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ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
Per 11W: The Buckeyes announced Monday that their Nov. 7 home game against Oregon will be their Scarlet the Shoe game, potentially setting the stage for Ohio State to wear its new all-scarlet uniforms against the Ducks. The Buckeyes have five uniform combinations featuring the Buckeye Stripes: their core home and away uniforms, all-black Tunnel Vision alternates, all-white Sub Zero alternates and the all-scarlet Scarlet Rush look.
Per Google AI: Oregon football has hundreds to thousands of possible uniform variations, with fans and estimates citing anywhere from 160 to over 2,000 distinct combinations depending on how helmets, jerseys, pants, cleats, and accessories are mixed and matched.
Inside the Marcus Mariota Performance Center, history dangles from wire hangers.
The glitz and glamour surrounding Oregon football is not immediately apparent. This is a practical place -- a dimly lit, long hallway inside the second floor of the equipment room furnished with gray built-in closets -- created not as a way to showcase, but rather to store the very thing that has become synonymous with the Ducks: their vast array of fabrics, colors and prints.
Among a sea of roughly 800 jerseys, there's nearly every shade of green -- from neon to emerald to forest to army. Here, black or white never look boring, and the yellow used over the years ranges from a Gatorade-colored hue to Cal gold. Splashes of pink, gray, brown, orange, chrome and blue complete the synthetic rainbow.
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Per Google AI: Oregon football has hundreds to thousands of possible uniform variations, with fans and estimates citing anywhere from 160 to over 2,000 distinct combinations depending on how helmets, jerseys, pants, cleats, and accessories are mixed and matched.
'Our tradition to is to be untraditional': Inside the lifecycle of an Oregon uniform
Inside the Marcus Mariota Performance Center, history dangles from wire hangers.
The glitz and glamour surrounding Oregon football is not immediately apparent. This is a practical place -- a dimly lit, long hallway inside the second floor of the equipment room furnished with gray built-in closets -- created not as a way to showcase, but rather to store the very thing that has become synonymous with the Ducks: their vast array of fabrics, colors and prints.
Among a sea of roughly 800 jerseys, there's nearly every shade of green -- from neon to emerald to forest to army. Here, black or white never look boring, and the yellow used over the years ranges from a Gatorade-colored hue to Cal gold. Splashes of pink, gray, brown, orange, chrome and blue complete the synthetic rainbow.
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Moore has zero reason to risk anything.
Been through that this season with my son. He had a bad concussion in week 3 and hasn't returned to his high school season either. Bad concussions are scary man.
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Unfortunately Oregon's offense seemed to finally find some momentum in the second half against NW and I fear they are going to kill us with the same type of chunk plays USC did. We absolutely cannot afford any self sabatoge in this game, no pre snap penalties in the red zone, no dumb personal fouls, etc.....
If we play a clean game we probably win but if we see any of the same crap we saw against USC we probably lose by 2 scores again
If we play a clean game we probably win but if we see any of the same crap we saw against USC we probably lose by 2 scores again
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RhodeIslandBuck
This guy's a real jerk
Literally every game left is a coin toss, gonna need a lot of good bounces these next 4 weeks.
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This is the crossroad game. If they win they probably go 10-2, if they lose they probably lose at least one more and end up 8-4 with a legit chance at 7-5.
The main thing is they have to play smart and clean. You cannot have 10+ penalties again. You are almost certainly pushing yourself into another loss if that happens.
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This is a huge problem under Day and I just don’t know if they can. Poise and mental discipline are not a hallmark of this team. The OL is prime to getting an untimely penalty in crucial situations. It’s a huge part of the struggle in the RZ.
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Using one advanced stat site and going by adjusted EPA per play- our remaining opponents are all ranked 19-28
-Oregon 19th
-NU 20th
-tsun 22nd
-Nebraska 28th
For context, OSU is ranked 3rd, Texas 4th, IU 6th, Iowa 27th and USC is 45th
None of it is predictive but it shows just how solid but not spectacular the rest of the schedule is. It also shows just how far OSU has to pull their head out of their collective ass or they are going to get beat again.
I would not project the team we saw last night forward but they are absolutely beatable and it has less to do with Fahey than we thought.
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Meanwhile, on a Duck message board:
What would we say to a visiting Duck fan if they came here with that noise?
Right.
That's what some of you guys sounded like before last night.
The Wisconsin game was not a predictor for USC's future. At all. I was hoping that the optimists among us were right. Sadly... the reality phone rang and it was for them... Hopefully they answered it and had a nice, long conversation. There was no reason to believe that the Trojan performance against Wisconsin was at all meaningful. It was the aberration that it looked like.
The question that leaves us is, "was last night an aberration?" Sadly, the answer is, "not entirely".
It comes down to 2 things, the first of which is, the offense without Sayin.
The Absence of Sayin
Ohio State's Differential Scoring Offense for games started by Julian Sayin is 1.859. They compiled that number while running the ball at an only slightly better than average clip.
For games started by Luke Fahey (sample size = 1), Ohio State has a DSO of 0.720. Not only is this the only below-average (under 1.0) number for the year, it is only slightly better than half of the previous worst single-game DSO of 1.412 posted against Texas. And they did this on a day when they ran for far more yards than USC had given up to anyone else. Better running game, and they STILL posted by FAR the worst DSO of the year.
Was Fahey that bad?
The unvarnished truth is that Fahey put up a worse passing efficiency number against USC than anyone not named Fresno State. Worse than Rutgers. Worse than San Jose State. Worse than Louisiana. That is not great; and Julian isn't coming back anytime soon.
On the other side of the coin, it is safe to say that not all of this was a Luke Fahey problem. Kyle McCord had a lower passing efficiency against 2023 Indiana in his first start, and that Indiana squad won one game in-conference and got their coach fired. McCord entered the week of the game at 11-0 that year, and very possibly would have a B1G championship to show for it if the skunk bears had not cheated their asses off. Luke already appears to have a great deal more poise than McCord ever had, and in my opinion, he'll be fine. Long story short: I can't prove it, by I believe that SOME of the offensive performance was an aberration, but not all.
Ohio State does not need to get back to what it was under Julian Sayin in order to win this week. If they had only posted a single game DSO of 1.24 (still the worst performance of the year), they would have won. If the Buckeyes get that much back, that still concedes that over half of the drop in performance was due to the absence of Sayin. I don't think it was... But even if so, the Buckeyes still have a chance to win out. But they do need to get Timmons back
The Absence of Timmons
The absence of Sayin is more troubling, because he's not coming back. Timmons on the other hand was out there warming up, so presumably he will be back next week. If he makes it back, this defense is still good enough to win a B1G championship.
The simple truth is that whoever is in there when Timmons is not is a huge step down. Without him, the Buckeyes' Differential Scoring Defense was 0.916, meaning they gave up 91.6% as many points as the Trojans usually score. I can hear some of you now... "as long as it is below 100%, it's better than average". OK -- granted. But it is BY FAR the worst performance of the year. And the Buckeyes gave up BY FAR the most yards per play that they have all year.
Any way you slice it, it is clear that most of the underperformance of the defense was the absence of Timmons. Some of it may have been aberration, but without Timmons, this defense is only slightly above average, and that will not get it done against the rest of the schedule.
Whatever was not the absence of Sayin or the absence of Timmons was underperformance by those who remained, and hopefully that is aberration and not the start of a new trend.
What Ohio State Needs to Beat Oregon
IF the defense can get back to their AVERAGE performance... I don't even mean their average from before the USC game... If they can just get back to what the NEW average is AFTER the USC game, which is a Differential Scoring Defense of 0.543 (still very good), then Oregon will score 20 points (or less). That means the Buckeye Offense only needs to post a Differential Scoring Offense of 0.86 (resulting in 21 points) in order to win. For comparison, the single-game DSO against USC was 0.72. So the Buckeyes don't even need to be average on offense. They only need to produce 86% of an average offense in order to beat the Ducks as long as the defense returns to anything resembling form.
The point to all of this is that, while we wouldn't tolerate an Oregon fan reading too much into the USC game, we shouldn't tolerate that in ourselves either.
What would we say to a visiting Duck fan if they came here with that noise?
Right.
That's what some of you guys sounded like before last night.
The Wisconsin game was not a predictor for USC's future. At all. I was hoping that the optimists among us were right. Sadly... the reality phone rang and it was for them... Hopefully they answered it and had a nice, long conversation. There was no reason to believe that the Trojan performance against Wisconsin was at all meaningful. It was the aberration that it looked like.
The question that leaves us is, "was last night an aberration?" Sadly, the answer is, "not entirely".
It comes down to 2 things, the first of which is, the offense without Sayin.
The Absence of Sayin
Ohio State's Differential Scoring Offense for games started by Julian Sayin is 1.859. They compiled that number while running the ball at an only slightly better than average clip.
For games started by Luke Fahey (sample size = 1), Ohio State has a DSO of 0.720. Not only is this the only below-average (under 1.0) number for the year, it is only slightly better than half of the previous worst single-game DSO of 1.412 posted against Texas. And they did this on a day when they ran for far more yards than USC had given up to anyone else. Better running game, and they STILL posted by FAR the worst DSO of the year.
Was Fahey that bad?
The unvarnished truth is that Fahey put up a worse passing efficiency number against USC than anyone not named Fresno State. Worse than Rutgers. Worse than San Jose State. Worse than Louisiana. That is not great; and Julian isn't coming back anytime soon.
On the other side of the coin, it is safe to say that not all of this was a Luke Fahey problem. Kyle McCord had a lower passing efficiency against 2023 Indiana in his first start, and that Indiana squad won one game in-conference and got their coach fired. McCord entered the week of the game at 11-0 that year, and very possibly would have a B1G championship to show for it if the skunk bears had not cheated their asses off. Luke already appears to have a great deal more poise than McCord ever had, and in my opinion, he'll be fine. Long story short: I can't prove it, by I believe that SOME of the offensive performance was an aberration, but not all.
Ohio State does not need to get back to what it was under Julian Sayin in order to win this week. If they had only posted a single game DSO of 1.24 (still the worst performance of the year), they would have won. If the Buckeyes get that much back, that still concedes that over half of the drop in performance was due to the absence of Sayin. I don't think it was... But even if so, the Buckeyes still have a chance to win out. But they do need to get Timmons back
The Absence of Timmons
The absence of Sayin is more troubling, because he's not coming back. Timmons on the other hand was out there warming up, so presumably he will be back next week. If he makes it back, this defense is still good enough to win a B1G championship.
The simple truth is that whoever is in there when Timmons is not is a huge step down. Without him, the Buckeyes' Differential Scoring Defense was 0.916, meaning they gave up 91.6% as many points as the Trojans usually score. I can hear some of you now... "as long as it is below 100%, it's better than average". OK -- granted. But it is BY FAR the worst performance of the year. And the Buckeyes gave up BY FAR the most yards per play that they have all year.
Any way you slice it, it is clear that most of the underperformance of the defense was the absence of Timmons. Some of it may have been aberration, but without Timmons, this defense is only slightly above average, and that will not get it done against the rest of the schedule.
Whatever was not the absence of Sayin or the absence of Timmons was underperformance by those who remained, and hopefully that is aberration and not the start of a new trend.
What Ohio State Needs to Beat Oregon
IF the defense can get back to their AVERAGE performance... I don't even mean their average from before the USC game... If they can just get back to what the NEW average is AFTER the USC game, which is a Differential Scoring Defense of 0.543 (still very good), then Oregon will score 20 points (or less). That means the Buckeye Offense only needs to post a Differential Scoring Offense of 0.86 (resulting in 21 points) in order to win. For comparison, the single-game DSO against USC was 0.72. So the Buckeyes don't even need to be average on offense. They only need to produce 86% of an average offense in order to beat the Ducks as long as the defense returns to anything resembling form.
The point to all of this is that, while we wouldn't tolerate an Oregon fan reading too much into the USC game, we shouldn't tolerate that in ourselves either.
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The transitive property machine is the best predictor in sports-for what is NOT about to happen.
OSU is going to get too heavily discounted and Oregon is going to get too much love from the marketplace this week.
That of course doesn’t mean that Oregon still can’t win. It just means the betting prices will be off.
I’m with you in strongly suspecting this isn’t a QB problem so much. There is nothing really good all year coming from the TE, OL or RB room.
Defense may be really good may be above average or whatnot. Really doesn’t matter if we are getting held to less than 24 points.
Special teams is a nothing burger.
So what are the paths to a turn around? I only see one and it’s as narrow and fragile as it gets: QB play has to become so good it continues to allow 4 to hide all the other soft spots. Not only that, it would actually have to do something we weren’t getting before which is so that against tough defenses.
That’s an almost impossible ask.
So what other paths do they have? WR talent is still really good but how do you use that with a QB who isn’t ready? You lean on the run game, short passes to the TE’s etc.
Well that is out the window with an OL/TE front that can’t block in front of a RB room that has no breakaway threat.
I mentioned adjusted EPA before. Ranking it just on defense guess who is #5 in the country?
Oregon. For context IU is only 9th. USC is 113h.
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I’ll continue to advocate for keeping with 3-4 WRs with quicker routes. When’s the last time we saw an out route to JS? Fahey has the arm for that.
JFC these guys make millions and have coached for years. They should be able to design a scheme that fits the players. There was a reason they recruited these guys. Put them in a position to win.
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