SEREbuckeye;2216149; said:
Cool, you read my opinions on different issues. Maybe you got tripped up on the comprehension part.
In Braxton's thread I said that I felt it the coaches held him back with play calling this game. I also said I wasn't going to place blame on him for missing open receivers. Finding open recievers is freakin hard to do, this aint XBox. Its not easy to look through two lines of defenders while getting chased down by a 250 pound man.
As for tackling, thats a basic fundamental. If a players helmet is on the offensive player its up to the player to wrap up - not the coach. The coach can't go in and do something easy easy like wrap up. Thats easy to learn and is square one of pee wee football.
You are picking an internet fight are comparing apples to oranges (tackling and defense vs offense and play calls/reading defenders). Please, next time PM with this instead of wasting space in this thread.
(break, break)
Back to the OSU defense.
I'm not going to PM you about this because this is a discussion about football. I didn't make it personal and I was not rude. This is still a discussion that's appropriate for the open forum, where others can participate.
I understand both of your opinions, but thanks for stating them again. I'm not comparing apples and oranges when I put the two together. There is a common thread. In both instances you took opposing dogmatic approaches to criticizing the team and its performances. That's the point I was making. I was hoping the response I would get would either reconcile the opposing approaches that you have between the two opinions, or provide a little more nuance and context that would show good reasons why it's reasonable to those different approaches to be correct.
Since this is still the defense thread, I'm going to carry on addressing the rest of your opinions on the quarterback and offense in the appropriate thread.
Since my original response simply attempted to refute what you were saying without going out on a limb and providing an opinion of my own, I'm going to add that. I feel I at least owe that much to the discussion.
You're right about tackling - the players have a job to do, and it's one that they've been taught how to do from a very young age. The players need to start doing it, and the coaches can't go out there and do it for them.
To say that it ends there though takes a rather narrow view of the coaches' responsibilities. Are they not responsible in some way for making sure that things that happen in practice translate to the games? Do they not manage the roster and playing time? When players are failing to execute basic things, why are they not losing playing time to players who are more fundamentally sound? Or is it the case that the replacements have even worse fundamentals and that's why it doesn't happen as much? If that's the case, who does that fall on? We say all these players are super-talented, but we mostly see highlights and not mistakes when they are being recruited. Did Ohio State make a habit of recruiting players that had poor fundamentals, valuing other attributes instead? Did they recruit some players with poor fundamentals thinking they liked their other attributes and could "coach them up"? For most of the defensive staff I would say that problems like that are inherited, but for the holdover coaches, would something like that not fall to them in some way?
These questions are mostly rhetorical. I don't have the answers. I'm not anywhere near being an insider. My opinion on the defensive issues, simply stated, is that there is a possibility of shared blame. That doesn't mean I think that anybody is on the "hot seat".