.8 rebounds in 6.9 minutes last year.

Hill, not to be confused with the running back form Wisconsin, averaged 1.1 points in 5.9 minutes in last season.

Also on the roster is 6-foot-9 center Kyle Madsen and 6-foot-4 walk-on junior guard Mark Titus, along with 7-foot center Zisis Sarikopoulos, who is ineligible this season after transferring from Alabama-Birmingham.

All in all, it’s a very talented, but young team that will have to gel early to be a factor in the Big Ten, which I assume they will.

Tags: Men's Basketball by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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Right: Oh no! We suck again!
“The Waterboy” Photo

More than 93,000 football fans packed the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and millions more tuned in across the country to watch the heavily-anticipated match-up between No. 1 USC and No. 5 Ohio State on television.

One wonders out of how many that witness last night’s game tuned in as some NASCAR fans do to watch for wrecks.

Ohio State hit the wall head-on and burst into flames with three minutes left to go until halftime when Todd Boeckman’s pass was intercepted by Rey Maualuga, who raced 58 yards down the far-sideline for a touchdown.

That’s water under the bridge now. Clearly, it was men against boys last night in LA.

If Boeckman is the answer, the question is not who should be Ohio State’s starting quarterback. It’s time to give the reins to freshman Terrelle Pryor. He’s going to be the QB for the next two years after this season, anyway.

Boeckman was 14-of-21 passing for just 84 yards with two interceptions and no TD passes.

In Ohio State’s previous six games going back to the 2007 Illinois contest, Boeckman is 79-of-129 (63.3%) passing for 795 yards with four touchdowns and eight INTs. He was also sacked 14 times. And that averages out to just 132.5 yards per game.

In the Buckeyes’ last three losses (Illinois, LSU, USC), Boeckman was 42-of-70 (66.7%) for 448 yards with two TDs and seven INTs while being sacked 11 times. In those three games that averages out to only 149.3 yards per outing.

Those are not very productive numbers coming from your quarterback. It’s time for a change.

Granted, Ohio State dearly missed Beanie Wells, but last time I checked, he doesn’t play defense.

That Buckeye defense yielded 348 yards to the Trojans while USC quarterback Mark Sanchez shredded OSU’s secondary for four touchdown passes.

There has to be some major changes in the coming weeks if head coach Jim Tressel and his Buckeyes hope to contend for a Big Ten title.

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