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

[xrayrandy]

I honestly don't expect that the zone read will be the primary running formation for UT this year. Two things were obvious during the spring game. If Colt runs it teams have their DE crash down the line so Colt keeps it, knowing that Colt can be held to 3 yards or less. Snead may be a a couple yards better than that on average, but still not a huge threat. The other obvious thing is Melton is not a zone read back. With the coaches opening planning to keep him at RB, we must expect him to run from other formations, and it won't just be in short yardage situations.

The interesting thing is that we won't show anything about the new offense in the first game, so tOSUs coaches will have to plan for something they haven't seen from UT.

 

[crazybuckfan40]

Here is the difference, McCoy is a mobile qb but make no mistake, he is a pocket passer. Snead, however, is a true running threat. Before commiting to texas he was going to florida to run Urban Myers option, spread thing he calls an offense. It looked to be a great fit as Snead is often compared to Alex Smith. He will take the ball and run and has a little wiggle in him too.

Well he may be somewhat of a threat, but my main point was to point out that he isnt going to be that threat (at least by the time we play you guys) that puts fear into the defense and makes them change their defense around. Also if he does start, well either of them for that matter, how are they going to react after they take off and get 5 yards, but get absolutely popped by one of our linebackers, d-lineman, or S. My guess is that they will be a little scared to take off as much after that. I am guessing that they are going to have the redjersey on in practice, so they arent goign to be used to taking those hits and they arent going to be the type that was able to avoid the big hit like VY or Smith.

as far as stopping your offense, I have no clue. the good news is that we have a veteran defense that had to play against our offense last year. I don't think that anything that tosu does will suprise them but that is not to say that we can stop you either.

Yeah I don't see a total offense explosion, I just see an effiecient offense against you guys.

every year we hear some reason why our returning offensive players were good the year before but wont be in the comming year.

First the roy williams and co. were only good because of simms/applewhite then cedric was only good because the big 3, then Vince was only good because of cedric, and now the oline was only good because of vince. aggy is the king of this. I will give you that vince made the whole offense better but the oline was very tallented in its own right and will be just fine without him.

I never said they won't be as good, I just said they are going to have to play at a different style and it isnt going to be as easy as it probably seemed at times for them last year, b/c of the easy blocks they had to make or didnt have to make, b/c teams werent blitzing like they will this year to confuse the young qbs.

 

[MyMamaTastesFunny]

Our 05 D did not force many turnovers, but they did not need to do so in most games. It will be interesting to see if our D is more aggressive this year. I believe we may be faster (DE?, MLB, SLB?, FS, SS?), but not sure we can dominate as well at individual positions (especially LB). OSU is never going to be reckless on D, but JT teams have always been more aggressive on D than O.

It will be interesting to see how the OL comes along. Mangold is irreplaceable that early, and Sims is a tough replacement. Datish was very up and down in 05, and went from being criticized to being an anchor on the line. It will be interesting to see how LT Boone and LG Rehring (pre-spring starters; both 6'8") handle the left side. Cordle was #8 on the OL list behind Boone/Rehring. If he is ready to go as a frosh, that will give the coaches more flexibility (ie Datish at LG).

I always get a kick out of the hornfans.com posters who think heat will be unbearable, even if its in the evening. Didn't a bunch of texas defenders cramp up during the unusually humid rose bowl? I'm not suggesting this will happen again, but I bet Texas fans would predict that USC would have struggled with the humidity, not them. Anyway, you guys have been very reasonable about it, just wanted to chime in on that point.

LOL about the heat. We sure did cramp up against USC. Really weird, to say the least. Colorado said the heat and himidity did them in against Miami last fall, so I thought it might be a factor, but that was a day game. Anyway, I won't mention it any more.

 

[MyMamaTastesFunny]

Our 05 D did not force many turnovers, but they did not need to do so in most games. It will be interesting to see if our D is more aggressive this year. I believe we may be faster (DE?, MLB, SLB?, FS, SS?), but not sure we can dominate as well at individual positions (especially LB). OSU is never going to be reckless on D, but JT teams have always been more aggressive on D than O.

It will be interesting to see how the OL comes along. Mangold is irreplaceable that early, and Sims is a tough replacement. Datish was very up and down in 05, and went from being criticized to being an anchor on the line. It will be interesting to see how LT Boone and LG Rehring (pre-spring starters; both 6'8") handle the left side. Cordle was #8 on the OL list behind Boone/Rehring. If he is ready to go as a frosh, that will give the coaches more flexibility (ie Datish at LG).

I always get a kick out of the hornfans.com posters who think heat will be unbearable, even if its in the evening. Didn't a bunch of texas defenders cramp up during the unusually humid rose bowl? I'm not suggesting this will happen again, but I bet Texas fans would predict that USC would have struggled with the humidity, not them. Anyway, you guys have been very reasonable about it, just wanted to chime in on that point.

LOL about the heat. We sure did cramp up against USC. Really weird, to say the least. Colorado said the heat and himidity did them in against Miami last fall, so I thought it might be a factor, but that was a day game. Anyway, I won't mention it any more.

 

[BrockSamson]

I honestly don't expect that the zone read will be the primary running formation for UT this year.

I agree completely. Last year, Greg Davis was saying that Jamaal is a traditional I-back. Selvin is better suited running in I and ace formations. RT's running style is probably going to fit any scheme equally well. Melton needs to pound it. I haven't seen enough of Vondrell McGee to say anything about him (and I put odds of him shirting around 40% anyway). Add in this post-scrimmage quote from Mack:

On why the ball wasn't run very much tonight: We didn't have many runs in. We were not going to show anything that we didn't do last year. *Additional Coach-speak about our awesome D*

Our personnel probably points to ace backfield with 3WRs and a TE. Like last year, we shouldn't have less than 3WRs on the field except for short yardage situations.

 

[EngineerHorn]

We definatly are faster at Middle backer, and I think both our outsider backers (animal/Freeman) are the same as Hawk and carpenter.

I saw what Hawk ran, but I don't remember the number. It was 4.5x, right? Damn impressive. And I can't remember seeing Carp's at all, but I do remember hearing how he was probably faster than Hawk. Y'all must have stockpiled some speedy linebackers to replace them and become faster.

Okay, I looked at your recruits, and yes y'all have indeed stockpiled some quick linebackers. Young though. So I'm hoping their inexperience takes them out of position. I was always amazed at how AJ was always at the right spot. And the few times he wasn't, he had the speed to recover.

 

[scarletngrey11]

I saw what Hawk ran, but I don't remember the number. It was 4.5x, right? Damn impressive. And I can't remember seeing Carp's at all, but I do remember hearing how he was probably faster than Hawk. Y'all must have stockpiled some speedy linebackers to replace them and become faster.

Okay, I looked at your recruits, and yes y'all have indeed stockpiled some quick linebackers. Young though. So I'm hoping their inexperience takes them out of position. I was always amazed at how AJ was always at the right spot. And the few times he wasn't, he had the speed to recover.

Hawk was reportedly timed at a 4.46 last year, and somewhere around that same time at the Pro Day this year(some scouts had him at a 4.38, but thats hard to believe even for a biased fan like me.) Carpenter ran a 4.5 last year, and a 4.6 this year(even though he was only 90% healthy.)

I think it was Richardson(who will probably be our starting DE and is a senior) that said he thinks we have more speed on our defense this year than we have in a long time.

Freeman wouldve gotten playing time last year but he was injured. Hes supposed to be an All-American by the time he leaves Columbus. John Kerr is a transfer from Indiana(where he led the Big 10 in tackles as a freshman.) Larry Grant or James Laurinaitis will be the third starting linebacker, and Grant's scout profile has him at a 4.45. Our depth is also amazing, Curtis Terry(last year Hawk said he was the fastest linebacker on the team) and Chad Hoobler both are capable of starting. OSU also brought in the best class of linebackers in the entire country who could find some playing time.

It might not be a big reach at all to call our defense faster this year.

 

[buckeyeboy]

www.mackbrown-texasfootball.com

Thanks HL. For others interested, here's a direct link: http://www.mackbrown-texasfootball.com/doc_lib/scrimmage_040106_stats.pdf

 

[texhornfan]

the bottom line is

no one in texas knows how mccoy or sneed will perform playing a top team like tosu. the flip side of that is know one in ohio does either.???

 

[bukIpower]

Very True... I believe if you could get your young QB's some easy quick throws you might be able to get him some confidence and then be able to do some damage. I think as the year goes I'd predict Snead to be the starter because you know Mack is going to want to bite the bullet while his team is so talented so that down the road he has a starter for 4 years.

As far as our linebackers speed heres the starters times (40's dont mean much in football but still)

Last Years/This Year

Carpenter 4.6/Animal 4.6 or Grant 4.45
Schlegal 4.8/D'Andrea 4.5 or Kerr 4.7
Hawk 4.45/Freeman 4.5 or Terry 4.4

So as you can see the starters matched up with the starters are fairly even. It all depends on if Grant starts instead of Animal if I can say our Linebackers are going to be faster. If Grant starts ahead of Animal then I have no doubt we'll be a tad bit faster (of course not as big or experienced which means a lot more than speed).

 

[xrayrandy]

Texas should be a lot faster at LB next year too, mostly because Harris is gone. While I knew he wasn't real fast I never expected the 5.0 40 he ran on pro day. When he was playing injured the last half of last season he was even slower. It is no wonder he dissappeared from games. The top 5 players looking to start at LB for Texas next season were all 4.5 or better prospects out of school. Kelson is the fastest as evidenced by his blanket man coverage of Reggie Bush in the Rose Bowl.

Scheme-wize the important thing is that Chizik will have a MLB with enough speed to cover the middle zone effectively in the Tampa 2 set. Chizik is a Tampa 2 disciple, but Harris was not very effective in coverage which limited the defenses he could call. He was mostly stuck with cover 2 with the corners playing ether zone or a man underneith it. Next year he can run more Tampa 2 and still vary the underneath coverages some to give the offense more different looks.

 

[bucknut11]

From the Dispatch...

Under the lights ?

It’s not official, but Tressel indicated that OSU’s games Sept. 9 at Texas and Sept. 30 at Iowa will be played at night.

OSU is 1-3 at night the past two seasons.

 

[High Lonesome]

the way I understood it, it was very official. this is going to be a primetime night game, after last year how could it not be?

 

[JTIZZ06]

I wonder who will be the under dog in this game?

 

[High Lonesome]

i would assume that it will be a very small spread with the bucks slightly favored as I think that you will be ranked higher