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Game Thread Ohio State 3, Southern Cal 35 (Sept. 13)

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BUCKYLE;1254234; said:
To my fellow BP'ers, and especially to the visiting Trojan, I apologize. I let my emotions, and a bit' o' booze get the best of me. That's not how Buckeyes are supposed to act. I'm just frustrated with the lack of confidence on this board. I don't think I've ever seen so many Buckeyes feel so sure of a loss, especially on buckeyeplanet. It won't happen again.
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[sarcasm]Wuss-boy....[/sarcasm]


:shake:
 
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We've got a better than average chance to win! We need to play OSU ball and grind them down.

The problem as I see it is the o line play. Great talent, great kids, but we need to have that explosion off the ball.

:oh:
 
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I think people are forgetting that USC played a very ordinary Virginia team which barely beat Richmond, a I-AA team this last weekend.

I see our defense coming up big this game. Sanchez has not thrown against a defense like ours in his entire career.....personally I am not that high on Boeckman throwing against USC's defense either (they will cancel each other out IMO). The game-breaker is gonna be Terrelle.....expect to see a lot of Saine and Beanie in the backfield with TP.

Maybe I'm crazy but I half think that JT wanted to see the reaction of the team in the face of adversity against Ohio. I did not see one piece of trickery in that game....not a single new play.

I like the tag of being an 11 point underdog.....I hope JT has that up in the locker room. That would be incentive enough for our team to show up and kick some butt!

My game prediction 23-13 to the Buckeyes!
 
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Here are some articles from the LA Times about the game (sorry for any redundancies). I'll include a few snippets:

The script in Ohio features a Vested interest - Los Angeles Times

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The old football coach flashes a look of incredulity, wincing, like you just don't understood.

So you try again: Is the USC game really that important to Ohio State fans?

"What are you talking about?" Earle Bruce says. "We know what this game means."

The former Buckeyes coach still lives in Columbus and hears the buzz around town, the talk that started months ago. The early schedule -- Youngstown State last week and Ohio today -- seems incidental.

"It's almost like, let's get through these first two weeks and get to Week 3," said Matt McCoy, sports director at local radio station WTVN. "That game's been circled for a long time."


No. 1 versus No. 3. Pac-10 versus Big Ten.

By numbers alone, next Saturday's USC-Ohio State matchup at the Coliseum looks like the game of the season, but numbers explain only part of the hype. You have to understand what football means to fans in this city by the Olentangy River.

"I mean, it's everything," said Buckeyes kicker Ryan Pretorius, a transplanted South African who has come to know the ways of the scarlet and gray. "It's a part of their life. Come Saturday, it's what everyone in Ohio does."


cont.
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Ohio State is back for thirds - Los Angeles Times

In college football, everybody is allowed to have an off week - Los Angeles Times

In Columbus, Ohio State got the Freddy Krueger treatment from The Ohio University of Athens before pulling out a 26-14 win that set off Dom Perignon corks at ABC headquarters, which very much did not want to televise next week a game featuring No. 1 USC versus a 1-1 team coming off a tough loss to a team nicknamed the Bobcats.

What should USC make of all this?

Keep reading.

<snip>

What should USC make of all this?

Not much, really.

Really?

Ohio State obviously had a serious case of the "look-aheads."

It's tough to ask a roster of young men to take seriously, with the USC game so close at hand, an Ohio team coming off a loss to Wyoming.

Look, if Ohio State brings its "B for Bobcat " game to L.A. next week, USC will win its second straight game by the score of 52-7.

But that's not likely to happen.

Ohio State simply got caught flat-cleated. It played without star tailback Chris "Beanie" Wells, who injured his right foot in the Youngstown State opener.

It thought it could beat Ohio without showing USC too much of the playbook, and almost paid a heavy price.

You see it all the time in college football, a superior team losing focus against a school it's supposed to stomp.

It happened to USC last year against Stanford. By the end of the year, though, wasn't USC playing as well as any team in the country?

Don't give up on your team yet, Buckeyes fans.

We'll tell you when to give up.

"We've got a lot of work to do," Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel said. "The good news is we're 2-0, it's September, and hopefully we can get a lot better."

cont.
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Players, Pete Carroll still consider Ohio State a big threat - Los Angeles Times

"I'm not thinking that's real indicative of how they're capable of playing," Carroll said of Ohio State.

"They've been a great program. They just kind of had one of those games that happens sometimes."

Quarterback Mark Sanchez did not watch the game live, preferring to view the tape on Sunday night.

Before he went into the team meeting, Sanchez said Ohio State's struggles could be attributed to "a million things."

"Everybody's going to be wanting to say that they were looking ahead," said Sanchez, a fourth-year junior who was recruited by Ohio State. "I don't think Coach [Jim] Tressel would've let that happen."

"I don't think it has anything to do with that. They just had an off game."

Defensive end Clay Matthews agreed.

"They're a good team that obviously struggled," Matthews said. "They're going to bring a much better effort against us."
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Ohio State will turn up heat on USC offensive line - Los Angeles Times

"It was like we were grilling steaks back there," Sanchez said.

The 52-7 rout over Virginia might have been a picnic, but USC offensive line coach Pat Ruel isn't planning to fire up the Weber or make any homemade barbecue sauce with Ohio State coming to the Coliseum on Saturday.

A sluggish victory over Ohio dropped Ohio State from third to fifth in the polls, but the Buckeyes' experienced front seven was not the issue and presents far different problems than what Virginia offered.


Ruel fully expects the Buckeyes to pressure Sanchez, who passed for 338 yards and three touchdowns in the opener.

"I'm not buying those steaks right now," Ruel joked. "It's got to be something you can microwave."

Trojans linemen, buoyed by their Game 1 performance, say they will be ready for the heat.

The offensive line knows it was USC's biggest question mark entering the season. Senior left guard Jeff Byers was the only returning starter in a group that includes center Kristofer O'Dowd, right guard Zack Heberer, right tackle Butch Lewis and left tackle Charles Brown.

The unit sparkled in the opener, communicating effectively and not allowing a sack against Virginia's 3-4 scheme. Linemen also led the way for a 218-yard rushing effort.

"We knew we were going to come together," Brown said.

Others were less certain.

<snip>
Ohio State intercepted four passes and recovered a fumble against Ohio. Co-defensive coordinators Jim Heacock and Luke Fickell are expected to turn the defense loose against Sanchez, who only a month ago suffered a dislocated left kneecap in practice.

"They're not just going to let Mark sit back there and pick them apart," USC offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian said.

USC linemen say they have studied video of the Buckeyes, picking up on individual and group tendencies. What they see in the film room is not all that different from what they encounter on the practice field.

"You can just tell off their moves and the tempo they play at," Lewis said. "They're very similar to our defense."

With an open date last week, USC coaches spent some of their practice time giving the offensive linemen an early look at what they will encounter against the Buckeyes. The extra workouts also provided developmental snaps for younger players who might be called upon as the season progresses.

At this point, however, no one is prepared to mint the offensive line. Ruel pointed out that the Trojans handled a Virginia defense that had lost several key players, most notably end Chris Long, the second overall pick in the NFL draft.

So, keep the lid on that grill.

"We haven't proven anything to anybody yet," Ruel said. "How good are we? We'll find out in the next four or five weeks."
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Will Ohio State's 'Beanie' Wells play against USC? - Los Angeles Times
 
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HorticullyBuck;1254103; said:
ESPN doesnt seem to be slamming us for the game as much as i would expect; think its more for the publicity benefits?
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Don't know if anyone has seen it yet, but it hasn't been mentioned here yet so I thought I'd post about it.

ESPN is running its own OSU USC ticker on the bottom line at ESPN.

and they've titled the game...

"Collision in the Coliseum"

They're also pimping it at every chance they get. I think I saw an SportsCenter preview that said "Is USC too fast for Ohio State?"
 
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BUCKYLE;1254234; said:
To my fellow BP'ers, and especially to the visiting Trojan, I apologize. I let my emotions, and a bit' o' booze get the best of me. That's not how Buckeyes are supposed to act. I'm just frustrated with the lack of confidence on this board. I don't think I've ever seen so many Buckeyes feel so sure of a loss, especially on buckeyeplanet. It won't happen again.
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You're still a cockhole. :p
 
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LATimes

Carroll: USC has 'no excuses' against Ohio State

Trojans coach says an off week allows his top-ranked team to prepare for Saturday's showdown against No. 5 Buckeyes.

By Gary Klein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
2:13 PM PDT, September 9, 2008

As the hype began shifting into overdrive for his team's game against Ohio State, USC Coach Pete Carroll today spoke admiringly of the Buckeyes' storied program and the team that will visit the Coliseum on Saturday.

But he also directly addressed the top-ranked Trojans' readiness for a game that could propel them toward another Bowl Championship Series title-game appearance.

Continued.......
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Lima

Surprise, Buckeyes knew USC was on schedule





September 9, 2008 - 7:08PM
Jim Naveau


COLUMBUS - After weeks, maybe months, of talking about playing them one at a time, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel and some of his players have come clean and admitted the obvious.
They knew Southern California was the third game on their schedule this year. They knew this was going to be a big game for all kinds of reasons.
"It's a game that I think our guys have been thinking about since the first time they saw it on the schedule," Tressel said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
Wide receiver Brian Hartline agreed. "It was every bit of a year, a year and a half, maybe two years ago that I noticed. That was really the mindset going into the offseason, USC, Week 3."
Earlier this week, quarterback Todd Boeckman said, "We've been looking forward to this game for quite some time.

Continued.......
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CPD

Ohio State football: Idiots infringe on USC-OSU talk

by Doug Lesmerises, Plain Dealer reporter Tuesday September 09, 2008, 5:02 PM


An idiot and a college football coach made for a combustible mix today, and the final result was USC coach Pete Carroll, completely justifiably, hanging up on a conference call with reporters.
Some of you may consider this the height of humor, but for the rest of us who made it past third grade, the imposter on the conference call was a brief, yet frustrating, sideshow in the buildup to the college football game of year so far.

About 20 minutes into a call with Carroll, someone who indentified himself as associated with a fake website asked Carroll in a garbled, if almost drunken, voice whether he rewarded his players by setting up dates with various Hollywood starlets.
After asking several times for the imposter to clarify his question, Carroll, remarkably, answered it, explaining that matchmaking is not in his job description.
At this point, with the conference moderator apparently asleep at the switch, the imposter asked a follow-up related to a brand-name product that shares a name with the Trojans.

Continued........
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