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Game Thread Game Two: #1 Ohio State 24, #2 Texas 7 (9/9/06)

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Can you imagine the excuses should either team have a game that even resembles a struggle, suddenly, North Texas and N. Illinois become the two most grossly underated teams in the history of college football, the impending breakdown position by position trying to prove who played the better opponet. I can't wait.. Hope Im around by then.
 
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Cornerback6 said:
You continuously repeat this statistic and notion, but you HAVE to have realized/noticed that JT was absolutely settling for FG's last year. If you couldn't see that from some of his playcalling (whether I agree with it or not is a moot point) inside the 30. No way without Huston do we play like that again...especially with our younger and less-experienced D. I think he understands that in Austin, we're going to need to score TD's, not FG's.
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Against us or all season? Your receivers had big plays and beat people deep, but only had 3 TDs in the redzone (Holmes-2, Gonzales-1). No TE had a TD for the year, and Antonio Pittman didn't score a TD until your 8th game.

For the year, you had 22 TDs in the redzone (T.Smith-10, A.Pittman-5, Schnittker-2, Holmes-2, Gonzales-1, Haw-1, M.Wells-1). You settled for 16 FGs.

As I see it, your offense is being hyped by the ability to score from anywhere on the field. Ginn, Holmes, and Pittman were each able to make big plays. But, your offense wasn't very effective in the redzone - against us or anyone else. Take ND for example. You scored TDs from 85, 68, 56, and 60 yards, but had drives stall on their 23 and 9 yd lines.

Compare that to the best offenses last year. We used our WRs as mostly just deep threats as well. In the redzone, it was mostly our running game and TEs that moved the ball. That was fine, as we were still very effective. USC didn't have a true big play threat outside of Reggie Bush. They were tremendously balanced though, and their distribution of the ball didn't change dependent of where they were they were on the field (probably the most impressive thing about their offense).
 
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Take ND for example?

Guess that a 66% conversion rate on drives to TD's just won't cut it in your view eh Brock?

As for the attempted correlation between that game and the early contest in Columbus: there was the infamous drop - that should not have been a stalled drive, there was also this factor, the switching QBs, the reasons for which and desirability of doing were talked about at length post-game. Besides which to use your logic about OSU and ND in the Fiesta, take Texas (with the now departed Vince Young) vs USC - are you seriously going to dun your NC team for punting twice and having a few field goals in that game?
 
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sandgk said:
Take ND for example?

Guess that a 66% conversion rate on drives to TD's just won't cut it in your view eh Brock?

As for the attempted correlation between that game and the early contest in Columbus: there was the infamous drop - that should not have been a stalled drive, there was also this factor, the switching QBs, the reasons for which and desirability of doing were talked about at length post-game. Besides which to use your logic about OSU and ND in the Fiesta, take Texas (with the now departed Vince Young) vs USC - are you seriously going to dun your NC team for punting twice and having a few field goals in that game?
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I dont see where your hang-up is. Bsamson's making a very good case that your offense, while explosive, isn't a very Red-Zone efficent one, citing examples from both the early and late parts of the season where you had trouble. You all agree you struggled for multiple reasons early, but here he's showing that even late, in your last game of the year, you showed those tendancies again. Obviously no one's going to criticize a 66% completion TD-drive ratio, and no one here is. We're merely stating that you had drives stall in the red-zone in the same ways you had them stall against us and earlier teams, and most of your points came from big plays.

Explosiveness makes your offense one of the best in the country, but a lot of teams are explosive. Big plays alone do not make for a dominating offense, because they won't consistently happen, and thats all I think he was pointing out.
 
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BrockSamson said:
Against us or all season? Your receivers had big plays and beat people deep, but only had 3 TDs in the redzone (Holmes-2, Gonzales-1). No TE had a TD for the year, and Antonio Pittman didn't score a TD until your 8th game.

For the year, you had 22 TDs in the redzone (T.Smith-10, A.Pittman-5, Schnittker-2, Holmes-2, Gonzales-1, Haw-1, M.Wells-1). You settled for 16 FGs.
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So, xrayrandy, Jr., TDs outside of the redzone don't count? Do we need to take Holmes' 36-yard TD against you off the board? If so, then you need to take Sweed's 24-yard TD off the board, too. So, I guess the final score should be 18-15. :roll1: And as has been posted ad nauseum, our offense that was on the field against you was nothing like it was by the end of the season. TDs are TDs. Don't discount our offense just because it's so explosive that it scores many of its TDs from outside the redzone...yeah, that makes sense.

Pittman may not have scored until the 8th game, but he still had seven TDs in five games (and he was yanked out early in two of those games due to our blowing out our opponents). Although he didn't have a stellar game against you, it still was pretty decent (17 carries for 75 yards, 4.4 ypc).

Our offense averaged 39 points and 485 yards per game over the last half of the season. If you think, based on our performance against you last year, that we won't be able to move the ball and put points on the board, you're sadly mistaken.
 
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MililaniBuckeye said:
And as has been posted ad nauseum, our offense that was on the field against you was nothing like it was by the end of the season. TDs are TDs. Don't discount our offense just because it's so explosive that it scores many of its TDs from outside the redzone...yeah, that makes sense.
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The offense was much better at the end of the year, but the redzone efficiency was only marginally better.

Great offenses are damn near automatic in the redzone. It's tough to win big games, and damn near impossible to go undefeated when you live and die by the big play.
 
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Here are the 2005 offensive red zone stats, game-by-game:

2005 Ohio State Football
Ohio State Red-Zone Results (as of Jan 03, 2006)
All games


[SIZE=-1]
Ohio State Inside Opponent Red-Zone

...............................................Times..Times..Total.........Rush..Pass.....FGs -------- Failed to score inside RZ ----
Date....Opponent.............Score...In RZ..Scored...Pts...TDs...TDs...TDs.....Made......FGA...Downs...Int....Fumb...Half....Game
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sep 3 Miami..................W 34-14....5.......4.........20.....2......1.......1..........2.........0.........0........1.......0........0.......0
Sep 10 Texas................ L 22-25....3.......3..........9......0......0.......0..........3.........0.........0........0.......0........0.......0
Sep 17 San Diego State.. W 27-6.....6.......4.........24.....3......3.......0..........1.........0.........0........0.......1........1.......0
*Sep 24 Iowa................W 31-6.....5.......3.........21......3......2.......1.........0.........0.........0........0.......2........0........0
*Oct 08 at Penn State.... L 10-17....2.......2.........10.....1......1........0.........1.........0.........0........0.......0........0........0
*Oct 15 Michigan State...W 35-24....1.......1..........7.....1......1........0.........0.........0.........0........0.......0........0........0
*Oct 22 at Indiana..........W 41-10...4.......3.........13.....1......1........0.........2.........0.........0........1.......0........0........0
*Oct 29 at Minnesota......W 45-31...2.......2.........10.....1......1........0.........1.........0.........0........0.......0........0........0
*Nov 5 Illinois............... W 40-2.....6.......5.........26.....3......2........1..........2........0.........0........0.......0........1........0
*Nov 12 Northwestern.....W 48-7.....7.......7........41......5......5........0..........2........0.........0........0.......0........0........0
*Nov 19 at Michigan........W 25-21...3.......3........15......2......2........0..........1........0.........0........0.......0........0........0
Jan 02 vs Notre Dame......W 34-20...3.......1..........3......0..... 0........0..........1........1.........0........0.......1........0........0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Totals.........................................47....38.......199.....22....19........3........16........1.........0........2.......4.........2.......0
38 of 47 (80.9%)
[/SIZE]
 
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especially against the former 'greatest team ever', circa Jan 03. :roll2:

you're grossly underestimating how conservative tressel can be (especially inside the more easily defensed red zone) when he feels he can win with special teams and defense, and enough offense.
 
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jwinslow said:
especially against the former 'greatest team ever', circa Jan 03. :roll2:

you're grossly underestimating how conservative tressel can be (especially inside the more easily defensed red zone) when he feels he can win with special teams and defense, and enough offense.
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Just a general observation about being conservative--it has its good points and bad points. Sure, taking chances can backfire, but why, oh why, don't more teams chuck the ball into the endzone right before the half?
 
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Here's what I show for our red-zone offense. To be included, we must have a first down at or inside our opponent's 20-yard line (4th-and-1 at their 19, etc., doesn't count). I think the chart you showed counted any play from the 20 or inside as a red-zone posession:

Indiana:
First down: 19 yard line (no score, interception)
First down: 9 yard line (TD)
First down: 9 yard line (FG)

Minnesota:
First down: 16 yard line (FG)
First down: 11 yard line (TD)

Illinois:
First down: 5 yard line (FG)
First down: 7 yard line (FG)
First down: 4 yard line (TD)
First down: 16 yard line (TD)
First down: 8 yard line (TD)
First down: 16 yard line (no score, 4th string RB runs out clock)

Northwestern:
First down: 10 yard line (TD)
First down: 16 yard line (TD)
First down: 20 yard line (TD)
First down: 4 yard line (TD)
First down: 3 yard line (TD)

Michigan:
First down: 10 yard line (TD)
First down: 12 yard line (FG)
First down: 4 yard line (TD)

Notre Dame:
First down: 15 yard line (no score, fumble)
First down: 11 yard line (no score, blocked FG kicked on first down at end of half)
First down: 16 yard line (FG)

Out of 22 RZ possessions, we "failed" to score twice (the INT at Indiana and the fumble against ND). The final drive against Illinois was "running kneel-down" and our second RZ "possession" in the Fiesta Bowl was a one-play drive at the end of the half (didn't have four downs). Twelve TDs on 22 RZ possession ain't great, but it ain't bad. Scoring on 18 of 20 RZ possesions (I'm discounting the "running kneel-down" and the one-play drive) is pretty damn good.
 
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