Based on JT's history, OSU will never have a high powered offense

[crazybuckfan40]

Exactly......Smith needs to read his progressions......see the second level of the defense.

I seriously think that he was still in Texas speed on saturday. I think he was so quick to get ready to drop the ball once one guy was not open that he ran. I think as the game went on he slowed down. On the first dirve of the second half he had some good passes to Ginn and holmes for about 20 each. The drive stalled, but it seemed like the game slowed down a little for him.

Then the int he threw was a bad read, and the corner jumped the route, I think he started to press when he looked up at the scoreboard and realized we werent beating the hell out of the team and tryed to put up 50 pts. in one play. They just need to let the game come to them.

 

[Buckin' A]

i agree with you in priciple, BKB...

however, i do NOT have fun watching the O continually shoot itsself in the foot... i was banging my head against the wall on Sat as i watched the O consistantly screw up... it's not one thing you can pin it on either... it's like one units screws up on each play...

.

I think this may have something to do with our offense not having an identity. Spread offense week one airing it out. Conservative offense week two. Week three brought a mixture of who knows what.

It seems like each year our offense doesn't find its sync until about week 6. But if the coaches don't know, how can we expect the guys on the field to know?

 

[lvbuckeye]

hmm... that's a pretty good point... hadn't looked at it from that angle...

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

I'm not whining. I'm just providing information for people to make their own conclusions. At what point in that post am I bitching about anything?

You posted season totals without looking at the game-by-game scores, not to mention the thread title in which you loaded it with your own conclusion ("OSU will never have a high powered offense").

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

If I didn't love this team so much I would wish we "opened it up" and "threw the deep ball" all day long......resulting in 10 INTs and a gigantic beat down, just to see what the idiots would say then.

 

[cincibuck]

Whoah there cinci - back off the ledge ...

Blue Chip RB - Wells -- incoming class '06,Maurice Wells incoming class of '05, Eric Haw -- what chopped liver??
Blue Chip WR -- what we have not got excellent WR already??
Blue Chip QB -- Elite 11 do? Unless I am mistaken RS and TB fit that bill very well, both recent recruits. (And you have JZ was a highly heralded QB - how that is/has worked out is a different story entirely).

I'm saying that this kind of recruiting won't last if the offense continues to be as anemic as it has the last two years and is starting out to be this year... an opinion shared by Herbstreit... I'm of the opinion that Woody changed his offensive philosphy for just such reasons.

 

[Steve19]

You guys have about said it all but I just keep remembering John Cooper teams hanging 70+ points on OOC teams and then choking against TSUN and in bowls.

If he asked me, I would tell Coach Tressel that he has to improve his margin of victory if he wants to remove the computer and human poll biases that he faces now.

But, if he asked me, if I want to tamper with beating TSUN regularly and winning bowl games, the answer would be no.

It's not so long ago that we all felt heartache every time we entered a big game because we knew Coop was gonna choke on the big ones! How long did we wait for a national championship?

I'll trust Tressel to do what he can do with what he's got and hope that what he's got can be coached to put more points on the board.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

It's simple execution. If Smith sees Ginn on the fly pattern on the play Troy threw to the wrong guy for the INT, there's seven. If he sees Gonzo out in the left flat with no one within 15 yards of him around the SDSU 20, there's another seven. If Schnittker doesn't fumble on the goal line, there's yet another seven, and we have 48 points. Tressel wants a balanace offense with about 200 yards each via passing and running. Well, we had 179 yards rushing and 196 yards passing...pretty balanced to me.

That said, I still want to see more passing downfield.

 

[afgolfer]

Well first off he is 5-1 as a starter.

He is 87/159 for 1123 yds through 10 games, keep in mind about 3 of those games he didnt play the whole game. His Td/int is 9-3 That is 3-1 that is really good.

He has 109 rushing att. for 453 = 4.1 yds/carry.

He has accounted for a total of 13 tds in 10 games.

Those are some good stats, not over the top, but respectable.

Ok back to topic I think some people are ready to jump off the bridge. I don't understand We won, yeah we struggled we played to the level of our competition and it was a big trap game after a tough loss and our big ten opener against a team that we have revenge on the mind.

I know you might think I am making excuses for our team, but these are only kids and sometimes you just don't get as hyped to play a team that you think is not very good.

And as Mili said a play here and a play there and no fumble and we lay 48 on this team and no one is talking. Just b/c we are not trying to run up the score doesnt mean we are not a good offense. Once we start executing we will see better things.

First i know 5-1 yeah yeah yeah, but you also consider the TX loss for Zwick when he starts 2 drives and then Smiths plays until around the middle of the third without being taken out and with great field position gets FG's from about the original starting Field Position, yeah real great offensive leader? I'm not saying he isn't a good player, but I don't feel he is a good QB. He doesn't look of defenders and runs w/out looking through his progression. if he feels he has to run on every play, then make him a RB. Zwick has shown me more with 2nd and third string guys in last week than Smith did, granted no deep balls like I would like to see. Honestly I think Smith hurts us because he runs too much and defenses can key on that, as well as his inaccurate passes that luckily haven't been intercepted.

Most of the points we score when he is in the game are A from good initial field position resulting in A FG which should be attributed to the kicker, not the QB ( everyone says he scored 16 Pt's against TX) granted he did have a TD pass.

OK, so he has a 4.1 rushing average? when you take most of the runs fro the backs, you should have a good average, A QB's main job is to THROW the ball.

I know I will catch some flack but i am sick and tired of the excuses for Smith. "Oh he's rusty"

We did better with Zwick against Miami than we did with Smith against SDS, but because of one fumble in the TX game everyone was calling for Zwicks head acting as though smith is a God when he has had one good game against a weak Mich. Defense.

Let the coach start who he thinks is best but people need to get off the Michigan game and acting as though Smith is the second coming and can do no wrong.

Smith gets little criticism and Zwicks gets only criticism

 

[strohs]

That said, I still want to see more passing downfield.

That alone I think would help more than any other thing.
A couple of downfield bombs would loosen everything up, and maybe even make JT look like he knows what he is doing. :)

 

[bullsfan75]

I haven't watched as much Buckeye football this year as most of you, but it seems that Smith is more accurate when he's improvising outside the pocket. In the pocket he either overthinks or panics/doesn't trust his receivers to get open, which is usually a result of micromanagement coaching. I'd say to start Zwick - and know I'm tempting dings here - but honestly, neither of your quarterbacks seem ready for prime time.

 

[scarletngrey11]

They didnt look ready against SDSU, are they prime time???

Smith looked good in the game last year, I think that would qualify as "prime time".
Zwick looked fine against the other OSU last year in the Alamo Bowl.

 

[cincibuck]

They didnt look ready against SDSU, are they prime time??? Zwick looked fine against the other OSU last year in the Alamo Bowl.

I'm more than willing to look at SDSU as "hangover game." The D woke up after that opening shot and played lights out. The O looked like spring game prime. I'm not ready to jump on the Pittman bandwagon and I think Teddy G needs to stop trying to take it to the house on every touch and get what the defense is willing to give him.

As for Coop, I can't forget the record against Michigan, but the Rose Bowl win against ASU should have given him an NC. It was the fact that they lost to MSU late instead of early. And let us not forget that he evened the score with ND. Those were HUGE games and his teams came through.

 

[Faust]

I hate it when people start a whining thread without taking a good look at the stats they posted. In the years that YSU made it to the national title game, YSU put serious points on the board:

1991: 59, 57, 40, 30 (two RBs w/1000+ yards)
1992: 49, 48, 42, 42, 34, 30
1993: 56, 56, 42, 42, 38, 35, 34
1994: 52, 41 (vs. I-A Akron) also scored 63 against Alcorn St., but 4 TDs were scored by defense
1997: 52, 45, 44, 37, 34, 33, 32, 31
1999: 44, 43, 41, 31, 30

Smith missed 2-3 wide open receivers for TDs Saturday, plus Schnittker's goal line fumble. Put those on the board, and we score 48.

2002: 51, 50, 45, 45, 34 (Averaged 29 pts per game on the year)

One could definitely make the case that Tressel teams usually win with superior defense, outstanding special teams, and a just good enough offense. A friend of mine called during the game and started railing about "that lughead Jim Bollman". But let's wait and see what the Buckeye offense does the next two games before getting too excited one way or the other.

 

[HabaneroBuck]

If I didn't love this team so much I would wish we "opened it up" and "threw the deep ball" all day long......resulting in 10 INTs and a gigantic beat down, just to see what the idiots would say then.

27, I like most of what you have to say most of the time, but this is just pure BS. I watched a good deal of the Notre Dame game on Saturday, and I can guarantee you that Charlie Weis tells Brady Quinn to "throw the deep ball all day long." I saw probably eight bomb attempts. Notre Dame ended up with 38 points in regulation against Michigan State (who I gather is a little bit better than SDSU)....if you think OSU would have 10 INTS and a gigantic beat down as a result of going downfield on every play, you basically have no confidence in our WR's or defense. The offense that we are running is the offense that one runs when he feels impotent and frightened to put the D in a bad spot.

Yeah, we have the "best WR's in the country"...how many bombs did we try against Texas and San Diego? I kept watching the Texas game thinking, "ok, all these quick outs are going to soften something up eventually...." Never happened.