Jim Bollman became (titular?) OC, and Tress assumed play-calling duties. As far back as 2004, the media have Herbie calling on Tress to relinquish play-calling and hire a new OC. Unlike other elite programs, Tress' coordinators were not being snapped up to head coaching positions elsewhere, raising doubts about just how desirable they are to other schools.
as ljb noted, he was the d coordinator so that shouldn't have much impact. second jt handled the play calling from day 1 if im not mistaken. i realize a lot of people have problems with the play calling. at times i have shared in the frustration. but ultimately the problem isn't with the play calling. the problem really lies in execution. in some of our losses we have been outmatched. in others, a % of the 11 just didn't do their jobs. while there are several instances in which adjusting play calling certainly would have helped. it wouldn't solve all of our offensive woes.
defense, special teams, punt, play not to lose, conservative play-calling, "frozen 1950's coach," yadda yadda. In addition, the much-ballyhooed "spread" seemed on the rise (we can thank DickRod's rookie year at Meatchicken for taking some of the luster off this snake-oil gimmick), and Tresselball seemed unable to stop it, especially against Florida.
flroida, lsu, and usc beat us on the los. NOT with some mythic offensive stratagem. secondly, "tresselball" seems to fly straight out the window when jt trusts his offense. ive noticed the better the kids play the less power I we run unless the situation calls for it. if the qb can't go through his reads properly, we have turnover issues, or guys can't handle their assignments.... power I till you puke! honestly, i really don't have a problem with that mindset. i don't recall seeing much "tresselball" after mid year 05 or in 06 other than the illi game.
4. The Debacle in the Desert:
an overconfident, uninspired team got beat pretty bad. Some players got fat off the awards circuit (and from eating too much in AZ), rested on their laurels, took the opponent lightly (and they have SEC speed, mind you!), were looking ahead to the NFL, etc. Hubris gave way to humiliation. The younger players on that team took a psychological hit.
and? after the game with texas i think the kids remaining know for a fact they can compete with anyone. they lost in the closing seconds to a team they out played. the same team that beat OU who lost close to the best team in the country in the nc. i don't normally play the X beat Y and Y beat Z as it isn't valid in determining which team is better. but when it comes to confidence, i certainly think its valid. if the mental hit hasn't run its course after the texas game, we have deeper problems.
ESPN's business interests conflicted with the launch of the Big Ten Network, so they took out their anger on the Big Ten's major power, and plumbed hitherto-unreached depths in the deep seas of bad sports journalism. This may have hurt morale on the team.
i think you seriously underestimate the suckiness of espn journalism. sorry to be the one to have to break this to you but, they really do suck that bad.
As much as we love our conference brothers, for the most part they have been going through some rough times. They did not offer the Buckeyes too many challenges on the field, and the Buckeyes had little opportunity to learn how to "deal with adversity" and "come back from behind" in conference play.
happens. big 10 qb play as a whole left a lot to be desired and a lot of teams had talented younger units stepping up that really didn't progress they way they were expected to. for example i really expected our d line to be where they were by the last 2 games of the season by the end of the 2nd game of the season. thats why college football can be so chaotic. any loss can be dramatic. in the nfl you can almost plug and play anyone with really... anyone. but in college football replacing a 4 year role player with stud lower classmen can actually hurt you.
7. Replacing Troy Smith with a "one-dimensional" quarterback:
We may not have had much choice at the time, and Todd certainly earned his starting position, but tOSU offense would have benefited from a dual-threat QB, especially considering #11 below.
i think people put way to much on boeckman. imo he far exceeded expectations. fact of the matter is you greyshirt for a reason. we didn't redshirt ted ginn. we didn't redshirt beanie wells. we didn't redshirt pryor. we not only redshirted boeckman, we asked him to pay for a year of schooling out of his pocket for the opportunity to be on the team. let that sink in for a minute. for people who thought antonio smith in 06 was a feel good story. to diss boeckman in any way for what he accomplished at tOSU is really silly.
8. The regression of Todd Boeckman:
After winning at Penn State, Todd's performance seems to have regressed through the Illinois game, the LSU game, and the USC game. If you go back to read the threads from the USC game on here, many of you pointed out how shaken he was.
ive said this about 80 billiongazillion times now. so... because i like hearing myself type ill say it again. Todd boeckman DID NOT regress. if you go back and watch the penn state game then watch the washington game from earlier in the season you will see that he didn't play any better against penn state than he did against washington. further, if you watch the lsu game afterwords you will see he didn't play any differently against lsu either. he made the EXACT same mistakes against all 3 teams. only difference is washington wasn't any good, morelli spotted us 14 like he always does, and lsu was talented enough to make him pay dearly for every single mistake he made.
the only thing boeckman is guilty of is not progressing as we expected. but honestly, i think our expectations were unrealistically high.
The 2007 Buckeyes were supposed to be having a "rebuilding" year. Many talking-heads predicted they wouldn't even win the Big Ten Championship. Yet they overachieved, won the conference, and finished their season ranked 7. Not too shabby for a rebuilding year! The BCS mess that followed cornered them into the National Championship game against a much better equipped LSU, and they were set up to lose again, to the mighty SEC. (Remember, people, the SEC have a lot of speed.) There may also have been a sense of "Here we go again." (See #4.)
nah, its really more simple than that. i think it was something like 6 teams ranked in the top 5 lost in the last 2 weeks of the season. tOSU backed into the nc. we didn't earn a berth. everyone else simply deserved it less. tOSU was still very young with serious vulnerabilities on both sides of the ball and ended up playing a very mature lsu. when everything went tOSU's way early you didn't see lsu loose confidence, make stupid mistakes, turn the ball over and commit personal foul penalties. you saw the very young tOSU do that when lsu turned the tables.
any other year loosing the second to last game of the season ends any chance for a nc birth. 07 was a freak occurrence.
The LSU loss was a loss to a better team, but it was also marred by many mistakes on our part. The lessons from that game were clearly not learned between January and September 2008.
and those are? don't commit a personal foul penalty on a punt? don't commit a personal foul penalty when you have the other teams o backed up on 3rd and something like 28 and stopped them on the 3rd down play? don't do either on the exact same drive when you desperately need the ball?
usc was a far better team that night.
the ball bounced penn state's way.
with texas you could make that claim. but i don't really fault the kids for the penalties. its not like they attacked the center on a punt or got nailed for running into the kicker. gibson was the biggest culprit but really i don't fault anything he did other than the blow to the helmet with his arm. still not vicious, but something that can and likely will be coached.
11. The OSU offense struggled.
The O-Line could not protect Todd in the pocket. Todd was getting sacked too often. It sometimes felt as if Beanie Wells WAS the Ohio State offense. Not having him in the USC game hurt us (as did not having Teddy against Florida). (BTW did I mention SEC speed? Remember folks that the SEC got speed!) While not scoring an offensive touchdown against USC can be attributed to the great USC defense, not scoring one against Purdue is an indicator of a struggling offense.
most of our issues against usc involved pass blocking. browning struggled a bit and injuries took their toll. boom really got abused that night in pass blocking. atleast 2 of the sacks and if im remembering correctly 1 of the picks was booms guy. i suspect we would have had a much better game if beanie was available for nothing more than pass blocking. i know for a fact hartline was stupid wide open over the middle on one of the sacks where boom got beat. but then, i have a hard time judging a redshirt freshman in his first real game going against a senior a few months removed from sunday ball. we were outmatched in key positions against usc. its just that simple.
as for the rest of the season. i thought the offense played rather well for starting both a true freshman qb and a true freshman center.
again, there was no slump. we dropped the ball against florida. we shouldn't have played in the nc against lsu. usc was better. morelli graduated from penn state. and much like the 08 penn state game, the ball simply didn't like us in the texas game. if you don't believe that, rewatch mccoy's fumble out of bounds. *shrug* sometimes it just happens that way.
i have a hard time being overly critical of a senior class who won their conference championship each year they were there, never lost to their archrival, played in 2 nc games, played in 4 bcs bowls total, and graduated tied for the most wins by a senior class. if thats a slump... there certainly are worse things...
ME AND YOU! OUT IN THE SNOW! LET'S SETTLE THIS NOW! 
