A Few Words About Urban Meyer and Luke Fickell
NFL fans know that sort of good seasons will kill you. Those 9-7 seasons may keep you feeling good during the fall, especially when you knock off your rival, but when spring comes around and you're drafting 21st, and your schedule gets a major upgrade, then reality sets in. Those sort of good seasons have a way of turning into pretty bad seasons in the years that follow. If you're a mediocre team, you're better off going into the tank, losing all those close games, and getting a high draft pick who might turn out to be that franchise quarterback or stud defensive lineman who can really make your team a true contender some day.
After the Wisconsin game with the miracle finish, Buckeye fans were feeling great, and our team looked to be headed for a 9-3 record, which is a sort of good season for Ohio State. And maybe we would have won the Leaders Division and gone to the B1G Championship Game. And maybe we would have beaten Michigan State in a re-match and been invited to the Rose Bowl. And maybe, based on that record of success, earned under very difficult conditions, Luke Fickell would have been retained as the head coach of The Ohio State University.
But something happened along the road to greatness. After reaching the unreachable high, after winning an unwinnable game, the Buckeyes fell off the cliff. There were many reasons for this late season collapse, I suppose, but all that matters in the long run is that 2011 went from sort of good to pretty bad in the period of one short month. And because of that dramatic turnaround, the Buckeyes got what amounts to the first pick in the 2012 college football draft - Urban Meyer.
It is not often that the Ohio State football program needs to be turned around, but 2011 is one of those times. The talent, the philosophy, the playcalling, the attitude, the energy, the aggression, just about everything concerning the Buckeye program needs to overhauled right now, and Urban Meyer is the best man to do it. Maybe the only man to do it. Meyer has a career record of 104-23, an .819 winning percentage, 7-1 in bowl games, 4-0 in BCS bowl games, 2-0 in national championship games, and all of it accomplished without running afoul with the NCAA. Urban Meyer is simply the best head coach in college football, a future hall-of-famer, one of the all-time greats, a winner who wins the right way.
So, where does this leave Luke Fickell? A great Buckeye player, a talented Buckeye coach, a loyal Buckeye when the school needed someone to take the slings and arrows. But not the man to lead the Buckeyes into a new era. Even if Luke guides his team to a victory in a bowl game, he will still end up with the worst record for a Buckeye head coach since 1897, when David F. Edwards posted a 1-7-1 mark during his one and only year at the helm. Between 1897 and 2010, Ohio State has had eighteen head football coaches, each of whom had a better winning percentage than .538, which is where Fickell would be if he wins a bowl game. Granted, Woody Hayes also started slow, going 16-9-2 (.630 winning percentage) in his first three seasons before winning a national championship in year number four. Maybe Luke could do something similar, if given the time, but why bother? Urban's already been there, done that.
Luke Fickell is 38 years old. In a few short years, he will complete the transition from brilliant young coach to career lackey. Maybe Fickell is okay with that, maybe he's content to be the next Jim Heacock, toiling away in relative obscurity while someone else gets all the glory. Maybe Luke wants to spend the next twenty-five years in Columbus and retire a Buckeye. But if Fickell really wants to be Urban Meyer's successor, then he needs to leave the nest now, and take a head coaching job somewhere, anywhere, even if it's at a bottom-of-the-barrel program like Akron. If Fickell stays in Columbus, then he will be passed up again in five or ten or fifteen or twenty years, whenever Urban Meyer decides to call it quits, because the job will go to the next hall-of-fame coach and not some Buckeye foot soldier, no matter how loyal he may be. Luke knows how to be a great Buckeye, now he needs to learn how to be a great head coach.
Why Things Fell Apart in 2011
There are several easy answers here: (a) legendary head coach Jim Tressel fired; (b) Heisman candidate Terrelle Pryor thrown out of school; (c) leading wide receiver DeVier Posey suspended for ten games; (d) leading running back Boom Herron suspended for six games; (e) starting left tackle Mike Adams suspended for five games. That's five very good reasons why this team went south in 2011. Maybe that's all that needs to be said on the subject. But even after losing Tressel and Pryor, even after the suspensions, this Buckeye team still had plenty of talent on the roster, certainly enough talent to have beaten the likes of Miami, and Michigan State, and Nebraska. And except for Pryor, this Buckeye team was at full strength for the season-ending losses to Penn State and Michigan.
Football is such a physical game that people sometimes forget how important the mental aspect can be. Although the team tried to present a brave face, the psychological blows of losing your head coach and best player cannot be minimized. Before the season started, the team lost both its on-field and off-field leaders, and their replacements were untested rookies. While Braxton Miller's big-play ability and Luke Fickell's determination may have averted an outright disaster, this team often looked lost without its veteran leadership. Ohio State lost five B1G games by a combined 25 points - how many of those games could have been won with a seasoned quarterback at the helm and a championship coach making the calls?
The firing of Jim Tressel, the dismissal of Terrelle Pryor, the length of the suspensions - those were all known commodities, and they could be dealt with in one way or another. However, I believe that it was unknown commodities that really dragged this team down. Were players really getting free cars? Did TatGate go back a decade or more? Was Jim Tressel a dirty coach right from the start? Will the NCAA impose the death penalty? The media was relentless in their pursuit of graft and corruption in the Ohio State football program, and negative articles and new allegations appeared on a seemingly daily basis. Even though 99% of those allegations proved to be false, the endless media barrage had to be mentally fatiguing - who else would get suspended, who else would lose his job, how badly would the school be punished by the NCAA, and when would it all end? The uncertainty of it all had to take its toll on this team.
And finally, just when there appeared to be an end in sight, just when the rookie head coach and the freshman quarterback started to achieve some success, then the Urban Meyer rumors started. Luke Fickell would be fired no matter what he did ... Luke had to beat Wisconsin in order to save his job ... Luke could stay on the staff if he agreed to take a demotion ... the entire offensive staff would be let go regardless. Again, more uncertainty for the players - who would they be playing for next year? And did they really want to play for that guy? As fans, it is easy for us to look at Coach So-and-So and say that he's an incompetent fool who should be fired because his unit isn't performing up to expectations. But the players don't look at things that way - they form bonds with their coaches, friendships even, and they don't want to see men whom they like and respect lose their jobs, especially when those jobs were in jeopardy only because of players misbehaving off the field.
So we have firings, dismissals, suspensions, mental fatigue, uncertainty - that should be enough, right? Well, how about throwing in a key injury as well. In week one, the Buckeyes lost Nathan Williams, their best defensive end, really their only defensive end. For most of the season, the Buckeyes played four defensive tackles across the front, and that negatively impacted the pass rush. Williams was the most experienced and best player on a young defense, and the only real playmaker on that side of the ball, and his loss really changed the complexion of the defense. Without Williams in the game, the Buckeye defense seemed much more passive and subject to giving up big plays - in 2010, the Buckeye defense gave up only 26 plays of 20+ yards, only two of which were 40+ yards (long of 42); while in 2011 they surrendered 38 plays of 20+ yards, ten of which were 40+ yards (long of 66).
Well, all of the above should be in the past, but there is still one more issue to address, and it is this issue that will require immediate attention from Urban Meyer - talent. Without Terrelle Pryor, the 2011 Buckeyes were just not a very talented team. Braxton Miller will be a good foundation for the 2012 team, but the Buckeyes lose their only other consistent playmakers on offense in DeVier Posey and Boom Herron. For the first time in recent memory, Ohio State will enter spring ball with no proven players at either the running back or wide receiver positions. And to make matters worse, their top three offensive linemen will be playing in the NFL next season. On defense, the Buckeyes have one proven player at defensive end (Nathan Williams, assuming that he can return to form after a season-long injury), and no proven players at linebacker (although Ryan Shazier showed promise in limited action at the end of the season). In addition, the safeties have not played up to standard. Fortunately, the team is solid at both defensive tackle and cornerback.
So Urban Meyer inherits a team with holes to fill all over the place, and very few known commodities. Braxton Miller is a future superstar, Jake Stoneburner is ready for a breakout season, and Andrew Norwell and Jack Mewhort will anchor the line, but after those four there is very little proven talent on offense. The defense is just as suspect, aside from John Simon, Johnathan Hankins, and Bradley Roby, each of whom played at an All B1G level in 2011. Buckeye fans will say that this was a young team, that the talent will emerge in 2012. But is the talent really there?
Buckeye fans love myths, perhaps because we have had so many legendary figures at Ohio State: Woody Hayes, Archie Griffin, Hopalong Cassady, Orlando Pace, Jack Tatum, just to name a very few. And Jim Tressel should be on that list, even with his unfortunate departure from the program. Our favorite myth about the legendary Jim Tressel is that he erected a "fence" around the state of Ohio, and didn't let any talented recruits escape. Well, I hate to be the mythbuster, but that simply ain't true. After signing everybody that he wanted in his first full recruiting class in 2002, Tressel had a rather spotty record in Ohio. From 2003 to 2010, Ohio State offered 76 "top ten" in-state recruits, and signed only 51 of them - that equates to a success rate of just 67.1%. What's worse is that eight of the twenty-five prospects who got away ended up at Michigan. When we consider "top five" in-state talent, Tressel's success rate drops to 61.0% (25 out of 41 signed), with six of the sixteen misses going to Ann Arbor. In watching games this past weekend, I saw Spencer Ware and Tank Carradine and Zebrie Sanders and Jordan Hicks starring for their respective teams, while guys like Aundrey Walker and Trey DePriest were getting playing time as true freshmen. All of those guys would look good in the scarlet and grey right now, and the Buckeyes simply cannot afford to keep losing blue chip Ohio prospects to other schools.
Looking at the Buckeyes recent signees, we can identify a number of actual or probable busts: Dorian Bell (transferred), Jaamal Berry (off-the-field issues), Duron Carter (transferred), Melvin Fellows (injuries), Marcus Hall (year-long suspension, motivation and fitness issues), Sam Longo (transferred), Jonathan Newsome (transferred), James Louis (transferred), Scott McVey (injuries), Jamel Turner (never enrolled); and Ejuan Price (never enrolled). Not coincidentally, ten of the eleven players identified above play offensive line (Hall, Longo); wide receiver (Carter, Louis); defensive end (Fellows, Newsome, Turner); and linebacker (Bell, McVey, Price), which just happen to be the four thinnest positions on the Buckeyes' roster.
Urban Meyer is not just a great coach, he is also a great recruiter. Meyer will upgrade the talent in Columbus, I have no doubts about that. However, he won't be able to do so right away, especially because the 2012 crop of Ohioans is largely committed elsewhere. Meyer should have a banner year in 2013, but most of those guys won't be contributors as true freshmen. Look for things to really start coming together in 2014, by which time the Buckeyes should be back in the national title hunt. Until then, don't be shocked if we suffer through a couple of more seasons with at least three losses.
The Game
We are Ohio State. For us, there are no moral victories, no learning experiences, and certainly no good losses. Every Buckeye loss is a bad loss, and every Michigan loss is a disaster. With that being said, if we were ever going to lose to Michigan again (and I didn't really think that we'd make it to 43 in a row, like Notre Dame did Navy), this was the year to do it. Michigan had everything going for them this season - more talent, a new head coach with something to prove, seven years of pent up frustration, playing at home. And while the Buckeyes were suffering through a season from Hell - beaten down from firings, suspensions, mental fatigue, uncertainty about the future - the Wolverines were riding a season-long streak of confidence that began during their improbable fourth-quarter comeback against Notre Dame. Add in a few key injuries for Ohio State (Sweat, Shazier), Denard Robinson having the game of his life, several questionable coaching decisions by the Buckeye staff, a handful of freshman mistakes by Braxton Miler, numerous blown calls by the officiating crew, and you have the decked stacked solidly in Michigan's favor. It should've been a Michigan blow-out ... but the Wolverines won by only six points ... and Ohio State had a chance to take the lead in the final minute ... and the Buckeyes would have done so if Miller had hit a wide open DeVier Posey for a certain touchdown ... and Michigan escaped with a victory which probably felt good for about half an hour ... because now the clock says 362 days until Michigan next loses to Ohio State.
And the way we lost was probably the best way possible. We didn't get blown out like the Miami game, we didn't look pathetic on offense like the Michigan State game, we didn't blow a 20-point second half lead like the Nebraska game, we didn't lose to an inferior opponent like the Purdue game, we didn't come out flat like the Penn State game. The players played hard and they played well from start to finish, just like Michigan did, and based on effort and talent and execution, the game was a toss-up. Besides the intangibles - and who can really say how those affect a team's performance - what made a difference in the game was coaching. Although the offensive staff came out with a great game plan early, they went ultra-conservative at the wrong points in the third quarter - turning a first-and-goal from the five into three points; punting on fourth-and-four from the Michigan 36-yard line - and then just full-blown bizarre during the final two-minute drill. And on the defensive side of the ball, the staff just never seemed to be able to adjust to Michigan's base offense. While coaching wan't the only reason that the Buckeyes lost the game, in such a close contest, it might have been the deciding factor. And those coaches will be gone next year.
So this was 2011: scandals, suspensions, Tressel fired, media firestorms, a 6-6 season, a losing record in the B1G, a loss to Michigan - wait until next year.
Next year starts today, with the hiring of Urban Meyer.
NFL fans know that sort of good seasons will kill you. Those 9-7 seasons may keep you feeling good during the fall, especially when you knock off your rival, but when spring comes around and you're drafting 21st, and your schedule gets a major upgrade, then reality sets in. Those sort of good seasons have a way of turning into pretty bad seasons in the years that follow. If you're a mediocre team, you're better off going into the tank, losing all those close games, and getting a high draft pick who might turn out to be that franchise quarterback or stud defensive lineman who can really make your team a true contender some day.
After the Wisconsin game with the miracle finish, Buckeye fans were feeling great, and our team looked to be headed for a 9-3 record, which is a sort of good season for Ohio State. And maybe we would have won the Leaders Division and gone to the B1G Championship Game. And maybe we would have beaten Michigan State in a re-match and been invited to the Rose Bowl. And maybe, based on that record of success, earned under very difficult conditions, Luke Fickell would have been retained as the head coach of The Ohio State University.
But something happened along the road to greatness. After reaching the unreachable high, after winning an unwinnable game, the Buckeyes fell off the cliff. There were many reasons for this late season collapse, I suppose, but all that matters in the long run is that 2011 went from sort of good to pretty bad in the period of one short month. And because of that dramatic turnaround, the Buckeyes got what amounts to the first pick in the 2012 college football draft - Urban Meyer.
It is not often that the Ohio State football program needs to be turned around, but 2011 is one of those times. The talent, the philosophy, the playcalling, the attitude, the energy, the aggression, just about everything concerning the Buckeye program needs to overhauled right now, and Urban Meyer is the best man to do it. Maybe the only man to do it. Meyer has a career record of 104-23, an .819 winning percentage, 7-1 in bowl games, 4-0 in BCS bowl games, 2-0 in national championship games, and all of it accomplished without running afoul with the NCAA. Urban Meyer is simply the best head coach in college football, a future hall-of-famer, one of the all-time greats, a winner who wins the right way.
So, where does this leave Luke Fickell? A great Buckeye player, a talented Buckeye coach, a loyal Buckeye when the school needed someone to take the slings and arrows. But not the man to lead the Buckeyes into a new era. Even if Luke guides his team to a victory in a bowl game, he will still end up with the worst record for a Buckeye head coach since 1897, when David F. Edwards posted a 1-7-1 mark during his one and only year at the helm. Between 1897 and 2010, Ohio State has had eighteen head football coaches, each of whom had a better winning percentage than .538, which is where Fickell would be if he wins a bowl game. Granted, Woody Hayes also started slow, going 16-9-2 (.630 winning percentage) in his first three seasons before winning a national championship in year number four. Maybe Luke could do something similar, if given the time, but why bother? Urban's already been there, done that.
Luke Fickell is 38 years old. In a few short years, he will complete the transition from brilliant young coach to career lackey. Maybe Fickell is okay with that, maybe he's content to be the next Jim Heacock, toiling away in relative obscurity while someone else gets all the glory. Maybe Luke wants to spend the next twenty-five years in Columbus and retire a Buckeye. But if Fickell really wants to be Urban Meyer's successor, then he needs to leave the nest now, and take a head coaching job somewhere, anywhere, even if it's at a bottom-of-the-barrel program like Akron. If Fickell stays in Columbus, then he will be passed up again in five or ten or fifteen or twenty years, whenever Urban Meyer decides to call it quits, because the job will go to the next hall-of-fame coach and not some Buckeye foot soldier, no matter how loyal he may be. Luke knows how to be a great Buckeye, now he needs to learn how to be a great head coach.
Why Things Fell Apart in 2011
There are several easy answers here: (a) legendary head coach Jim Tressel fired; (b) Heisman candidate Terrelle Pryor thrown out of school; (c) leading wide receiver DeVier Posey suspended for ten games; (d) leading running back Boom Herron suspended for six games; (e) starting left tackle Mike Adams suspended for five games. That's five very good reasons why this team went south in 2011. Maybe that's all that needs to be said on the subject. But even after losing Tressel and Pryor, even after the suspensions, this Buckeye team still had plenty of talent on the roster, certainly enough talent to have beaten the likes of Miami, and Michigan State, and Nebraska. And except for Pryor, this Buckeye team was at full strength for the season-ending losses to Penn State and Michigan.
Football is such a physical game that people sometimes forget how important the mental aspect can be. Although the team tried to present a brave face, the psychological blows of losing your head coach and best player cannot be minimized. Before the season started, the team lost both its on-field and off-field leaders, and their replacements were untested rookies. While Braxton Miller's big-play ability and Luke Fickell's determination may have averted an outright disaster, this team often looked lost without its veteran leadership. Ohio State lost five B1G games by a combined 25 points - how many of those games could have been won with a seasoned quarterback at the helm and a championship coach making the calls?
The firing of Jim Tressel, the dismissal of Terrelle Pryor, the length of the suspensions - those were all known commodities, and they could be dealt with in one way or another. However, I believe that it was unknown commodities that really dragged this team down. Were players really getting free cars? Did TatGate go back a decade or more? Was Jim Tressel a dirty coach right from the start? Will the NCAA impose the death penalty? The media was relentless in their pursuit of graft and corruption in the Ohio State football program, and negative articles and new allegations appeared on a seemingly daily basis. Even though 99% of those allegations proved to be false, the endless media barrage had to be mentally fatiguing - who else would get suspended, who else would lose his job, how badly would the school be punished by the NCAA, and when would it all end? The uncertainty of it all had to take its toll on this team.
And finally, just when there appeared to be an end in sight, just when the rookie head coach and the freshman quarterback started to achieve some success, then the Urban Meyer rumors started. Luke Fickell would be fired no matter what he did ... Luke had to beat Wisconsin in order to save his job ... Luke could stay on the staff if he agreed to take a demotion ... the entire offensive staff would be let go regardless. Again, more uncertainty for the players - who would they be playing for next year? And did they really want to play for that guy? As fans, it is easy for us to look at Coach So-and-So and say that he's an incompetent fool who should be fired because his unit isn't performing up to expectations. But the players don't look at things that way - they form bonds with their coaches, friendships even, and they don't want to see men whom they like and respect lose their jobs, especially when those jobs were in jeopardy only because of players misbehaving off the field.
So we have firings, dismissals, suspensions, mental fatigue, uncertainty - that should be enough, right? Well, how about throwing in a key injury as well. In week one, the Buckeyes lost Nathan Williams, their best defensive end, really their only defensive end. For most of the season, the Buckeyes played four defensive tackles across the front, and that negatively impacted the pass rush. Williams was the most experienced and best player on a young defense, and the only real playmaker on that side of the ball, and his loss really changed the complexion of the defense. Without Williams in the game, the Buckeye defense seemed much more passive and subject to giving up big plays - in 2010, the Buckeye defense gave up only 26 plays of 20+ yards, only two of which were 40+ yards (long of 42); while in 2011 they surrendered 38 plays of 20+ yards, ten of which were 40+ yards (long of 66).
Well, all of the above should be in the past, but there is still one more issue to address, and it is this issue that will require immediate attention from Urban Meyer - talent. Without Terrelle Pryor, the 2011 Buckeyes were just not a very talented team. Braxton Miller will be a good foundation for the 2012 team, but the Buckeyes lose their only other consistent playmakers on offense in DeVier Posey and Boom Herron. For the first time in recent memory, Ohio State will enter spring ball with no proven players at either the running back or wide receiver positions. And to make matters worse, their top three offensive linemen will be playing in the NFL next season. On defense, the Buckeyes have one proven player at defensive end (Nathan Williams, assuming that he can return to form after a season-long injury), and no proven players at linebacker (although Ryan Shazier showed promise in limited action at the end of the season). In addition, the safeties have not played up to standard. Fortunately, the team is solid at both defensive tackle and cornerback.
So Urban Meyer inherits a team with holes to fill all over the place, and very few known commodities. Braxton Miller is a future superstar, Jake Stoneburner is ready for a breakout season, and Andrew Norwell and Jack Mewhort will anchor the line, but after those four there is very little proven talent on offense. The defense is just as suspect, aside from John Simon, Johnathan Hankins, and Bradley Roby, each of whom played at an All B1G level in 2011. Buckeye fans will say that this was a young team, that the talent will emerge in 2012. But is the talent really there?
Buckeye fans love myths, perhaps because we have had so many legendary figures at Ohio State: Woody Hayes, Archie Griffin, Hopalong Cassady, Orlando Pace, Jack Tatum, just to name a very few. And Jim Tressel should be on that list, even with his unfortunate departure from the program. Our favorite myth about the legendary Jim Tressel is that he erected a "fence" around the state of Ohio, and didn't let any talented recruits escape. Well, I hate to be the mythbuster, but that simply ain't true. After signing everybody that he wanted in his first full recruiting class in 2002, Tressel had a rather spotty record in Ohio. From 2003 to 2010, Ohio State offered 76 "top ten" in-state recruits, and signed only 51 of them - that equates to a success rate of just 67.1%. What's worse is that eight of the twenty-five prospects who got away ended up at Michigan. When we consider "top five" in-state talent, Tressel's success rate drops to 61.0% (25 out of 41 signed), with six of the sixteen misses going to Ann Arbor. In watching games this past weekend, I saw Spencer Ware and Tank Carradine and Zebrie Sanders and Jordan Hicks starring for their respective teams, while guys like Aundrey Walker and Trey DePriest were getting playing time as true freshmen. All of those guys would look good in the scarlet and grey right now, and the Buckeyes simply cannot afford to keep losing blue chip Ohio prospects to other schools.
Looking at the Buckeyes recent signees, we can identify a number of actual or probable busts: Dorian Bell (transferred), Jaamal Berry (off-the-field issues), Duron Carter (transferred), Melvin Fellows (injuries), Marcus Hall (year-long suspension, motivation and fitness issues), Sam Longo (transferred), Jonathan Newsome (transferred), James Louis (transferred), Scott McVey (injuries), Jamel Turner (never enrolled); and Ejuan Price (never enrolled). Not coincidentally, ten of the eleven players identified above play offensive line (Hall, Longo); wide receiver (Carter, Louis); defensive end (Fellows, Newsome, Turner); and linebacker (Bell, McVey, Price), which just happen to be the four thinnest positions on the Buckeyes' roster.
Urban Meyer is not just a great coach, he is also a great recruiter. Meyer will upgrade the talent in Columbus, I have no doubts about that. However, he won't be able to do so right away, especially because the 2012 crop of Ohioans is largely committed elsewhere. Meyer should have a banner year in 2013, but most of those guys won't be contributors as true freshmen. Look for things to really start coming together in 2014, by which time the Buckeyes should be back in the national title hunt. Until then, don't be shocked if we suffer through a couple of more seasons with at least three losses.
The Game
We are Ohio State. For us, there are no moral victories, no learning experiences, and certainly no good losses. Every Buckeye loss is a bad loss, and every Michigan loss is a disaster. With that being said, if we were ever going to lose to Michigan again (and I didn't really think that we'd make it to 43 in a row, like Notre Dame did Navy), this was the year to do it. Michigan had everything going for them this season - more talent, a new head coach with something to prove, seven years of pent up frustration, playing at home. And while the Buckeyes were suffering through a season from Hell - beaten down from firings, suspensions, mental fatigue, uncertainty about the future - the Wolverines were riding a season-long streak of confidence that began during their improbable fourth-quarter comeback against Notre Dame. Add in a few key injuries for Ohio State (Sweat, Shazier), Denard Robinson having the game of his life, several questionable coaching decisions by the Buckeye staff, a handful of freshman mistakes by Braxton Miler, numerous blown calls by the officiating crew, and you have the decked stacked solidly in Michigan's favor. It should've been a Michigan blow-out ... but the Wolverines won by only six points ... and Ohio State had a chance to take the lead in the final minute ... and the Buckeyes would have done so if Miller had hit a wide open DeVier Posey for a certain touchdown ... and Michigan escaped with a victory which probably felt good for about half an hour ... because now the clock says 362 days until Michigan next loses to Ohio State.
And the way we lost was probably the best way possible. We didn't get blown out like the Miami game, we didn't look pathetic on offense like the Michigan State game, we didn't blow a 20-point second half lead like the Nebraska game, we didn't lose to an inferior opponent like the Purdue game, we didn't come out flat like the Penn State game. The players played hard and they played well from start to finish, just like Michigan did, and based on effort and talent and execution, the game was a toss-up. Besides the intangibles - and who can really say how those affect a team's performance - what made a difference in the game was coaching. Although the offensive staff came out with a great game plan early, they went ultra-conservative at the wrong points in the third quarter - turning a first-and-goal from the five into three points; punting on fourth-and-four from the Michigan 36-yard line - and then just full-blown bizarre during the final two-minute drill. And on the defensive side of the ball, the staff just never seemed to be able to adjust to Michigan's base offense. While coaching wan't the only reason that the Buckeyes lost the game, in such a close contest, it might have been the deciding factor. And those coaches will be gone next year.
So this was 2011: scandals, suspensions, Tressel fired, media firestorms, a 6-6 season, a losing record in the B1G, a loss to Michigan - wait until next year.
Next year starts today, with the hiring of Urban Meyer.
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