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2015-16 NC run.....is there a David in the race?

ShowMeBuck

You know what? Chicken butt.
Many in the media have claimed Ohio State hasn't looked like the best team through the first two thirds of the season. Fine. Then who is? Ask the talking heads and you will get a variety of answers. Which really is comical. For as sure as they are that OSU is NOT the best team you would expect some solid answers on who IS the best team. And yet the field really doesn't look all that intimidating to me.

Say what you will about the guy wearing the belt but until you knock him off it's all just talk. When a defending champ is sitting on a 21 game winning streak and currently ranked #1 they will be considered the Goliath until David steps and and knocks him off his perch.

Is there a David in the 2015-16 race?
 
LSU worries me the most in a matchup. They have a run game capable of gashing OSU up the middle. Their passing game has proved, at least, decent when called upon. I still feel like if they stop Fournette, you beat LSU. Force them to pass 2 of 3 downs, and the mistakes will begin to occur.

Clemson doesn't worry me at all. For all the praise Deshawn Watson gets, he'd get shown up by JT Barrett on the big stage. Their defense has shown that they are not invincible like some media outlets want you to believe. NC State was able to gash them for huge gains on the ground, consistently. EZE would have a field day against them. That being said, they are probably the second most likely threat to Ohio State, albeit not a very big threat in my IMO.
 
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I'm predicting 4 undefeated teams in the playoffs. Sorry Bama!
1)Clemson
2)LSU
3)B1G champion (tOSU!)
4)Winner of Baylor/TCU game
No David's this year, all Goliaths.

I think I agree with this with the exception that tOSU would be higher. It's looking like by the time the playoff was announced we would have beaten an undefeated MSU, Iowa and High-ish ranked scUM
 
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LSU worries me the most in a matchup. They have a run game capable of gashing OSU up the middle. Their passing game has proved, at least, decent when called upon. I still feel like if they stop Fournette, you beat LSU. Force them to pass 2 of 3 downs, and the mistakes will begin to occur.

Clemson doesn't worry me at all. For all the praise Deshawn Watson gets, he'd get shown up by JT Barrett on the big stage. Their defense has shown that they are not invincible like some media outlets want you to believe. NC State was able to gash them for huge gains on the ground, consistently. EZE would have a field day against them. That being said, they are probably the second most likely threat to Ohio State, albeit not a very big threat in my IMO.
we'll see if LSU gets past Bama this weekend.. and remember Ole Piss control's their own destiny in the vaunted SEC West.
 
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I think I agree with this with the exception that tOSU would be higher. It's looking like by the time the playoff was announced we would have beaten an undefeated MSU, Iowa and High-ish ranked scUM
Which will be more impressive at that point than Clemsons resume. We obviously have a lot of work to do and have to perform. But Clemson simply doesn't have the opportunity to fill their resume as much as Ohio State has with the end of regular season and their CCG.
 
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LSU worries me the most in a matchup. They have a run game capable of gashing OSU up the middle. Their passing game has proved, at least, decent when called upon. I still feel like if they stop Fournette, you beat LSU. Force them to pass 2 of 3 downs, and the mistakes will begin to occur.

Clemson doesn't worry me at all. For all the praise Deshawn Watson gets, he'd get shown up by JT Barrett on the big stage. Their defense has shown that they are not invincible like some media outlets want you to believe. NC State was able to gash them for huge gains on the ground, consistently. EZE would have a field day against them. That being said, they are probably the second most likely threat to Ohio State, albeit not a very big threat in my IMO.

Power backs have been our kryptonite... and LSU is one of the few teams that won't go away from that well. It's Fournette all game long.
 
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THIS IS ONLY A TEST

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Is The Grind a self-fulfilling prophecy?

It's right up there with It's impossible for me to lose weight and I'm totally going to bomb the biology mid-term and George Lucas will find a way to ruin the new Star Wars movie with extremely punchable CGI characters specifically created to sell action figures to 6-year olds. Maybe it's a grind only because they said it would be.

The Chase begged for a sequel even though the original was without peer. The intact and completed 2014 season was perfect; arguably better than an imaginary undefeated version of it - so perhaps replacing that banner and battle cry with an entirely new one was unnecessary. The Chase was the best football movie you've ever seen in your life.

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Zeke was grinding in 2014.

This year he's chasing.

The best movie-movie ever made was the sequel to The Godfather. You remember what they called it? The Godfather II. Coppola harnessed all of the energy and most of the players from the first one and somehow upgraded the story. Maybe isolating The Chase and forcefully removing its magic from the follow-up with so many of the same actors was an exercise in squandered inertia.

The Chase II might not have eliminated all of the growing pains for a team that had to win a national title to earn the burden of becoming self-aware, but it could have made this journey less awkward. Super Sophomores is a courteous way of saying nouveau riche. They were too good, too soon to know better last year.

Winning it all made it impossible to keep them young, dumb and full of fun. They now know too much. Tension and strain are best left to self-loathing adults, which is what all of us turned into the second the 2015 Buckeyes revealed they would not be scoring over 60 points per game.

The Grind describes what's inflicted weekly on defending champions when they fail to win 20 games in a row in the precise manner everyone thinks they should.

Entire article: http://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2015/10/61810/this-is-only-a-test


THE GRIND: END OF THE BEGINNING

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We're still waiting for the team that doesn't exist to arrive.

It's the one that piles up gaudy statistics with former 3rd-string quarterbacks throwing darts to wide-open two-time Silver Football winners. This team scores 35 points per half regardless of the opponent. It eats the giant target defending champions wear on their backs for breakfast. Through a straw.

It doesn't sleep. It never punts. Touchdowns are routine. Field goals are for the weak.

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The Grind included a pedestrian 26-pt win over WMU.

We're still waiting for that Ohio State team to arrive, as if it has ever existed before in history. Sure, the 1998 team lit up the scoreboard and never allowed 20 points in a game - except for that one time when it lost to a 6-6 team. The 2006 edition didn't allow an opponent to score 18 points until it gave up 39 to Michigan prior to embarking on a 51-day awards banquet circuit that siphoned away its legacy. Neither of those teams were that team either.

The one-loss defending national champions were also not that team, even in hindsight. The 2014 Buckeyes faced only four ranked squads and devoured all four of them. It's your own damn fault those games are all you choose to remember from last season. There were a dozen others but most of them were far less exciting - and even worse, there weren't any shiny trophies or high stakes attached to them.

Fortunately this charade all ends Saturday afternoon. The Grind has only one game left.

Illinois has the distinction of serving as the grand finale for this two-and-a-half month Parade of Average, the Cavalcade of the Unranked, that March of the Mediocre - whatever you would like to label these Ten Games That Aren't Against Michigan State or Michigan. The grinding part of The Grind mercifully concludes Saturday.

Don't be surprised if it ends up being the hardest one.
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After Saturday it's nothing but heavyweights for the rest of the season. This is what you've been waiting for ever since Blacksburg, when you were excited for that team that doesn't exist to lay waste to nine more pushovers with the urgency and vigor it reserved for last season's marquee showdowns.

One more week. One more Saturday. One more unranked opponent the Buckeyes know they should be able to beat on their worst day. One more opportunity to be disappointed by the quality of a victory. Then we'll see if that team makes a few timely cameo appearances for the second straight season.

Either way we'll never stop waiting for it to arrive. And that's our own damn fault.

Entire article: http://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio-state-football/2015/11/62928/end-of-the-beginning
 
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