xcrunner
Hall of Fame
Just adding my 2 cents here...
First off, to stay on topic, great play by Pryor. Wow. If not for quite a disappointing effort by Robo on that one pass, he would have had an even more spectacular debut. I simply did not expect such good play so early on.
Second off, and still staying on topic... Troy is not a bad team. They've put up 30+ points against great defenses. Hopefully this performance meant something good. Time will tell.
Now...
I must say, I've seen a lot of statements like "The embarrassments against UF, Illinois, LSU, and USC show that something is wrong..." or something along those lines. And indeed, if we got embarrassed 4 times like that in such a short time period I would be concerned.
But remember the end of 2006... How many of us thought we'd be playing for the national championship again? Honestly? Losing the majority of our D-Line (especially the interior)? Losing pretty much all of our offensive firepower? Most of us were hoping for something like 11-2... That's what we got. This is a matter of opinion, but I firmly believe that the 2007 Buckeyes OVERachieved. The media made it seem like they underachieved because they lost to a GREAT LSU team by 14, at LSU. An LSU team that was banged up for a lot of their season, and fully healthy (/all suspensions lifted) for us. Against an Ohio State team with how many seniors? Realistically, should we have been able to win that game? No. And we didn't, and therefore we were "embarassed". I don't blame that on coaching in the slightest, remotest sense. Same with Illinois. We were a young team with few seniors. We got upset by Illinois. USC got upset by Stanford. LSU lost to Arkansas AND Kentucky. Florida lost to Auburn. Unless I'm much mistaken, Illinois last year was far superior to all those teams.
So now it's the end of 2007 and we've been embarrassed 3 times. One horrible loss to UF (No excuses there, although with Ginn it might have been a little more respectable). One loss to a solid Illinois team, and one loss by 14 to a great LSU team. The last 2 with a team with, what... 3 senior starters?
And think of our mindset at this point. We've been beaten down, embarrassed, and we absolutely must beat USC or all is lost.
We have 2 pretty good drives that result in a lot of yards and 3 points. And then we fall apart. Emotionally, I think that's easy to understand. Easy to excuse? No. But easy to understand. Down 14-3, we've worked so hard and somehow we only have 3 points... not again.... And then a pick-6 and it's just... the players don't even know how to react.
So we get blown out again. But since the beginning of 2006, I still only see 2 bad losses, and the players and coaches are getting destroyed for it. And it's not fair. It is simply not fair for Todd Boeckman, who has given up more for Ohio State football than any of those idiots boo'ing him, to be treated like that. Nor do I feel that the coaches are doing a bad job. They're playing with 18-22 year olds. We are bound to get embarrassed. Look at any CFB program, and you will see glaring embarrassments. The media has just highlighted ours and shoved them down everyone's throats.
That being said, I think that we can definitely move forward. This team has some weaknesses that can't be solved easily- namely, we're now playing with a true freshman quarterback who is bound to make mistakes. We also have what appears to be a talent deficiency at the DT positions, which comes down to poor recruiting. Sometimes that's just luck. 2009 looks like its turning the DT recruiting around. I wish that had started a little earlier. But we still have tons of talent everywhere else, and we can make this season a great one. I'd love to get the opportunity to play another SEC team, this one maybe without so much pressure on us.
Basically I guess what I'm saying is sure, you can look at all of our losses pessimistically and start blaming the coaches... Or you can look at it like "well, holy crap, somehow we made it to the national championship game in 2007 with 3 senior starters. We avoided upsets, which nobody else could do, because we have a disciplined team. That comes from the coaches", which is how I'm choosing to look at it.
And I certainly think this Troy game was a step in the right direction. We made appropriate changes- I do think that Boeckman's time, unfortunately, is over... His confidence just appears to be shattered. Maybe I'll be proven wrong and he'll bounce back and start soon, and I would love that, because he's a great man.
But it also does look like we played some good offense and defense. We had some embarrassing defensive plays, but we held them to 10, which is pretty impressive... Hopefully we can continue this into next week and especially into the Wisconsin game.
First off, to stay on topic, great play by Pryor. Wow. If not for quite a disappointing effort by Robo on that one pass, he would have had an even more spectacular debut. I simply did not expect such good play so early on.
Second off, and still staying on topic... Troy is not a bad team. They've put up 30+ points against great defenses. Hopefully this performance meant something good. Time will tell.
Now...
I must say, I've seen a lot of statements like "The embarrassments against UF, Illinois, LSU, and USC show that something is wrong..." or something along those lines. And indeed, if we got embarrassed 4 times like that in such a short time period I would be concerned.
But remember the end of 2006... How many of us thought we'd be playing for the national championship again? Honestly? Losing the majority of our D-Line (especially the interior)? Losing pretty much all of our offensive firepower? Most of us were hoping for something like 11-2... That's what we got. This is a matter of opinion, but I firmly believe that the 2007 Buckeyes OVERachieved. The media made it seem like they underachieved because they lost to a GREAT LSU team by 14, at LSU. An LSU team that was banged up for a lot of their season, and fully healthy (/all suspensions lifted) for us. Against an Ohio State team with how many seniors? Realistically, should we have been able to win that game? No. And we didn't, and therefore we were "embarassed". I don't blame that on coaching in the slightest, remotest sense. Same with Illinois. We were a young team with few seniors. We got upset by Illinois. USC got upset by Stanford. LSU lost to Arkansas AND Kentucky. Florida lost to Auburn. Unless I'm much mistaken, Illinois last year was far superior to all those teams.
So now it's the end of 2007 and we've been embarrassed 3 times. One horrible loss to UF (No excuses there, although with Ginn it might have been a little more respectable). One loss to a solid Illinois team, and one loss by 14 to a great LSU team. The last 2 with a team with, what... 3 senior starters?
And think of our mindset at this point. We've been beaten down, embarrassed, and we absolutely must beat USC or all is lost.
We have 2 pretty good drives that result in a lot of yards and 3 points. And then we fall apart. Emotionally, I think that's easy to understand. Easy to excuse? No. But easy to understand. Down 14-3, we've worked so hard and somehow we only have 3 points... not again.... And then a pick-6 and it's just... the players don't even know how to react.
So we get blown out again. But since the beginning of 2006, I still only see 2 bad losses, and the players and coaches are getting destroyed for it. And it's not fair. It is simply not fair for Todd Boeckman, who has given up more for Ohio State football than any of those idiots boo'ing him, to be treated like that. Nor do I feel that the coaches are doing a bad job. They're playing with 18-22 year olds. We are bound to get embarrassed. Look at any CFB program, and you will see glaring embarrassments. The media has just highlighted ours and shoved them down everyone's throats.
That being said, I think that we can definitely move forward. This team has some weaknesses that can't be solved easily- namely, we're now playing with a true freshman quarterback who is bound to make mistakes. We also have what appears to be a talent deficiency at the DT positions, which comes down to poor recruiting. Sometimes that's just luck. 2009 looks like its turning the DT recruiting around. I wish that had started a little earlier. But we still have tons of talent everywhere else, and we can make this season a great one. I'd love to get the opportunity to play another SEC team, this one maybe without so much pressure on us.
Basically I guess what I'm saying is sure, you can look at all of our losses pessimistically and start blaming the coaches... Or you can look at it like "well, holy crap, somehow we made it to the national championship game in 2007 with 3 senior starters. We avoided upsets, which nobody else could do, because we have a disciplined team. That comes from the coaches", which is how I'm choosing to look at it.
And I certainly think this Troy game was a step in the right direction. We made appropriate changes- I do think that Boeckman's time, unfortunately, is over... His confidence just appears to be shattered. Maybe I'll be proven wrong and he'll bounce back and start soon, and I would love that, because he's a great man.
But it also does look like we played some good offense and defense. We had some embarrassing defensive plays, but we held them to 10, which is pretty impressive... Hopefully we can continue this into next week and especially into the Wisconsin game.
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And please believe me when I say that Tressell knows just how monumental this years TSUN game could be. I'm thinking 1968. If y'all don't know how that turned out...look it up. 
