1. THE GOOD NEWS
Took this picture about 6:45 Tuesday morning. Just wanted some evidence that the sun really did come up the day after the game.
2. THE BAD NEWS
The sun came up after Katrina. It came up after the tsunami in Indonesia. It came up after Chernobyl.
In each of those cases the sun shone down on a devastated landscape.
I am not in Columbus this week. I am kind of glad about that. I don't want to read the Dispatch. I don't want to watch the local news. I don't want to listen to the pissing and moaning.
(Unfortunately where I am is even worse.)
3. ARROGANCE
Arrogance: an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions.
Damn those Florida fans. Saying we hadn't played anyone. Saying we hadn't seen speed like theirs. Saying they would not only beat us, but beat us badly. Such arrogance.
It would make an interesting thread to string together some of the comments OSU posters made on this and to a far greater extent on other board in the 7 weeks (that is just waaaaay too long) leading up to this game. Our logical explanations for why Florida had no chance. Posts that cited history and statistics. Posts that were not arrogant, but simply stated the facts - the indisputable facts that clearly described our superiority and infallibility.
Ever eat one of your favorite foods and get food poisoning? Then find that you can't ever eat that food again? That's how I feel about smack boards.
You will be hard pressed to find statements from me saying we were going to whip Florida. I ain't smart. I am just old. I made those statements when I was younger and then had to look my arrogance in the eye. I don't have much of an appetite right now and am glad I don't have many words to eat.
I like BP. Not nearly the smack you see elsewhere.
But I think we all got a touch of food poisoning Monday night.
4. WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT FOOTBALL?
I had our game plan all figured out as soon as I knew we were playing Florida. Football 101 - run at speed and away from power. We passed against Michigan to open up the run. We would run right at Florida to open up the pass. Made sense to me.
But what do I know.
Pittman may as well go to the NFL. We have no use for him. We had 82 yards total Offense. Pittman had 73 of those - 62 on the ground - on 10 carries. That is 6.2 YPC - pretty good by any standard. Somewhat remarkable in a game where your O is otherwise shut down completely.
Ten carries. Almost seems like he should have gotten the ball more.
But what do I know.
5. WHO DO WE BLAME?
I did not expect this. Nobody did. Even the Gator fans who said they did were just whistling past the grave yard. A close game maybe. We might even lose. But not like this. Sorry America. We know the masses just wanted a good game and we couldn't do our part.
I did think the Florida O could move the ball. After all, it was less than 400 yards total offense. A lot to be sure - but nothing truly scandalous. And they do have a lot of weapons.
What I did not believe possible was that their D could do this to us. That any D could do this to us. I did not believe we would see the total breakdown on the OL. The relentless pressure on Troy. His inability to deal with Florida speed. The countless 'lookout' blocks. Our inability to run the ball. (Oops, strike that last one.)
I saw the D missing tackles. I saw them trying to hit them where they ain't. I saw Tebow shred a Laurinitias tackle like he was a school girl. But by that point they were exhausted. Florida ran 80 plays to our 37. THIRTYSEVEN!
How is that possible? When is the last time we ran 37 offensive plays in a game? When is the last time anybody ran that few plays?
Had our O stayed on the field our D would have gotten the job done. I really believe that. The defensive pressure was getting closer. (In the stretch of 4 Florida possessions that overlapped halftime they only gained 24 yards - never mind that they scored 10 points.) But our D was simply on the field too long.
So why? Why only 37 plays? Why could the OL not protect? Or perhaps more to the point, given that the OL could not protect why did we continue to challenge them to do so against a DL that was fresh as daisies?
And it wasn't about Ginn. We didn't have time to go vertical all game, so it mattered little who the receivers were. And nobody was going to challenge that D - that Florida speed - on the edges. We simply did not have a game plan in place to challenge their D to start the game and we did not have a game plan at the end. If I HAD to single out one group of players I would go with the OL. But I don't think I need to do that.
I believe it was David Patterson who said prior to the game that what JT does best is scheme for games. That in Patterson's four years at OSU those schemes had helped them win or be in a position to win at the end of every game they played except one. (Iowa in 2004).
Now make that two.
We lost because we got out coached and outplayed by a team that was at least our equal in talent and was far more motivated than we were (in the same way and for the same reasons that we were far more motivated than Miami in 2002).
But of course, the question isn't why we lost. It is why we were not capable of winning. Why it was not even a competitive game. Part of that was Ginn. Part of that was the extra two weeks off (remember what happened to the Tigers in the playoffs?). But the biggest part of it will remain the same sort of mystery that accompanies so many CFB blowouts between supposedly even matched teams.
And as is the case with all such mysteries - it belongs in the lap of the staff. Particularly the guy with the 7 figure contract (the one whose job includes making sure his players pay their own cell phone bills while he is making those seven figures).
All that said - I'll keep JT. He got us here and he is a hell of a coach. But if being hung in effigy was good enough for Woody it is good enough for JT. This outcome deserves a little heat. And nobody knows that better than Senator Tressel.
6. VICTIMS WHO DESERVE A SPECIAL MENTION
I don't mean to make light of legitimate disasters (well, I guess I do) but I can't help but think about those folks who paid good money for a great vacation and flew to Indonesia or Sri Lanka or Thailand for a vacation - only to become part of the tsunami.
So as you cry in your beer this week take a moment for those who paid a couple of thousand a seat and traveled to Glendale to watch this debacle. (I came thiiiiis close to pulling the trigger myself.)
Hope they all got laid.
(Silver lining here as well. Next time ticket prices wont be quite as obscene now that we are reminded that neither past performance, media predictions, or the back of the ticket actually guarantee a victory.)
7. MEANINGFUL STATS
Five.
Smith, Pittman, Beanie, Gonzo and Hartline.
These are the five offensive players who touched the ball for OSU in the National Championship game.
8. NACHO REPORT
I ate a few Nachos. But they came back up before halftime.
9. FOURTH AND SHORT
My stomach sank when JT made that call. Not because I thought it was the wrong thing to do, but because it meant he was seeing what I was seeing. JT didn't lose it. He knew we were in trouble.
10. TIP OF THE HAT TO THE SEC
They are the best conference in CFB. I don't like it, but it is true.
And don't compare teams - compare coaches.
It is indisputable.
11. A PLAYOFF
I concede.
None of my reasons for not wanting a playoff have changed. But the results of this bowl season will push folks like Delaney into a corner. Fans and coaches will no longer tolerate blowouts in championship games while arguable contenders watch on TV. It won't be next year, but it will be sooner rather than later.
I will still argue Boise St should have played somebody in the non-conference if they wanted a claim on the title. But I also think LSU could be the best team in CFB.
12. LITTLE KNOW FACT ABOUT RICHARD LEWIS
I imagine most folks saw OSU grad Richard Lewis during the pregame doing his best Matthew McConaughey impersonation. But many folks may not know that he played football for OSU as a walk on.
He was a WR with mediocre talent. Somber fellow at the time. His teammates said he was the last person you would expect to become a comedian.
Then one day at practice he went up to catch a pass and landed funny.
The rest is history.
13. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
After the Michigan game I was leading the No Rematch contingent of fans. I did not want to give them a chance to take from us what we had already won.
But had there been a rematch, and regardless of the outcome, we would be looking at Wisconsin, Michigan and OSU with three losses among them - and all from playing one another.
Had we played Michigan Florida could have played USC in some other Bowl and nobody would had any idea that they were arguably the best two teams in the country. Had we played Michigan little Toto would never have had a chance to grab that curtain and expose the myth of Big Ten dominance in 2006.
14. RECONSTRUCTING - THE BAD NEWS. THE REALLY BAD NEWS.
But Toto did pull the curtain back. And behind the curtain was a man in a sweater vest -and a multitude of arrogant fans.
Did we really play the #2 team three times this year? Or did we beat #8 in a squeaker at home, thump #13 on the road and get absolutely thrashed by #1? Did we win one of the premier conferences in the country? Or was it the little sister to the Big East?
Here is the hard part for me. We had a dominant line. Great running backs. Really great ones. Talented receivers. And a Heisman Quarterback. It wasn't just us who thought so. Almost everyone thought so. After all, the press was calling us a team without a weaknesses, weren't they? Or did I misread and they called us a team without an offense?
And here is what makes it hard.
When will we ever be better than this? When will we put a team on the field that we can say; "Ah yes. This isn't that bunch of pretenders from 2006. This is the real thing. This Heisman QB is legit. This OL can get the job done. This group has REAL speed."
But let me back up. This was a wonderful team. A truly wonderful team. They are legit. And I loved watching them all season. So I don't really buy into the statements above. But the seeds of doubt have been planted. Tiny mustard seeds to be sure - but we all know that parable.
It sucks to be Michigan. They went 11-0 this season and they "were back". But then they lost the last two games and it was the same old Michigan of the past 6 years. They entered the season holding the breath and only exhaled when they thumped ND. Next year they have to hold their breath till after they beat us - should such a calamity occur.
Well, I'm not sure I can hold my breath for an entire season plus an interminable 51 days. But that may be what I have to look forward to.
15. THE GOOD NEWS REVISITED
Finally, I can stretch out in the back of the bandwagon.
This hurts. This is real, stomach churning, physical pain. We can try to distance ourselves. It was the players, not us. But that isn't how it works. Irrational as it may be the associations we establish with our sports teams become an extension of ourselves. That is why we hang out on these boards. (That and the romper room.)
If it was a loss like Texas in '05 it would be easier to move on. We could go on believing we were who we thought we were going in. We could find a play or a call that would have changed the game had it gone the other way. Why did Spings have to slip? Why did they get to wear longer cleats? If only the Hartsock had caught that one pass.
But this hurts. This is a character builder. This is when you have to think about what it means to be an OSU fan.
And all you can do is wait for the pain to lessen and try to move on.
Florida is not 27 points better than us. If we played them 10 times we would not go 0-10. Say that to a Florida fan and they will call you arrogant. But perhaps they forget that when they won their other NC they beat FSU 52-20 - two games after losing to FSU 21-24.
Blowouts happen in CFB for many reason. Most often they are complete mismatches. But sometimes they are evenly matched teams where one has a lousy scheme or just isn't ready to play. Or both.
Clearly we were not who we thought we were. But neither are we 41-14. Once the pain starts to subside you can see silver linings everywhere. We didn't lose in the Poinsettia Bowl. We were playing for the NC. We were on a 19 game winning streak. We won a Heisman. We are one of the top 5 programs in the nation and will be next year as well. Tons of talent is coming back.
It is good to be a Buckeye. And doggone it - people like me.
(Gotta keep saying it til I believe it.)
16. THE JOYS OF RETIREMENT
You may have noticed that my sunrise picture doesn't exactly look like Grove City.
Since I retired the wife has been bugging me to get away for the winter. Somewhere South. Somewhere warm. This year is the first time I have agreed. So here we are - in Florida.
Half my wardrobe consists of OSU shirts. My car has an Ohio plate and the tag is a derivation of "Silver Bullets". I even have one of those Buckeye Leaf magnetics on the side (or at least I did last time I looked). It was all planned. I was going to enjoy wearing all my gear and doing so quite publicly. Not an "in your face" kind of thing. Just a reminder that we are around and that we are the best.
That was the plan.
This morning I took an early morning stroll on the beach. I like to walk close to the water - walking towards and then away from the breakers as the waves flow in and out. Pretty easy to keep the shoes dry if you are paying attention.
Except this one wave that moved much quicker than the others. I refused to change my pace and before I knew it my shoes were soaked.
Never underestimate Florida speed.
Took this picture about 6:45 Tuesday morning. Just wanted some evidence that the sun really did come up the day after the game.
2. THE BAD NEWS
The sun came up after Katrina. It came up after the tsunami in Indonesia. It came up after Chernobyl.
In each of those cases the sun shone down on a devastated landscape.
I am not in Columbus this week. I am kind of glad about that. I don't want to read the Dispatch. I don't want to watch the local news. I don't want to listen to the pissing and moaning.
(Unfortunately where I am is even worse.)
3. ARROGANCE
Arrogance: an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions.
Damn those Florida fans. Saying we hadn't played anyone. Saying we hadn't seen speed like theirs. Saying they would not only beat us, but beat us badly. Such arrogance.
It would make an interesting thread to string together some of the comments OSU posters made on this and to a far greater extent on other board in the 7 weeks (that is just waaaaay too long) leading up to this game. Our logical explanations for why Florida had no chance. Posts that cited history and statistics. Posts that were not arrogant, but simply stated the facts - the indisputable facts that clearly described our superiority and infallibility.
Ever eat one of your favorite foods and get food poisoning? Then find that you can't ever eat that food again? That's how I feel about smack boards.
You will be hard pressed to find statements from me saying we were going to whip Florida. I ain't smart. I am just old. I made those statements when I was younger and then had to look my arrogance in the eye. I don't have much of an appetite right now and am glad I don't have many words to eat.
I like BP. Not nearly the smack you see elsewhere.
But I think we all got a touch of food poisoning Monday night.
4. WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT FOOTBALL?
I had our game plan all figured out as soon as I knew we were playing Florida. Football 101 - run at speed and away from power. We passed against Michigan to open up the run. We would run right at Florida to open up the pass. Made sense to me.
But what do I know.
Pittman may as well go to the NFL. We have no use for him. We had 82 yards total Offense. Pittman had 73 of those - 62 on the ground - on 10 carries. That is 6.2 YPC - pretty good by any standard. Somewhat remarkable in a game where your O is otherwise shut down completely.
Ten carries. Almost seems like he should have gotten the ball more.
But what do I know.
5. WHO DO WE BLAME?
I did not expect this. Nobody did. Even the Gator fans who said they did were just whistling past the grave yard. A close game maybe. We might even lose. But not like this. Sorry America. We know the masses just wanted a good game and we couldn't do our part.
I did think the Florida O could move the ball. After all, it was less than 400 yards total offense. A lot to be sure - but nothing truly scandalous. And they do have a lot of weapons.
What I did not believe possible was that their D could do this to us. That any D could do this to us. I did not believe we would see the total breakdown on the OL. The relentless pressure on Troy. His inability to deal with Florida speed. The countless 'lookout' blocks. Our inability to run the ball. (Oops, strike that last one.)
I saw the D missing tackles. I saw them trying to hit them where they ain't. I saw Tebow shred a Laurinitias tackle like he was a school girl. But by that point they were exhausted. Florida ran 80 plays to our 37. THIRTYSEVEN!
How is that possible? When is the last time we ran 37 offensive plays in a game? When is the last time anybody ran that few plays?
Had our O stayed on the field our D would have gotten the job done. I really believe that. The defensive pressure was getting closer. (In the stretch of 4 Florida possessions that overlapped halftime they only gained 24 yards - never mind that they scored 10 points.) But our D was simply on the field too long.
So why? Why only 37 plays? Why could the OL not protect? Or perhaps more to the point, given that the OL could not protect why did we continue to challenge them to do so against a DL that was fresh as daisies?
And it wasn't about Ginn. We didn't have time to go vertical all game, so it mattered little who the receivers were. And nobody was going to challenge that D - that Florida speed - on the edges. We simply did not have a game plan in place to challenge their D to start the game and we did not have a game plan at the end. If I HAD to single out one group of players I would go with the OL. But I don't think I need to do that.
I believe it was David Patterson who said prior to the game that what JT does best is scheme for games. That in Patterson's four years at OSU those schemes had helped them win or be in a position to win at the end of every game they played except one. (Iowa in 2004).
Now make that two.
We lost because we got out coached and outplayed by a team that was at least our equal in talent and was far more motivated than we were (in the same way and for the same reasons that we were far more motivated than Miami in 2002).
But of course, the question isn't why we lost. It is why we were not capable of winning. Why it was not even a competitive game. Part of that was Ginn. Part of that was the extra two weeks off (remember what happened to the Tigers in the playoffs?). But the biggest part of it will remain the same sort of mystery that accompanies so many CFB blowouts between supposedly even matched teams.
And as is the case with all such mysteries - it belongs in the lap of the staff. Particularly the guy with the 7 figure contract (the one whose job includes making sure his players pay their own cell phone bills while he is making those seven figures).
All that said - I'll keep JT. He got us here and he is a hell of a coach. But if being hung in effigy was good enough for Woody it is good enough for JT. This outcome deserves a little heat. And nobody knows that better than Senator Tressel.
6. VICTIMS WHO DESERVE A SPECIAL MENTION
I don't mean to make light of legitimate disasters (well, I guess I do) but I can't help but think about those folks who paid good money for a great vacation and flew to Indonesia or Sri Lanka or Thailand for a vacation - only to become part of the tsunami.
So as you cry in your beer this week take a moment for those who paid a couple of thousand a seat and traveled to Glendale to watch this debacle. (I came thiiiiis close to pulling the trigger myself.)
Hope they all got laid.
(Silver lining here as well. Next time ticket prices wont be quite as obscene now that we are reminded that neither past performance, media predictions, or the back of the ticket actually guarantee a victory.)
7. MEANINGFUL STATS
Five.
Smith, Pittman, Beanie, Gonzo and Hartline.
These are the five offensive players who touched the ball for OSU in the National Championship game.
8. NACHO REPORT
I ate a few Nachos. But they came back up before halftime.
9. FOURTH AND SHORT
My stomach sank when JT made that call. Not because I thought it was the wrong thing to do, but because it meant he was seeing what I was seeing. JT didn't lose it. He knew we were in trouble.
10. TIP OF THE HAT TO THE SEC
They are the best conference in CFB. I don't like it, but it is true.
And don't compare teams - compare coaches.
It is indisputable.
11. A PLAYOFF
I concede.
None of my reasons for not wanting a playoff have changed. But the results of this bowl season will push folks like Delaney into a corner. Fans and coaches will no longer tolerate blowouts in championship games while arguable contenders watch on TV. It won't be next year, but it will be sooner rather than later.
I will still argue Boise St should have played somebody in the non-conference if they wanted a claim on the title. But I also think LSU could be the best team in CFB.
12. LITTLE KNOW FACT ABOUT RICHARD LEWIS
I imagine most folks saw OSU grad Richard Lewis during the pregame doing his best Matthew McConaughey impersonation. But many folks may not know that he played football for OSU as a walk on.
He was a WR with mediocre talent. Somber fellow at the time. His teammates said he was the last person you would expect to become a comedian.
Then one day at practice he went up to catch a pass and landed funny.
The rest is history.
13. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
After the Michigan game I was leading the No Rematch contingent of fans. I did not want to give them a chance to take from us what we had already won.
But had there been a rematch, and regardless of the outcome, we would be looking at Wisconsin, Michigan and OSU with three losses among them - and all from playing one another.
Had we played Michigan Florida could have played USC in some other Bowl and nobody would had any idea that they were arguably the best two teams in the country. Had we played Michigan little Toto would never have had a chance to grab that curtain and expose the myth of Big Ten dominance in 2006.
14. RECONSTRUCTING - THE BAD NEWS. THE REALLY BAD NEWS.
But Toto did pull the curtain back. And behind the curtain was a man in a sweater vest -and a multitude of arrogant fans.
Did we really play the #2 team three times this year? Or did we beat #8 in a squeaker at home, thump #13 on the road and get absolutely thrashed by #1? Did we win one of the premier conferences in the country? Or was it the little sister to the Big East?
Here is the hard part for me. We had a dominant line. Great running backs. Really great ones. Talented receivers. And a Heisman Quarterback. It wasn't just us who thought so. Almost everyone thought so. After all, the press was calling us a team without a weaknesses, weren't they? Or did I misread and they called us a team without an offense?
And here is what makes it hard.
When will we ever be better than this? When will we put a team on the field that we can say; "Ah yes. This isn't that bunch of pretenders from 2006. This is the real thing. This Heisman QB is legit. This OL can get the job done. This group has REAL speed."
But let me back up. This was a wonderful team. A truly wonderful team. They are legit. And I loved watching them all season. So I don't really buy into the statements above. But the seeds of doubt have been planted. Tiny mustard seeds to be sure - but we all know that parable.
It sucks to be Michigan. They went 11-0 this season and they "were back". But then they lost the last two games and it was the same old Michigan of the past 6 years. They entered the season holding the breath and only exhaled when they thumped ND. Next year they have to hold their breath till after they beat us - should such a calamity occur.
Well, I'm not sure I can hold my breath for an entire season plus an interminable 51 days. But that may be what I have to look forward to.
15. THE GOOD NEWS REVISITED
Finally, I can stretch out in the back of the bandwagon.
This hurts. This is real, stomach churning, physical pain. We can try to distance ourselves. It was the players, not us. But that isn't how it works. Irrational as it may be the associations we establish with our sports teams become an extension of ourselves. That is why we hang out on these boards. (That and the romper room.)
If it was a loss like Texas in '05 it would be easier to move on. We could go on believing we were who we thought we were going in. We could find a play or a call that would have changed the game had it gone the other way. Why did Spings have to slip? Why did they get to wear longer cleats? If only the Hartsock had caught that one pass.
But this hurts. This is a character builder. This is when you have to think about what it means to be an OSU fan.
And all you can do is wait for the pain to lessen and try to move on.
Florida is not 27 points better than us. If we played them 10 times we would not go 0-10. Say that to a Florida fan and they will call you arrogant. But perhaps they forget that when they won their other NC they beat FSU 52-20 - two games after losing to FSU 21-24.
Blowouts happen in CFB for many reason. Most often they are complete mismatches. But sometimes they are evenly matched teams where one has a lousy scheme or just isn't ready to play. Or both.
Clearly we were not who we thought we were. But neither are we 41-14. Once the pain starts to subside you can see silver linings everywhere. We didn't lose in the Poinsettia Bowl. We were playing for the NC. We were on a 19 game winning streak. We won a Heisman. We are one of the top 5 programs in the nation and will be next year as well. Tons of talent is coming back.
It is good to be a Buckeye. And doggone it - people like me.
(Gotta keep saying it til I believe it.)
16. THE JOYS OF RETIREMENT
You may have noticed that my sunrise picture doesn't exactly look like Grove City.
Since I retired the wife has been bugging me to get away for the winter. Somewhere South. Somewhere warm. This year is the first time I have agreed. So here we are - in Florida.
Half my wardrobe consists of OSU shirts. My car has an Ohio plate and the tag is a derivation of "Silver Bullets". I even have one of those Buckeye Leaf magnetics on the side (or at least I did last time I looked). It was all planned. I was going to enjoy wearing all my gear and doing so quite publicly. Not an "in your face" kind of thing. Just a reminder that we are around and that we are the best.
That was the plan.
This morning I took an early morning stroll on the beach. I like to walk close to the water - walking towards and then away from the breakers as the waves flow in and out. Pretty easy to keep the shoes dry if you are paying attention.
Except this one wave that moved much quicker than the others. I refused to change my pace and before I knew it my shoes were soaked.
Never underestimate Florida speed.
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