Thought we'd learn to take early season opponents seriously after our showing against Navy. Guess not.
This should be a really good game. You can look at the Rockets as just another MAC team, but this is also a team that has beaten their share of BCS teams in the last decade: Colorado ('09), at scUM ('08), Iowa State ('07), Kansas ('06), Larry Fitzgerald and #9 Pittsburgh ('03), Minnesota ('01), Cincinatti ('01), at Penn State ('00), as well as a host of Mountian West teams and a home and away against Navy ('00-'01). To say the least, the scUM game last year wasn't a fluke. This game being in Cleveland rather than the Glass Bowl in Toledo is a BIG break for OSU, as Toledo has great home-field advantages there (best attendance in the MAC, great accoustics, the games are almost always night games, and seriously half of the crowd is made of rowdy students). The NCAA actually had to institute a new rule 7-8 years ago (in large part because of Toledo) that states that teams are no longer allowed to locate their student sections behind the opposing team's bench". You can imagine what kids might say to get in a player's head when sitting behind the opposing team's bench 40 feet away from their players.
Their offense revolves a lot around the screen, especially the WR screen. They love to throw it and Opelt is gonna be one of the best the Bucks play this year. He's got a strong, accurate throw with a pretty tight spiral that his WRs complain about because I hear he tears holes in their gloves on a pretty regular basis. Their receiving corps is traditionally made of smaller targets with great hands (alumni Lance Moore is a good example), but 10 of the 11 receivers on their team this year are listed at 6'1" or better. This is a team that utilzes their TE as a potent weapon (especially on 3rd down), so we should be prepared for that going into the game. They also traditionally boast the largest O-Line in the MAC (both height and weight), though their current crop seem significantly smaller than in past years (I remember the average for their hogmollies one year was 6'6", 310lbs). Toledo's running game keeps defenses from keying in on the passing game (UT is 60/40 passing, traditionally) and is built more on power than speed, surprisingly. Former Buckeye recruit of interest at RB is Morgan Williams (
BP Thread) and he is not their starter, which shows how good their RBs are. Notable recent alumni on offense include RB Chester Taylor (MIN), OL Nick Kaczur (NE), WR Lance Moore (NO), and QB Bruce Gradkowski (OAK, former starter in TB).
The X-Factor here will be new head coach (and former OSU assistant) Tim Beckman. He knows Ohio State from the inside, he knows their tendancies, and he knows a good deal of the players personally. On top of that, he changes Toledo's tendacies, which is why I used the word "traditionally" so much above. Are they still gonna be 60/40 passing to running? Is their offense still going to revolve around the screen? Are they still going to go for it on 4th down as much as they did when "Toledo Tom" (Amstutz) was still coach? Etc. It all remains to be seen.
Their defense is obviously their achileas heal this year. FS Barry Church is being regarded as the best safety ever at the school (3x 1st team All-MAC and soon-to be 4x). Their best player in the front 7 is a LB (can't remember his name right now!) that may or may not be able to play this game, as he had a helmet-to-helmet hit against Colorado's QB late in the game on a TD run. This year's defense looks quite a bit slower than past years, but they traditionally have a hard-hitting group of LBs that are tackle machines, and CBs that have great hands because they go up against a pass-heavy spread offense every day in practice.
If the line for this game is +20.5 for Toledo, I'll take UT. Toledo's defense is pretty bad, but our offense isn't exactly Floridas either. That said though, this should be a good game for Pryor to rebound from the USC game and show what he's all about. Either way, I'm wearing an Ohio State shirt under the suit I'm wearing to a wedding this weekend =)
