What Can We Do to AVOID Another One of These?
This is my first time posting here after being a long time peruser of the site. I think this place is outstanding, and especially like that fans of rivals can chime in without things devolving into a flame war.
Let me start by saying that I am a long, long time fan of OSU. I am also old enough to remember when they won it all in 1968. Tressel is undoubtedly a MAJOR upgrade over his predecessor. I also do not long for the likes of Earle Bruce, whose cult was undeservedly nice to him back in the 80s, when the poor guy, with all due respect, outside of the Michigan game could not win a big one against a ranked opponent to save his life.
All this said, we have GOT to figure out a way to stop this. Getting to the game of games to get eaten up by SEC competition, and watching the smug media jacka$$es crow afterwards had got to stop. The old "too much speed" trope is also a load. There were several factors I saw in the game at play, and none of them were track runners vs. plowhorses issues. Some of them were playcalling philosophy, and others were just plain attitude. I am just going to call it as I see it in detail, and I am sure I will get beat on, but here goes.
1 - STOP calling so much zone blitz
I am NOT a big fan of the zone schlitz, as I call it, in college or pros. If you wind up calling this more than you can count on your hands over the ENTIRE GAME, then IMHO you have overused it. The "shock value" on quality opponents wore off LONG ago. This works best on the truly crappy teams, against whom a good solid D works at least a well. If I had to watch another great OSU defender playing some other unnatural position one more time in some lame attempt to "confuse" LSU's QB I was going to be sick. Not to mention the million times I saw OSU defenders NOT staying home and chasing LSU players serpentining even BEHIND the line of scrimmage like a Chinese fire drill. Sometimes this out of position stuff made some of the really athletic OSU defenders look like King Kong. Most of the time it was just hideous. Whereas on the other side LSU played classic stay at home D most of the time, with monsters like Dorsey doing absolutely classic shift down the line moves, in place with the other guys and doing due diligence on gap coverage. The zone schlitz day is OVER, please kill it.
2 - PLEASE, oh god please, put some other pass play in the book BESIDES the 40 yd heave
OSU is beyond the 3 yd and a cloud days, yes. This is good. But we also desperately need tastes of the spread and PLEASE, rediscover our tight ends. This leads to a double advantage, because OSU's D is perennially weak on BOTH of these because THEY NEVER SEE THEM IN PRACTICE. With Rich Rodriguez coming in at scUM we better REALLY get going on this, or we might wind up with major trouble in Novembers from here on out. Also, as we have seen in the big one two years running, if we get stuffed on the run and/or the heave, there's nothing else left in the chambers. Which is criminal given the weapons we could load up in an occasional taste of the spread (Robiskie, Small, Saine, etc).
3 - Attitude, ATTITUDE!!!
LSU was fired up from the get go and never wained when they were down 10-zip. The interception on Small was TAKEN from him. The defender wanted it more. Honestly, I don't care what anybody says, you could see OSU starting to give a big when LSU took the lead. They never gave up entirely, but were never as firey as the Tigers either. It's time OSU learned to get really fired up for this, Midwestern reserve be damned. (Yes, I get to say this; native Ohioan, and I still live here).
This is the primary stuff I have really been noticing. It's really kind of frustrating, because OSU is really *that* close to true greatness.
Fire away.
