1. I?LL BE DAMNED
We just might be the best team in the country after all.
Up till know I agreed with the talking heads that - despite manhandling everything thrown our way - we were 6 parts schedule and 4 parts dominance.
But Saturday we dominated a pretty good running team and for the most part were able to do what we needed to do on O.
Of course, there were those mistakes. Mistakes a team can't make and finish the season #1 against the highest levels of competition. (And of course we must remember the ESPN axiom that whereas an Auburn team almost beating LSU only proves the strength of Auburn and the SEC, an MSU team almost beating OSU only proves how weak OSU and the Big Ten are.)
But if you are talking not about what we did but about what we proved we are capable of doing - we are capable of playing some damn fine football.
Except for those mistakes.
2. PLAYER OF THE GAME
You could give a nod to Ben Person, but in the end it was all Boeckman.
For OSU of course, I would go with Beanie.
3. QUARTERBACK CONTROVERSEY
I have nothing to say in defense of Todd Boeckman. He did some really good stuff - including a great pass to Robiske on 3rd and 9 from the 2 that also could have changed the complexion of the game had it not been completed.
But I have been beating his drum all year believing that he was the ultimate role player. And Saturday he failed to do the thing that is most fundamental to his role - play mistake free football.
Shortly before the first of those two turnovers he had thrown another poor pass and my son commented that he looked like he was dumping it to avoid getting hit. Just as he said that they replayed it on the score board and sure enough, there was Boeckman with an off balance throw that appeared to be hurried more than it needed to be.
He has not seen a lot of pressure this season and when he saw it Saturday he failed the test - big time.
It is a chance to learn. And he needs to step up, because this is by no means the most pressure we will see. And if he doesn't this otherwise number one team may just be one player short after all.
My money is on Boeckman.
And what is up with Henton? He was in street clothes again.
Did he proposition a prostitute, or did he beat and rob her? Was it a child prostitute? (I understand you can still find them at bars in the Short North - but they have to keep them in the back away from the liquor sales.)
I have heard (unconfirmed) that JT has a policy that you can't play if you have pending charges until they are resolved. But hold on a second. If the legal process is dragging out at some point you have to say "time served". Three weeks for this kind of offense seems a bit over the top IMO. Is solicitation really worse than a DWI? Is it better to get an amateur drunk and take her for a joy ride on public highways? Is it a lesser offense to be taking money from boosters than offering money trying to satisfy man's most fundamental need?
4. KISS CAM
Entertaining, but needs to be renamed the "Tongue Cam".
5. WILSON, GANT, HOMAN, AND TERRY
Those are four pretty good defensive football players. Kids who could contribute anywhere in the Big Ten. Yet they were all in street clothes Saturday.
And along with them sat Todd Denlinger - missing his third straight game. With Wilson that is half our starting DL from game one.
But even without them, this D was lights out.
I once coached a girls soccer team that played games where the ball never crossed onto our side of the field other than on kick offs (it is amazing how easily you can motivate kids when they are too young to know that a youth coach really doesn't have the authority to turn them over to Children's Services).
That is how this team played Saturday. Ringer had been averaging over 7 YPC. Saturday he was held to 2.7. On their first ten drives MSU crossed midfield only once. That's not "bend but don't break" - that's "don't bend".
Chekwa - who was so invaluable against the spread versus Purdue - rarely saw the field Saturday. He is a great talent, but a spare part, ready to step in and perform his role when the D needs him. Freeman is turning into a beast who could be chasing awards himself if not playing in a shadow. Andre Amos can't find a spot on the field.
Depth and speed - everywhere.
6. IT'S OFFICIAL
Eight weeks into the season, one week later than it is mathematically possible to happen, and on the first weekend that any team accomplished the feat - Notre Lame is bowl ineligible.
While OSU is being lauded for allowing only 63 points in 8 games as a team - Notre Dame has scored only 79 - three more than they allowed against Michigan and USC alone. While OSU has scored on its first drive each of the past five weeks, Notre Dame's best performance on an opening drive has been a missed FG.
But wait till next year. It is fainter, but the refrain continues.
So I must ask - just when is the last time a major program had a season like this and came back to compete for the NC a year later?
Unfortunately the effort to answer that question has been slowed. Researchers are unable to find a comparable year by a major program to use as a baseline.
But maybe I am wrong. Perhaps CW has changed the mind set and ND now has new goals. Bowl eligible in 2008. 9-3 with a BCS bid in 2009 and a legitimate run at the NC in Clausen's senior year.
If you are a ND fan and you hear chuckling, trust me - nobody is laughing WITH you.
7. CROWD
Impressive. For most of the game pretty much the reactive bunch you normally expect for anything short of a Texas or Michigan. But after the two turnovers, and after OSU again punted and the MSU offense came onto the field, they got spontaneously rowdy.
They were on their feet, loud and persistent. Not just third down - but every down.
A tip of the hat.
8. ODD STATS
Last week we at one point led Kent St by 35 while holding a 49 yard advantage in total offense.
This week we won by 7 in a game where our yardage edge was 237.
Good Defense, solid special teams, mistake free Offense. Is there anyone out there who still doesn't understand Tressel-ball?
9. JAKE BALLARD RUMOR
That he is appearing in the next Ballet Met production?
It was ugly. But it was six.
10. DANTONIO
I was a bit disappointed by his tone after the game, implying that if only this or that had happened they could have pulled it out. Truth is if not for a very big THIS and a huge THAT the score would have reflected the rout it was.
11. KICKING GAME
JT must have felt Dantonio had something up his sleeve on punts. I don't recall us having our normal punt team on the field much - if at all. It was pretty much the standard D with one or two kids back.
12. RARE VIDEO WANTED
I have a friend who collects rare video. He already has the pileated woodpecker and a short clip of Big Foot.
What he is looking for now is footage of Mo Wells gaining yards after contact. If anyone can help let me know.
13. BEANIE
That was one for the ages. Best performance since Mo C against Washington St. Along with that game - the best in a decade.
Is this the kid who would be nursing an ankle sprain for the rest of the season?
His second carry - 47 yards from the 7 - set the tone for the fist half. And his 27 yard change of direction carry was worth a rewind or two. While there were holes for many of his runs, there was also a lot of Beanie. But he certainly saved the best for last.
When OSU got the ball back with 3:38 left you could see it coming. JT was ready to run it up the gut three times, punt the ball and put the game in the hands of the Defense.
But Beanie wasn't having it. With 23 carries and 185 yards in the books (already the equal of MSUs game total), with everyone in the stadium - including an opposing coach who knew better than anyone where his mentor was taking the ball - Beanie ran seven straight times.
12 yards for a first down.
2, 7 and then 3 for a first down.
5, 3 and 4 - first down.
Game over.
14. GAME PLAN
I got a rare glimpse of JT's game plan Saturday - and was surprised to see the opening sequence fully scripted:
a. Poor kickoff return.
b. Penalty
c. Penalty
d. First offensive snap.
e. 96 yard TD drive.
15. BREAKING DOWN THE POINTS
OSU as a team has allowed 63 points this season - less than 8 per game. Best in the nation. But to appreciate what the D has done merits a closer look.
Subtract two TDs yesterday on turnovers plus a safety by Akron and the total is 47.
Subtract a kick off return by Northwestern and we hit 40.
Those are the points that were actually scored by an offense against our defense. Five per game.
But let's look closer still.
YSU kicked a FG from the 27 - three yards further away than they had recovered the ball on an OSU fumble. Can't blame the D for that one.
Which takes us down to 37.
A last minute, last drive TD by Washington in a game that was well in hand.
A last drive field goal from Kent St in a game that was well in hand.
A last minute, last drive TD by Purdue in a game that was well in hand.
Subtract those 17 and you have twenty points that you can hang on the D which were scored prior to the last drive in games that weren't already decided
So what's left?
A 64 yard TD drive by Minnesota.
An 80 yard TD drive by Washington*
Field goals by YSU and MSU.
Not bad. Particularly when the gold standard seems to be an LSU Defense which has allowed 91 points in its last three games. All scored against their D by the other teams O and all when it mattered. (Not that this takes away from LSU of course. It is all just evidence of how good the SEC offenses really are.)
(*The Washington TD came with 3 seconds left in the half and is the only time this season the D has given up points that put OSU behind. The only other time we have trailed was 0-2 on the Akron safety.)
16. NACHO REPORT
When last we left the Cheese Bitch I was debating whether to take her up on her offer of a rendezvous. Since no money was to change hands, she was over 18 and lived outside 270 everything looked like a go.
Then I got to talking to some of my seat mates in C deck. Turns out I am not the first fan to catch her fancy. Two guys in my section alone had also reconnoitered with the cheese bitch - and both came down with a rare form of STD called Cheese Disease (green, hot, pepper-sized sores and yellow, sometimes warm, oozing).
So when I picked up my usual I told her I was going to give it a pass.
She was not pleased.
17. ELSEWHERE
Just turning the half way mark of the season and only one team each from the Big Ten and SEC has even a remote chance of playing in the title game. The SEC was almost eliminated from the Championship picture completely - in week 8. (And was I the only one who had a hard time rooting for Auburn after the way they took Dorsey out of the game? Looked like a classic high-low cheap shot to me.)
There are only 14 teams from BCS conferences with 0 or 1 loss - with a number of those playing off in the next few weeks. Of the four undefeated teams from BCS conferences only OSU was mentioned in the preseason top 25 of either poll. They were 11th.
If I recall correctly, at a point even later than this last year the Big Ten and Big East each had three undefeated teams, nobody from the SEC had lost at all, and Notre Dame was on a 35 game winning streak.
And not only did the #2 team lose for the 4th straight week, but next week that team will be BC - who plays at Va Tech.
What to date has been a thrill a minute, upset filled, roller coaster ride is in danger of becoming a random and arbitrary scrum.
Somebody has to be the Yankees - or we have no one to root against.
Is it our destiny to wear Scarlet and Gray pinstripes?
18. IN THE END IT'S ALL GOOD
I don't want to make too little of the two - almost three - turnovers.
Nor should we ignore that if Ringer had been able to connect on the half back pass we might be having a very different discussion.
But let's not make too much of them either. There was an air of flukeishness to it. It is one thing to turn the ball over twice in four plays. It is another to have them both go back for TDs.
And the end result was that this team had to play the last quarter under duress. The game was on the line and we had to execute when it mattered. That is something this team needed going into this final four game stretch.
They came out of this game not patting themselves on the back and ready to roll through Happy Valley unchallenged - but angry and focused.
White Out or not it will take a lot more than emotion and liquid paper for a team that gave up 31 to IU to handle a Buckeye team that remembers full well what happened in 2005.
It's all good.
19. I DUNT AGRY
Papa, you sound like that girl named Polyanna from that story you red me.
Ohio State got 168 yards on there first 2 drives and after that the offends didn't do so gud. Speshly in the second half. And Michigan State has a really bad defends.
And when you talked about the bad things you forgot about the blocked field goal
And how in one stretch of 9 drives only one time did we get more than 29 yards.
And you say our D is so good, but member how last year you sed the same thing? And then we played that team from the SEX confriends and when it was over you broke into my special drawer and ate all the choclot I saved from Chirsmas and then cryd all nite?
You need to keep it real papa. Take off those scarlet glasses and stop sniffing my brothers dirty diapers.
We are pretty gud but haven't proofed anything yet.
And the big ten really does suck this yeer.
And you need to talk to my preschool teechur cuz we got to draw a pigtur of anything we wanted and I drew one of a lady in plastig rap and now my teechur ones two talk two you and she had that face like she did when you dropped me off in that tee shird that sed that bad thing about that gurl named Ann Arbor.
What's a dare-a-lick?
Sawree I changed yur letr.
We just might be the best team in the country after all.
Up till know I agreed with the talking heads that - despite manhandling everything thrown our way - we were 6 parts schedule and 4 parts dominance.
But Saturday we dominated a pretty good running team and for the most part were able to do what we needed to do on O.
Of course, there were those mistakes. Mistakes a team can't make and finish the season #1 against the highest levels of competition. (And of course we must remember the ESPN axiom that whereas an Auburn team almost beating LSU only proves the strength of Auburn and the SEC, an MSU team almost beating OSU only proves how weak OSU and the Big Ten are.)
But if you are talking not about what we did but about what we proved we are capable of doing - we are capable of playing some damn fine football.
Except for those mistakes.
2. PLAYER OF THE GAME
You could give a nod to Ben Person, but in the end it was all Boeckman.
For OSU of course, I would go with Beanie.
3. QUARTERBACK CONTROVERSEY
I have nothing to say in defense of Todd Boeckman. He did some really good stuff - including a great pass to Robiske on 3rd and 9 from the 2 that also could have changed the complexion of the game had it not been completed.
But I have been beating his drum all year believing that he was the ultimate role player. And Saturday he failed to do the thing that is most fundamental to his role - play mistake free football.
Shortly before the first of those two turnovers he had thrown another poor pass and my son commented that he looked like he was dumping it to avoid getting hit. Just as he said that they replayed it on the score board and sure enough, there was Boeckman with an off balance throw that appeared to be hurried more than it needed to be.
He has not seen a lot of pressure this season and when he saw it Saturday he failed the test - big time.
It is a chance to learn. And he needs to step up, because this is by no means the most pressure we will see. And if he doesn't this otherwise number one team may just be one player short after all.
My money is on Boeckman.
And what is up with Henton? He was in street clothes again.
Did he proposition a prostitute, or did he beat and rob her? Was it a child prostitute? (I understand you can still find them at bars in the Short North - but they have to keep them in the back away from the liquor sales.)
I have heard (unconfirmed) that JT has a policy that you can't play if you have pending charges until they are resolved. But hold on a second. If the legal process is dragging out at some point you have to say "time served". Three weeks for this kind of offense seems a bit over the top IMO. Is solicitation really worse than a DWI? Is it better to get an amateur drunk and take her for a joy ride on public highways? Is it a lesser offense to be taking money from boosters than offering money trying to satisfy man's most fundamental need?
4. KISS CAM
Entertaining, but needs to be renamed the "Tongue Cam".
5. WILSON, GANT, HOMAN, AND TERRY
Those are four pretty good defensive football players. Kids who could contribute anywhere in the Big Ten. Yet they were all in street clothes Saturday.
And along with them sat Todd Denlinger - missing his third straight game. With Wilson that is half our starting DL from game one.
But even without them, this D was lights out.
I once coached a girls soccer team that played games where the ball never crossed onto our side of the field other than on kick offs (it is amazing how easily you can motivate kids when they are too young to know that a youth coach really doesn't have the authority to turn them over to Children's Services).
That is how this team played Saturday. Ringer had been averaging over 7 YPC. Saturday he was held to 2.7. On their first ten drives MSU crossed midfield only once. That's not "bend but don't break" - that's "don't bend".
Chekwa - who was so invaluable against the spread versus Purdue - rarely saw the field Saturday. He is a great talent, but a spare part, ready to step in and perform his role when the D needs him. Freeman is turning into a beast who could be chasing awards himself if not playing in a shadow. Andre Amos can't find a spot on the field.
Depth and speed - everywhere.
6. IT'S OFFICIAL
Eight weeks into the season, one week later than it is mathematically possible to happen, and on the first weekend that any team accomplished the feat - Notre Lame is bowl ineligible.
While OSU is being lauded for allowing only 63 points in 8 games as a team - Notre Dame has scored only 79 - three more than they allowed against Michigan and USC alone. While OSU has scored on its first drive each of the past five weeks, Notre Dame's best performance on an opening drive has been a missed FG.
But wait till next year. It is fainter, but the refrain continues.
So I must ask - just when is the last time a major program had a season like this and came back to compete for the NC a year later?
Unfortunately the effort to answer that question has been slowed. Researchers are unable to find a comparable year by a major program to use as a baseline.
But maybe I am wrong. Perhaps CW has changed the mind set and ND now has new goals. Bowl eligible in 2008. 9-3 with a BCS bid in 2009 and a legitimate run at the NC in Clausen's senior year.
If you are a ND fan and you hear chuckling, trust me - nobody is laughing WITH you.
7. CROWD
Impressive. For most of the game pretty much the reactive bunch you normally expect for anything short of a Texas or Michigan. But after the two turnovers, and after OSU again punted and the MSU offense came onto the field, they got spontaneously rowdy.
They were on their feet, loud and persistent. Not just third down - but every down.
A tip of the hat.
8. ODD STATS
Last week we at one point led Kent St by 35 while holding a 49 yard advantage in total offense.
This week we won by 7 in a game where our yardage edge was 237.
Good Defense, solid special teams, mistake free Offense. Is there anyone out there who still doesn't understand Tressel-ball?
9. JAKE BALLARD RUMOR
That he is appearing in the next Ballet Met production?
It was ugly. But it was six.
10. DANTONIO
I was a bit disappointed by his tone after the game, implying that if only this or that had happened they could have pulled it out. Truth is if not for a very big THIS and a huge THAT the score would have reflected the rout it was.
11. KICKING GAME
JT must have felt Dantonio had something up his sleeve on punts. I don't recall us having our normal punt team on the field much - if at all. It was pretty much the standard D with one or two kids back.
12. RARE VIDEO WANTED
I have a friend who collects rare video. He already has the pileated woodpecker and a short clip of Big Foot.
What he is looking for now is footage of Mo Wells gaining yards after contact. If anyone can help let me know.
13. BEANIE
That was one for the ages. Best performance since Mo C against Washington St. Along with that game - the best in a decade.
Is this the kid who would be nursing an ankle sprain for the rest of the season?
His second carry - 47 yards from the 7 - set the tone for the fist half. And his 27 yard change of direction carry was worth a rewind or two. While there were holes for many of his runs, there was also a lot of Beanie. But he certainly saved the best for last.
When OSU got the ball back with 3:38 left you could see it coming. JT was ready to run it up the gut three times, punt the ball and put the game in the hands of the Defense.
But Beanie wasn't having it. With 23 carries and 185 yards in the books (already the equal of MSUs game total), with everyone in the stadium - including an opposing coach who knew better than anyone where his mentor was taking the ball - Beanie ran seven straight times.
12 yards for a first down.
2, 7 and then 3 for a first down.
5, 3 and 4 - first down.
Game over.
14. GAME PLAN
I got a rare glimpse of JT's game plan Saturday - and was surprised to see the opening sequence fully scripted:
a. Poor kickoff return.
b. Penalty
c. Penalty
d. First offensive snap.
e. 96 yard TD drive.
15. BREAKING DOWN THE POINTS
OSU as a team has allowed 63 points this season - less than 8 per game. Best in the nation. But to appreciate what the D has done merits a closer look.
Subtract two TDs yesterday on turnovers plus a safety by Akron and the total is 47.
Subtract a kick off return by Northwestern and we hit 40.
Those are the points that were actually scored by an offense against our defense. Five per game.
But let's look closer still.
YSU kicked a FG from the 27 - three yards further away than they had recovered the ball on an OSU fumble. Can't blame the D for that one.
Which takes us down to 37.
A last minute, last drive TD by Washington in a game that was well in hand.
A last drive field goal from Kent St in a game that was well in hand.
A last minute, last drive TD by Purdue in a game that was well in hand.
Subtract those 17 and you have twenty points that you can hang on the D which were scored prior to the last drive in games that weren't already decided
So what's left?
A 64 yard TD drive by Minnesota.
An 80 yard TD drive by Washington*
Field goals by YSU and MSU.
Not bad. Particularly when the gold standard seems to be an LSU Defense which has allowed 91 points in its last three games. All scored against their D by the other teams O and all when it mattered. (Not that this takes away from LSU of course. It is all just evidence of how good the SEC offenses really are.)
(*The Washington TD came with 3 seconds left in the half and is the only time this season the D has given up points that put OSU behind. The only other time we have trailed was 0-2 on the Akron safety.)
16. NACHO REPORT
When last we left the Cheese Bitch I was debating whether to take her up on her offer of a rendezvous. Since no money was to change hands, she was over 18 and lived outside 270 everything looked like a go.
Then I got to talking to some of my seat mates in C deck. Turns out I am not the first fan to catch her fancy. Two guys in my section alone had also reconnoitered with the cheese bitch - and both came down with a rare form of STD called Cheese Disease (green, hot, pepper-sized sores and yellow, sometimes warm, oozing).
So when I picked up my usual I told her I was going to give it a pass.
She was not pleased.
17. ELSEWHERE
Just turning the half way mark of the season and only one team each from the Big Ten and SEC has even a remote chance of playing in the title game. The SEC was almost eliminated from the Championship picture completely - in week 8. (And was I the only one who had a hard time rooting for Auburn after the way they took Dorsey out of the game? Looked like a classic high-low cheap shot to me.)
There are only 14 teams from BCS conferences with 0 or 1 loss - with a number of those playing off in the next few weeks. Of the four undefeated teams from BCS conferences only OSU was mentioned in the preseason top 25 of either poll. They were 11th.
If I recall correctly, at a point even later than this last year the Big Ten and Big East each had three undefeated teams, nobody from the SEC had lost at all, and Notre Dame was on a 35 game winning streak.
And not only did the #2 team lose for the 4th straight week, but next week that team will be BC - who plays at Va Tech.
What to date has been a thrill a minute, upset filled, roller coaster ride is in danger of becoming a random and arbitrary scrum.
Somebody has to be the Yankees - or we have no one to root against.
Is it our destiny to wear Scarlet and Gray pinstripes?
18. IN THE END IT'S ALL GOOD
I don't want to make too little of the two - almost three - turnovers.
Nor should we ignore that if Ringer had been able to connect on the half back pass we might be having a very different discussion.
But let's not make too much of them either. There was an air of flukeishness to it. It is one thing to turn the ball over twice in four plays. It is another to have them both go back for TDs.
And the end result was that this team had to play the last quarter under duress. The game was on the line and we had to execute when it mattered. That is something this team needed going into this final four game stretch.
They came out of this game not patting themselves on the back and ready to roll through Happy Valley unchallenged - but angry and focused.
White Out or not it will take a lot more than emotion and liquid paper for a team that gave up 31 to IU to handle a Buckeye team that remembers full well what happened in 2005.
It's all good.
19. I DUNT AGRY
Papa, you sound like that girl named Polyanna from that story you red me.
Ohio State got 168 yards on there first 2 drives and after that the offends didn't do so gud. Speshly in the second half. And Michigan State has a really bad defends.
And when you talked about the bad things you forgot about the blocked field goal
And how in one stretch of 9 drives only one time did we get more than 29 yards.
And you say our D is so good, but member how last year you sed the same thing? And then we played that team from the SEX confriends and when it was over you broke into my special drawer and ate all the choclot I saved from Chirsmas and then cryd all nite?
You need to keep it real papa. Take off those scarlet glasses and stop sniffing my brothers dirty diapers.
We are pretty gud but haven't proofed anything yet.
And the big ten really does suck this yeer.
And you need to talk to my preschool teechur cuz we got to draw a pigtur of anything we wanted and I drew one of a lady in plastig rap and now my teechur ones two talk two you and she had that face like she did when you dropped me off in that tee shird that sed that bad thing about that gurl named Ann Arbor.
What's a dare-a-lick?
Sawree I changed yur letr.
