Wisconsin (5-0, 2-0) vs. No. 9 Ohio State (4-1, 2-0)

Saturday, October 10

3:30 p.m. EDT

Ohio Stadium – Columbus, Ohio

Like Indiana’s 4-1 record before last week’s game, it appears that Wisconsin’s 5-0 mark just might be a mirage, too.

In the Badgers’ first game of the season against Mid-American Conference member Northern Illinois, the Huskies were driving late in effort to tie the game after already scoring two, fourth quarter touchdowns but fell short, losing to Wisconsin 28-20.

A week later, Wisconsin needed two overtimes to defeat Fresno State, 34-31. At one point, the Bulldogs led 21-7 in the second quarter.

Against Michigan State, the Spartans outgained the Badgers 486-436, but committed four costly turnovers as Wisconsin went on to win 38-30.

Last Saturday, Minnesota was driving late in the fourth quarter when Gophers’ quarterback Adam Weber was sacked and fumbled the football and Wisconsin held on for a 31-28 victory.

The only convincing win the Badgers have had to date is a 44-14 blowout over Division I-AA (FCS) Wofford, 44-14. Wisconsin could very easily be 2-3 or 1-4 instead of 5-0.

The Badgers feature a power running game led by the Big Ten’s top rusher, sophomore John Clay, who averages 116.4 yards per game. Junior quarterback Scott Tolzien hasn’t posted great numbers so far this season, but he is the conference’s most efficient QB while throwing for more than 200 yards in three games this year. He also threw four TD passes against Michigan State.

While Wisconsin has had some success moving the ball, their defense is questionable. The Badgers are 70th in total defense among the 120 FBS teams and seventh in the Big Ten, surrendering on average 363.0 yards per game. While Wisconsin did give up 241 yards rushing to Wofford, their defense is more susceptible against the pass, ranking 85th (eighth in the Big Ten) in pass defense, yielding 235.0 yards per game.

Ohio State is ranked 10th in the nation (1st in the Big Ten) in rushing defense, giving up just 83.4 yards per game, so the Buckeyes should be able to stop the Badgers vaunted running attack. The key is, with a hostile environment, can Ohio State get consistent pressure on a quarterback making just his second start on the road? The Badgers offensive line ranks second in the country in sacks allowed at just 0.4 per game. If you do the math, Wisconsin quarterbacks have been only sacked twice in five games.

With the Badgers’ weak pass defense, Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor is going to have to be effective throwing the ball as well as running it. This will also open up the Ohio State’s rushing attack of Boom & Zoom.

Similar to the 2007 Ohio State-Wisconsin game, I think the first half will be close with the Buckeyes pulling away in the third quarter.

Ohio State 34, Wisconsin 16

Tags: Football by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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Right: Coach Tressel speaking to reporters and other bar patrons at the Out-R-Inn, Tuesday afternoon. (Photo via Crackberry)

It’s that time of the week during football season where I disguise myself as a sports reporter dressed up in a dorky golf shirt and Dockers to crash Jim Tressel’s weekly press conference at the Out-R-Inn on E. Frambes.

As always, Senator Sweater Vest talks about the past game, the upcoming game, and he also mentions the players of week awards in his opening statements before the media butt-kissers get a chance to ask him questions.

First, Coach T talks about how his team fared offensively against Indiana:

We felt as if we needed to go out and come out of the gate pretty quickly and if you looked at them and studied them through their first four games, their first halves, they came out of the gate, I think, probably 60 to 70% of their production going into our game was in the first half of their games and so we felt good about the fact that we went out and were able to come out of the gate and get a lead. We were obviously disappointed that we left some points on the field, especially in the field goal area early on, and didn’t take full advantage of a quick start.”

…as well as on the other side of the ball…

Defensively we had seven three and outs, which the impact of a three and out is tremendous. Our goal for a game is to get five, and if you happen to get seven three and outs — you get five, you have a heck of a game. If you get seven, you’re probably in a situation where your defense is controlling the tempo of the game. And so I thought our defense came out and was flying around. Offensively we did a good job moving the chains, I think 29 or something first downs, which is a good thing.”

“The Vest” then talks about this week’s award winners vs. Indiana and he starts with the Special Teams Player of the Game…

We didn’t think that our special units were the highlight of the day certainly, but Jon Thoma did what we needed. He had to punt a few times and three of them he knocked them down inside the 15 and made them start against our defense a long way from home and that was a big plus, so Jonathan was the special units player of the week.”

The Defensive Player of the Game was?

Anderson Russell stepped in and had to kind of run the show on the back end and along with that had good productivity with an interception, a fumble recovery, significant tackles and was our defensive player”

And the Offensive Player of the Game was?

Brandon Saine was the offensive player of the game, did a good job breaking the century mark rushing and made a spectacular catch on a ball that appeared to me to be up in the air about five seconds and he made a heck of a catch there and won our offensive player of the game.”

Hmm, and the Jim Parker Offensive Lineman of the Game was…

…Bryant Browning, and BB did a good job, was well over 80%, and had a youngster next to him part of the game in Marcus Hall and not only had the responsibility of doing his job, but also making sure Marcus was not hyperventilating and so forth in his first opportunity to get in there to play that right tackle position a little bit, so Bryant did an excellent job there.”

…an Attack Force Player of the Game was…

…Austin Spitler. Austin continues to do a good job from a leadership and a production standpoint. His huge challenge comes this week, though. When you’re playing the position he does and facing the offense that Wisconsin has, this is going to be a huge opportunity for him to step up and see if he can handle the edge there and handle that tough running game that they have.”

Now for some “coach-speak” on Wisconsin:

We’ve got the Badgers coming to town and all of you that have been around for Ohio State/Wisconsin games in the last couple decades know that they are extremely physical affairs. It’s been a tough, tough series. It’s come down to the big things in the game of football, who handles the line of scrimmage, who takes care of the football. Ultimately if you look at a lot of games, I know over the last few years that we’ve studied them hard, there’s typically been a special units play that has really made a difference in the flow of the game and so it’s a 5-0 team coming in here that’s had a significant number of dog fights and I think anytime you have battles like the ones they’ve had, especially with a young team as they have, you do nothing but improve and so it’s going to be a heck of a challenge.”

And how’s the health of your team, Jimmy T?

I think we’re fairly healthy. We won’t have Dexter Larimore, which is a guy that you hate to not have, but he’s a little bit of a sprain that just won’t be ready for a week or two. And hopefully Boom Herron will be back. Jimmy Cordle is probably two games from now, but starting to do some land running and cutting and a little bit ahead of schedule, so we feel good about that. Boom, I hope, is a hundred percent. He’s about 85% and if we had to have him last Saturday and we just had to have him, you know, take a deep breath and hurt for a little bit, we could have, but we thought Brandon and Jordan could handle the carries and they did and hopefully Boom now will have had those three or four extra days and he’ll be a hundred percent. But we’ve got too many guys missing with the flu and so forth. Andrew Miller, I haven’t seen since Wednesday’s practice. He’s been fighting it hard and we’ve got two or three others that are fighting the flu a little bit and we’re not the lone rangers, everyone around the country and the community have the same issues.”

The O-line has been playing better the last few weeks. What do you think about that, coach man?

You know, I think they’ve done a good job of gaining some consistency. Now, they’re going to take the next challenge as they take on Wisconsin and if we can grow again, it’s really going to be a plus for us. But I think just from a belief in playing together and, you know, we haven’t had a whole bunch of guys in an out. You know, we had Andrew out a decent amount and we stuck Marcus Hall in there a little bit and we’re trying to get ourselves to the point where we’ve got seven or eight guys playing, when we get Jimmy Cordle back we could be at eight or nine which is huge because in the Big Ten you’re going to have ankles and bruises and flu and everything else, but, yeah, I think they have come along.”

After making his first start in place of an injured Boom Herron at running back, Brandon Saine rushed for 113 yards on 16 carries against Indiana. Coach Tressel was then asked who his main man will be at RB?

Saine, Herron, however you want to call it, Herron, Saine…doesn’t matter.”

So J.T., in previous games you had opponents who liked the spread the field out and use all kinds of different formations. When you play a team like Wisconsin with their style, which is more like old-school football, does it change the way you approach a game?

Yeah, absolutely. To me, that’s the difficult thing about playing college defense. In the NFL, nearly everyone’s similar. It becomes a match-up deal. But conceptually, not much difference. College, you go from an option to a spread to this team’s power, you know, whatever. I think college defensive coaches and college defensive players have great learning challenges, just like our guys went from the triple option to the power-boot-naked-roll-pass-type thing with SC to spread-no-huddle-flying-at-you Toledo to Illinois being option and quarterback runs and so forth and Indiana being unbalanced and three tight ends. They haven’t looked at same thing twice. And now they’re going to line up and Wisconsin does a great job of trading tight ends and motioning and you bet they’re going to get you out of position if you’re not focused in and pound it at you. And so, yeah, to me it’s a big, big challenge.”

Tags: Football by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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Right: Junior forward Hunter Bishop is OSU’s top returning goal scorer after putting the biscuit in the basket 14 times last season.
(M. Barker Photo)

Ohio State men’s coach John Markell enters his 15th season roaming behind the bench for the hockey Bucks’ and has ton of experience returning in the form of 14 of the top 15 scorers and a starting goaltender who posted 21 wins on a team from a year ago that finished fifth in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association and advanced to the first round of the NCAA tournament.

“For once, I’m returning a bit of a veteran team,” Markell said on media day. “It was a great learning experience for us last season getting back to the NCAA Tournament and having the success we did in turning things around from the previous season.”

Overall, Ohio State finished with a mark of 23-14-5 and were 13-11-4 in league play, falling one game short of getting a first-round bye in the CCHA tournament.

While Corey Elkins, Ohio State’s leader in goals and points last season has graduated, Hunter Bishop, a 6-foot, 196-pound junior forward is the Buckeyes’ top returning goal scorer after lighting the lamp 14 times during the 2008-09 campaign.

Also returning is 5-foot-11, 180-pound junior forward John Albert, who was second on the team last year with 39 points after bulging the twine on 11 different occasions to go along with 28 helpers.

Forwards Peter Boyd, a 5-foot-10, 190-pound junior along with, Zac Dalpe, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound sophomore both return after recording 13 goals, last season.

There’s also plenty of skilled players along the blue line as well that includes Shane Sims, Matt Bartkowski, Chris Reed and Corey Toy.

Sims, a 6-foot-1, 195-pound junior, led all defensemen as a sophomore with 24 points, seven goals, and was a +13. Bartkowski, a 6-foot-2, 203-pound sophomore, was second among Buckeye defensemen with 20 points, five goals, and was +12. Toy, a 6-foot, 212-pound junior contributed 14 points (2 goals, 12 assists) , while Reed, a 6-1, 180-pound junior added 13 points (2 goals, 11 assists), last season.

Between the pipes, 6-foot-2, 190-pound junior Dustin Carlson returns after posting a record of 21-12-43 in 39 games played during his sophomore season. He also had a goals against average of 2.50 and a .917 save percentage.

“He competes very, very hard,” Markell said of Carlson. “He came in here looking for an opportunity to get between the pipes and when he did, he took off. He wasn’t going to give up that position and he outworked the other two goalies. When you are a walk-on, you are looking for an opportunity to earn scholarship money so he did that and just kept moving forward.”

The Buckeyes, who were picked by the coaches and the media to finish fourth in their respective CCHA preseason polls, opens the season with a pair of home games this Thursday and Friday vs. Quinnipiac at the Schottenstein Center. The start times for both nights is at 7:05 p.m. ET. Students who show a valid ID at the Southwest Rotunda Entrance for admittance will get in free, no ticket required. OSU Student seating is general admission in sections 111 and 117. This is good for the entire 2009-10 season.

Tags: Men's Hockey by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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Right: Sophomore running back John Clay leads Wisconsin in rushing with 582 yards in five games. (AP Photo)

If there was one head coach sitting squarely on the hot seat in the Big Ten, it was Wisconsin’s Bret Bielema.

In 2006, his first season at the helm after taking over for Barry Alvarez, Bielema led the Badgers to a school-record 12 wins, which included a 17-14 victory over Arkansas in the Capital One Bowl. Wisconsin’s lone loss came at Michigan, and UW did not play Ohio State that year. The Buckeyes won the Big Ten title, while the Badgers finished tied for second.

During the 2007 season, Wisconsin won their first five games before losing on the road to Illinois and Penn State. After two home wins against lesser opponents, the Badgers were drubbed by the Buckeyes in Columbus, 38-17. Wisconsin finished the season fourth in the Big Ten with a record of 5-3, and 9-4 overall after losing to Tennessee in the Outback Bowl.

Last year, the Badgers started off 3-0, which includes a win over then-No. 21 Fresno State, but inexplicably lost to Michigan, who rallied from a 19-point deficit to win 27-25. Wisconsin followed that heart-breaking loss with another after Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor ran for an 11-yard touchdown with 1:08 left in the game. The Badgers went on to lose three out of the next four contests, limping to a 3-5 conference mark and ended the season with a record of 7-6 after being blowout by Florida State in the Champs Sports Bowl, 42-13.

From 12 wins to nine down to seven. See a pattern here?

So far Wisconsin is undefeated with an overall record of 5-0 and are 2-0 in conference play. and while the Badgers are not ranked in the latest AP poll, UW checks in at No. 25 in the current USA Today coaches poll.

Of course, the Badgers really haven’t played anyone with noting in those five games.

In Wisconsin’s season-opener against Northern Illinois, the Huskies were driving late in the game trailing 28-20. With a fourth-and-3 at the UW 36 yard line, an incomplete pass with just over a minute left to play ended NIU’s upset bid.

A week later, Wisconsin needed two overtimes to defeat Fresno State, 34-31. At one point, the Bulldogs led 21-7 in the second quarter.

After dismantling Division I-AA (FCS) member Wofford, 44-14, the Badgers hung on to defeat Michigan State 38-30, the following Saturday.

This past weekend against Minnesota, the Gophers had a chance to drive for the winning score with 1:43 remaining to play, but quarterback Adam Weber was sacked and fumbled as Wisconsin held on for a 31-28 win.

One thing Bielema has had to deal with during his tenure as head coach is the constant carousel of quarterbacks.

In 2006 when the Badgers won 12 games, Bielema had senior quarterback John Stocco, who completed 59.0 percent of his throws for 2,185 yards with 17 touchdowns and six interceptions en route to becoming the Badgers second-leading all-time passer.

The following year, another senior took over the QB position. Tyler Donovan threw for 2,607 yards with 17 TDs and 11 INTs in 2007.

Last season, another senior took over once again. Allan Evridge started the first six games, but was replaced by Dustin Sherer (6-4, 217), who finished the 2008 campaign after making seven starts and completed 54.5 percent of his passes for 1,389 yards with six touchdowns and five picks.

Sherer, a senior, was expected to be Wisconsin’s starting quarterback when the Badgers opened the season vs. Northern Illinois after battling for the job with redshirt freshman Curt Phillips (6-3, 215) in preseason camp, but it was third-string quarterback Scott Tolzien (6-3, 202) who won the job.

Tolzien, a junior, has completed 65.6 percent of his passes (82-of-125) for 1,043 yards with nine touchdowns and three interceptions in five games so far this season.

Sophomore running back John Clay (6-2, 247) leads the Badgers in rushing, gaining 582 yards on 112 carries (5.2 ypa) with seven touchdowns.

Wisconsin’s top pass-catcher in terms of receptions and touchdowns is senior tight end Garrett Graham (6-4, 248), who has hauled in 23 balls for 268 yards and four TDs. Sophomore wide receiver Nick Toon (6-3, 212) has 22 receptions for 269 yards and two scores.

On the other side of the ball, freshman linebacker Mike Taylor (6-2, 215) tops UW’s roster with 35 total tackles, while senior linebacker Jaevery McFadden (6-3, 226) is second on the team with 32 stops. Senior defensive end O’Brien Schofield (6-3, 242) leads the Badgers with 4.5 sacks and 11 tackles for loss. Senior cornerback Chris Maragos (6-1, 298) has a team-high three interceptions.

Tags: Football by Matt Barker, Publisher & Editor of BuckeyeBanter.com
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Right: Junior running back Brandon Saine breaks loose in the first quarter. (AP Photo)

In my game preview of the Ohio State-Indiana game, I said this:

“The Buckeye offense will get a boost as junior running back Brandon Saine will start in place of sophomore Dan Herron, who has been bothered by a sprained ankle all week. I have said this many times so far this season, Saine is the better back and should be starting. Here’s hoping he lives up to my expectations.”

Well, he certainly did just that.

Saine rushed for a career-high 113 yards on 16 carries in his first start as Ohio State easily defeated Indiana, 33-14, Saturday night at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington.

Terrelle Pryor also had a very good game, throwing for 159 yards and three tocudowns on 16-of-27 passing. He also rushed for 63 yards and another score.

Pryor’s first touchdown pass went to true freshman Duron Carter on a 5-yard quick slant that put the Buckeyes ahead 10-0 with 7:29 remaining in the opening quarter.

Ohio State’s shutout streak ended early in the second period as the Hoosiers drove 80 yards in eight plays that was capped off 7-yard touchdown pass from Ben Chappell to Tanden Doss.

So Indiana made a game of it for a minute. Or should I say a minute and four seconds because that’s how long it took Ohio State to score on their next possession. After Ray Small raced 35 yards on the kickoff return that gave the Buckeyes the ball on their own 45 yard line, Pryor ran for 14 yards before throwing two straight completions, one to Dane Sanzenbacher for 18 yards and then a 23-yarder on a post pattern by DeVier Posey for the score that put OSU up 17-7 with 11:46 left in the first half.

After an interception by Ohio State defensive tackle Todd Denlinger, the Buckeyes added another TD later in the second quarter on an 8-yard pass from Pryor to seldom-used fullback Zach Boren with 1:10 remaining that padded Ohio State’s led to 24-7, which was the halftime score.

The only scoring in the third quarter came when Indiana was trying to punt from their own 14-yard line. The snapped was low and was bobbled by IU punter Chris Hagerup, who was tackled in the end zone by OSU’s Rob Rose for a safety.

With 12:05 left in the game, Pryor scored on a 1-yard quarterback sneak that put the Buckeyes ahead 33-7.

The Hoosiers added the other touchdown against the Buckeyes second-team defense on the final play of the game when Chappell connected with Matt Ernest on a 5-yard pass.

Overall, Ohio State dominated Indiana. The Buckeyes held an advantage in first downs (29-11), rushing yards (219-18), total offense (378-228), and time of possession (34:17-25:43).

Odds & Ends

• Ohio State has won 16-consecutive Big Ten road games, one shy of the record held by Michigan who won 17 in a row from 1988-92.

• Quarterback Terrelle Pryor is 12-2 as Ohio State’s starting quarterback.

• Pryor completed passes to eight different receivers, the most this season.

• Ohio State has held opponents to fewer than 21 points 44 times since 2006, the best among FBS teams. Ohio State is 41-3 in those games.

• Ohio State’s defense has allowed 13, 82 and 18 yards rushing over the last three games, an average of 37.6 ypg.

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