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

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Man, I browse through all the pages of this thread and realize that we are all going in a giant circle. Texas fans think they have a great shot (rightfully so), and so do OSU fans (rightfully so). Nothing that we say will affect the outcome of this game, or how it's played. Let's keep the trash talking civil this week, because shit talking only attracts trolls.......and there will be plenty of them (both teams) this week.
 
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Goodness, so much chatter about a team that ranked between 110 and 150 in most power rating during the past three years. Not a junior varsity, Randy? I think you may be right but if you keep 'em on the schedule, they might just work their way up there.

I'd like to see what you guys who could see the game yesterday think about our defensive play and the Texas game. People are saying it was and wasn't a vanilla defense. Grad21 was somewhat concerned and graded the linebackers and secondary pretty critically. On the other hand, Grad, LJB, and many others thought Wolfe was the real deal.

I just don't know what to make of all of what I am reading here.

In the opinion of those of you who have a good knowledge of the game technically, how do you feel about our matchup with Texas now?
 
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Crayfish said:
From what I saw Northern Illinois was a better team than North Texas in every facet. There is more than one reason why Northern Illinois is favored to win the MAC and North Texas is predicted to fight for the Sunbelt Conference basement.
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Since the Sun Belt Conference began sponsoring football in 2001, Jeff Sagarin's conference rankings, for what its worth, typically have placed the Sun Belt behind not only the Mid-American, but behind several 1AA conferences as well. In 4 out of 5 full seasons, the Sun Belt has been bottom of the barrel in quality of play:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc06.htm
CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS

1 BIG TEN (A) = 79.59 78.93 ( 2) 11
2 PAC-10 (A) = 78.40 79.46 ( 1) 10
3 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 78.20 77.60 ( 3) 12
4 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 77.39 76.93 ( 4) 12
5 BIG 12 (A) = 75.94 76.61 ( 5) 12
6 BIG EAST (A) = 75.22 75.59 ( 6) 8
7 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 70.34 70.42 ( 7) 3
8 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 70.17 70.02 ( 8) 9
9 CONFERENCE USA (A) = 66.47 66.16 ( 9) 12
10 WESTERN ATHLETIC (A) = 64.16 64.77 ( 10) 9
11 MID-AMERICAN (A) = 60.92 61.20 ( 11) 13
12 ATLANTIC 10 (AA)= 60.38 59.34 ( 12) 12
13 GREAT WEST (AA)= 60.08 59.06 ( 13) 5
14 GATEWAY (AA)= 58.76 58.21 ( 14) 8
15 BIG SKY (AA)= 57.34 57.45 ( 15) 9
16 SUN BELT (A) = 57.32 57.16 ( 16) 8

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc05.htm
CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS

1 BIG TEN (A) = 80.72 80.55 ( 1) 11
2 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 78.96 78.26 ( 4) 12
3 BIG 12 (A) = 78.96 80.02 ( 2) 12
4 PAC-10 (A) = 77.92 78.65 ( 3) 10
5 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 75.28 74.92 ( 6) 12
6 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 74.44 75.02 ( 5) 3
7 BIG EAST (A) = 72.12 72.42 ( 7) 8
8 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 69.51 69.58 ( 8) 9
9 CONFERENCE USA (A) = 65.02 64.69 ( 9) 12
10 MID-AMERICAN (A) = 63.20 62.28 ( 10) 13
11 WESTERN ATHLETIC (A) = 61.90 61.49 ( 11) 9
12 GATEWAY (AA)= 57.07 55.53 ( 12) 8
13 SUN BELT (A) = 54.45 54.22 ( 13) 8
14 BIG SKY (AA)= 53.69 52.97 ( 15) 8
15 GREAT WEST (AA)= 53.42 52.65 ( 17) 6

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc04.htm
CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS

1 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 77.91 78.09 ( 2) 11
2 PAC-10 (A) = 77.84 78.89 ( 1) 10
3 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 76.98 76.98 ( 4) 2
4 BIG 12 (A) = 76.42 77.08 ( 3) 12
5 BIG TEN (A) = 75.63 75.29 ( 5) 11
6 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 74.13 74.31 ( 6) 12
7 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 72.08 72.91 ( 7) 8
8 BIG EAST (A) = 71.98 71.56 ( 8) 7
9 WESTERN ATHLETIC (A) = 67.40 68.40 ( 9) 10
10 ATLANTIC 10 (AA)= 65.74 65.14 ( 11) 12
11 CONFERENCE USA (A) = 65.66 66.75 ( 10) 11
12 SUN BELT (A) = 60.24 60.46 ( 12) 9
13 GREAT WEST (AA)= 56.73 56.72 ( 13) 6
14 BIG SKY (AA)= 55.90 56.49 ( 14) 8
15 MID-AMERICAN (A) = 55.69 56.35 ( 15) 14

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc03.htm
CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS

1 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 79.91 79.11 ( 1) 9
2 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 79.62 78.67 ( 2) 12
3 BIG TEN (A) = 77.59 76.44 ( 4) 11
4 PAC-10 (A) = 76.37 76.79 ( 3) 10
5 BIG 12 (A) = 76.25 75.61 ( 5) 12
6 BIG EAST (A) = 74.45 73.86 ( 6) 8
7 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 71.85 72.14 ( 7) 8
8 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 70.49 70.08 ( 8) 4
9 CONFERENCE USA (A) = 65.12 64.16 ( 10) 11
10 MID-AMERICAN (A) = 63.60 64.68 ( 9) 14
11 WESTERN ATHLETIC (A) = 63.41 63.23 ( 11) 10
12 GATEWAY (AA)= 57.85 57.15 ( 12) 8
13 BIG SKY (AA)= 57.69 57.09 ( 13) 8
14 ATLANTIC 10 (AA)= 55.54 56.15 ( 14) 11
15 SUN BELT (A) = 53.84 54.23 ( 15) 8

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc02.htm
CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS

1 BIG 12 (A) = 79.01 78.17 ( 2) 12
2 PAC-10 (A) = 78.84 79.14 ( 1) 10
3 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 78.69 78.13 ( 3) 12
4 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 77.99 77.38 ( 4) 9
5 BIG TEN (A) = 77.50 77.12 ( 5) 11
6 BIG EAST (A) = 76.56 75.26 ( 6) 8
7 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 66.39 66.71 ( 7) 8
8 CONFERENCE USA (A) = 65.54 64.63 ( 9) 10
9 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 65.03 66.03 ( 8) 6
10 MID-AMERICAN (A) = 63.80 63.15 ( 10) 14
11 WESTERN ATHLETIC (A) = 61.10 61.53 ( 11) 10
12 SUN BELT (A) = 58.72 59.88 ( 12) 7
13 GATEWAY (AA)= 57.25 58.15 ( 13) 8
14 ATLANTIC 10 (AA)= 55.29 55.01 ( 14) 11
15 BIG SKY (AA)= 54.50 54.23 ( 15) 8

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc01.htm
CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS

1 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 79.48 79.30 ( 1) 12
2 BIG 12 (A) = 79.26 78.60 ( 2) 12
3 PACIFIC-10 (A) = 78.90 78.05 ( 3) 10
4 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 77.44 76.04 ( 5) 9
5 BIG TEN (A) = 76.59 76.68 ( 4) 11
6 BIG EAST (A) = 76.37 75.90 ( 6) 8
7 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 68.21 68.38 ( 7) 8
8 CONFERENCE USA (A) = 64.33 63.60 ( 8) 10
9 WESTERN ATHLETIC (A) = 62.97 62.72 ( 9) 10
10 MID-AMERICAN (A) = 62.96 62.47 ( 10) 13
11 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 62.30 61.13 ( 11) 7
12 ATLANTIC 10 (AA)= 55.58 55.34 ( 12) 11
13 SOUTHLAND (AA)= 52.98 52.49 ( 14) 7
14 BIG SKY (AA)= 52.31 52.57 ( 13) 8
15 SOUTHERN (AA)= 51.22 50.87 ( 16) 9
16 SUN BELT (A) = 50.21 51.16 ( 15) 7
 
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Hard for me to take too much from either of the opening games. They both went pretty much as I felt they would. Neither team showed too much of their hand on offense & both defenses played pretty well. The cobwebs got knocked off & this should be a very good matchup. I think Texas' main concern is stopping Pittman & the run, just like tOSU with Charles. Whoever does that better will win IMO.
 
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I have legitimate concerns after watching the defense yesterday.
Horns fans believe it will be a romp.
Interesting, and of note, Tress seemed very pleased with what he saw!
Hmmmmm!
Could it become a romp?
No, there won't be a collapse of this defense.

We could see much more scoring than was first thought. At least by me.

Can we win in a shoot out?
I like our guy TS, if we have to come from behind.
 
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Interesting, and of note, Tress seemed very pleased with what he saw!
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I disagree... this sounds like 'we have much to learn and improve upon to handle the rest of the season.'
Despite how good Garrett Wolfe is, there are some guys we play in the next 11 weeks that are pretty darn good as well. We're going to have a chance to learn a lot. Lots of guys got lots of snaps. I don't know how many total plays there were in the game. They were saying in the Thursday games there were about 20 less plays per game because of the clock change. I don't know how many plays we had in this game totally, but we wanted to get as many snaps as we could. Got a lot of guys that need experience. Got a lot of guys that have been working hard and deserve those snaps, and it was a good victory against a tough football team. We had excellent leadership the winter, spring, and preseason and I think we took a step forward today.
Click to expand...
 
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NOW we have a bunch to talk about.

On tOSU.....Troy Smith, as expected, looked fantastic. Very precise and accurate. One of my favorite things to watch in college football is a veteran quarterback throwing to good receivers. I don't think TS will be able to hit Ginn and Gonzo deep as often, if at all, against UT, but since he was hitting everything else, I am sure we're going to give up some passing yards.

And were there seriously no option plays? I remember seeing an option pass or two, but no option runs. No need to I guess. I'm sure that will change next week. I would consider it a major accomplishment if we held Troy Smith to 250 total yards next week.

I was impressed with Chris Wells, he showed all of us why he was so highly rated coming out of high school. Fast, agile, and strong. Pittman looked like he did at the end of last year. Ohio State is stacked at running back.

And the defense......well, I'm not going to jump to any conclusions, especially in regards to how that performance translates to our game. I think the struggles can be attributed to a combination of things:
-Garrett Wolfe is a very, very good running back with a good O-line by MAC standards
-Since NIU is a mid-major, the intensity on defense might not have been as high
-The game was over by the end of the first quarter. That can only hurt a defense's intensity.
-Heacock kept it plain vanilla
-9 new starters (duh). They obviously aren't a cohesive unit yet.
-The tOSU D just flat out isn't as good as last year, and we all expected that.

With all that said, there is lots of room for improvement, and lots of things the UT coaching staff will pay a lot of attention to. There was that one strange stretch play that Wolfe gained over half his yards on- it was like a counter in that the backside tackle and guard pulled to the strong side outside the TE, but there was no deceptive movement on part of the OL, RB, or QB. Where the hell were the linebackers? Safeties had to constantly make the stop 15 yards downfield.

But take the good with the bad. NIU's inside running game was non-existent. It seems the tOSU DT's are worthy of their hype. I was also impressed at the pressure the defensive line got on Horvath. He never had more than 2-3 seconds to get rid of the ball, sometimes less.

It was hard to judge the secondary. NIU never went downfield as they kept dumping it off to Wolfe (smartly so). Their tackling was pretty good other than that ole' the three defenders did on Wolfe's only touchdown. I won't comment anymore because there isn't really anything more to talk about.

The big picture: tOSU held an offensive with a Heisman trophy candidate at running back and a veteran quarterback to 12 points. That's pretty damn good. But it can be argued that NIU provided a model for how to beat the tOSU defense.

Based on what I saw yesterday in both our games, I expect UT to line up a lot of the time in the two-TE ace formation. Lots of counters and stretch plays. I'm not sure how the UT spread running game will work against. Intuitively, it should work well since there are a lot of counters and zone plays run outside the tackles. We'll see.


My thoughts on the UT-UNT game upcoming (not that anyone really cares).
 
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EH - on the intesity issue, I think it's fair to point out that while the game mattered (read, the first Q), and with the exception of the long swing pass to Wolf, OSU shut NIU down almost completely. SO, hat I'm saying is, I hope it's a matter of intensity and rotating lineups, etc. that accounted for a lot of the yards OSU gave up. Of course, Wolf is the real deal, and it's maybe not the wisest thing for your stats to "expierement" with personnel. But, Tressel doesn't seem to care about many stats... that is, he'd rather get guys expierence, try some packages, than "Dominate" the statistical categories.
 
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