Before we review the game itself, let's take a look back at why the national media felt that Oregon would massacre Ohio State in the Rose Bowl: because the Ducks had a decent gimmick quarterback and a decent smurf running back and ... anything else? Oh, yes, because the Ducks were "fast" and the Bucks were "slow", or something. Is there really any such thing as a legitimate college football media anymore, or are the talking heads who spout their opinions about the games just a bunch of loud-mouthed pot-stirrers who belong on an internet message board rather than on radio or television? Or most internet message boards, that is, for their tissue paper thin analyses would get them laughed off of places like BuckeyePlanet, where our experts most likely spent more time and thought on our Rose Bowl preview than the entire national media put together spent on theirs. But why put in the work when you can reduce the game to a single tag-line - "Ohio State can't handle Oregon's SPEEEEEEED!!!!" I mean, if you say it enough times, it must be true, right?
Anyway, enough with the increasingly irrelevant media, and on to the game:
1. Coming into the Rose Bowl, Ohio State's defense was fifth in the nation in both scoring defense and total defense, having given up an average of 12.2 points and 262 yards per game. Yesterday, the Ducks scored 17 points and racked up 260 yards of total offense, which essentially means that Oregon was the "average" team that Ohio State played in 2009. Yes, that's right - far from being the #7 team in the country with an unstoppable offense, Oregon was basically just another Indiana (14 points, 228 yards) or Michigan (10 points, 309 yards).
2. In 2009, Oregon played two teams with better records than their own: Boise State (currently 13-0) and Ohio State (11-2), both of which (not so coincidentally) were out-of-conference foes. In those two games combined, the Ducks put up 25 points and 412 yards of total offense, which is below their per game averages for the season (37.7 points, 424.7 yards). The Quack Attack also had relative difficulty with non-conference opponents Purdue (38 points, 356 yards) and Utah (31 points, 312 yards). During their nine-game Pac 10 slate, Oregon averaged 41.7 points and 475 yards per game, or four points and fifty yards above their overall averages. Maybe there was something to that argument that the Pac 10 teams play no defense ... or maybe that big "O" on the Ducks helmets stands for "Overrated".
3. As I mentioned above, props to all of the BP staff who prepared the Rose Bowl preview that currently appears on our front page. But special props to DaddyBigBucks (DBB) and his Differential Statistical Analysis (DSA). Now don't ask me to explain the math behind the DSA, but just look at the results: using his DSA, which "compares each team's results on both offense and defense to the average results of the other games played by their opponents," DBB predicted that Ohio State would score between 24 and 27 points, and that Oregon would score between 17 and 19 points. The actual score: Ohio State 26, Oregon 17. Now don't you wish you could see that kind of analysis on ESPN instead of some babbling buffoon bellowing about Pac 10 speed?
4. With its victory in the Rose Bowl, Ohio State now has a 5-3 record in BCS bowl games. That means that the Buckeyes have more BCS bowl wins than the rest of the conference combined (4 wins, 8 losses), and of course they have the conference's only BCS championship. Here's how the other Big Ten teams have fared in BCS bowl games: Wisconsin, 2-0; Penn State, 1-1; Michigan, 1-3; Illinois, 0-2; Purdue, 0-1; and Iowa, 0-1, with the Hawkeyes having a chance to even their record in the upcoming Orange Bowl.
5. Ohio State is now a perfect 8-0 against Oregon, and the Bucks have outscored the Ducks 190-69 in those eight contests. Ohio State is also 2-0 versus Oregon State, which means that the Buckeyes have never lost a football game to a team from the state of Oregon.
6. The highly-touted Pac 10, which many pundits felt would sweep their seven bowl games, finished the 2009 post-season with a 2-5 record. And what's worse, the offensive juggernauts of the west coast were held to an average of 21 points per game, and they were outscored by a combined 205 to 145. The only Pac 10 victories were over unranked opponents, and neither was what one would call impressive (Southern Cal looked very pedestrian in defeating Boston College, 24-13; and UCLA needed a late comeback to beat lowly Temple, 30-21).
7. Going into the game, much was made of the Buckeyes' three-game bowl skid. However, Ohio State's recent lack of success paled in comparison to Nebraska, who lost seven straight bowl games from 1987 to 1993 by a combined score of 207 to 99. What did the Cornhuskers do for an encore? They merely went on one of the best runs in the history of college football, compiling a 49-2 record with four bowl victories and three national championships during the period from 1994 to 1997. Can the Buckeyes use their victory in this year's Rose Bowl to propel them to a similarly great run?
8. With 266 yards passing and 72 yards rushing in the Rose Bowl, Terrelle Pryor finished the 2009 season with 2,873 total yards of offense, which is the fourth-best total in Buckeye history. By comparison, Troy Smith had 2,893 total yards in 2005, and just 2,746 total yards in his 2006 Heisman campaign. For his two-year career, Pryor now has 4,815 total yards, which puts him on pace to become the Buckeyes' career leader in that category (Art Schlichter currently holds the top spot with 8,850 total yards). In fact, if Pryor stays in Columbus for four years and remains relatively injury-free, then he should easily eclipse the 10,000-yard mark. If that does happen, will Pryor enter the discussion of the greatest Buckeye ever? Or will he simply be a statistical anomaly unless he manages to do something truly special before he graduates, like win a Heisman Trophy or a national championship?
9. Pryor's record as the Buckeyes' primary quarterback is now 19-4, with two wins over Michigan, a Rose Bowl victory, and two Big Ten championships. Three of Pryor's four losses were by one score to teams ranked #3 in the country at the time: Penn State in 2008 (13-6); Texas in 2008 (24-21); and USC in 2009 (18-15). Ohio State led each of those games in the fourth quarter, and probably should have won all three. The Rose Bowl had the potential to turn into another fourth-quarter meltdown, but Pryor made big plays down the stretch and actually extended the lead with a late touchdown pass to DeVier Posey. Will a more mature, experienced Terrelle Pryor continue to win those tough games in 2010 and beyond, and lead the Buckeyes to another national championship? If so, then Pryor's name would definitely belong in the greatest Buckeye ever discussion.
10. Even though he took a huge step forward last night, Pryor is still prone to inconsistency. A perfect example was Ohio State's final touchdown drive, in which the Buckeyes took over possession at their own 19-yard line with 13:03 left in the game. Pryor got two first downs with an 11-yard run and an 11-yard pass to Dane Sanzenbacher. Then, with the ball near midfield, Pryor inexplicably began to unravel. On a first down pass play, he scrambled to the left and had room to run, but he was a bit indecisive, and his split-second delay cost him a two-yard sack. On second-and-12, Pryor slipped to the turf on an option play, losing another yard. Finally, on third-and-13, Pryor scrambled right, panicked, and made an ill-advised lob downfield. Somehow, tight end Jake Ballard made a miraculous leaping 24-yard reception, and Pryor's prayer was answered. After that hook-up, Pryor regained his composure and led the team to the game-clinching score, an absolutely picture-perfect 17-yard pass to DeVier Posey in the endzone.
11. Despite a few hiccups along the way, yesterday's performance was probably the best of Terrelle Pryor's young career. Although he still has plenty of things to work on, he generally showed poise and confidence in both the running and passing games ... and when the game was in the balance in the fourth quarter, he put it away with a 13-play, 81-yard touchdown drive and an 11-play drive that ran the final 5:10 off of the clock.
12. Speaking of DeVier Posey, he would have earned my vote for most disappointing Buckeye player for 2009. After showing much promise as a true freshman (11 receptions, 117 yards, 1 touchdown), Posey never really seemed to put it all together as a sophomore. Sure, he had several big gains, but almost all of those occurred when he was ten yards behind his defender due to a blown coverage. Entering the Rose Bowl, Posey had 52 receptions for 707 yards and 7 touchdowns, but he also had several drops, and displayed an inability to make the tough catches when tightly covered. In the first quarter of yesterday's game, Posey once again failed to make a big-time play while being harrassed by a defender, as he couldn't come up with a would-be touchdown grab despite getting both hands on the ball in the endzone. But on the game-clinching drive, Posey was put in a nearly identical situation, and he came up golden with a beautiful touchdown reception. Maybe the Rose Bowl was not only the emergence of Terrelle Pryor as the Buckeyes' field general, but also of DeVier Posey as their true number-one receiver.
13. It is difficult to question the play-calling during yesterday's game, but I am still wondering why Heacock elected to go soft on Oregon's fourth-and-9 play in the second quarter. Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli has a pronounced tendency to throw ducks when under pressure, but the Buckeyes came with just a three-man rush and he was able to complete a pass for the first down. If the Buckeyes dial up some pressure in that situation and force an errant pass, then maybe it would have been game-set-and-match before halftime. As it was, the Ducks went on to score the game-tying touchdown on that drive and killed off all of the Bucks' early momentum.
14. Oregon's Kenjon Barner had 227 all-purpose yards, and he set up each of Oregon's three scores with a big play either rushing or in the return game. Without Barner, the Ducks might have been looking at a shut out instead of merely being held three touchdowns below their season scoring average.
15. The final score - 26 to 17 - doesn't suggest "domination", but a look behind the numbers is much more revealing:
DOMINATION: Ohio State 420 total yards, Oregon 260 total yards
DOMINATION: Ohio State 26 first downs, Oregon 12 first downs
DOMINATION: Ohio State 11/21 third-down conversion, Oregon 2/11 third-down conversions
DOMINATION: Ohio State 41:37 time of possession, Oregon 18:23 time of possession
What's even more revealing is the yardage differential: Ohio State held Oregon to 260 total yards, which is 164.7 below their season average, while at the same time amassing 420 total yards, which was 55.2 above their own season average. That's a net differential in favor of Ohio State in the amount of 219.9 total yards. Now that sounds like complete domination to me.
16. If the number one story surrounding the Rose Bowl was Oregon's "speed", then the number two story was LeGarrette Blount's "redemption". Although Blount did score a cheap touchdown in the second quarter, he was basically a non-factor in the Ducks' running attack, and he literally kicked the game away in the middle of the third quarter when Oregon was poised to regain the lead and a stranglehold on the momentum. Ohio State's defense debunked Oregon's alleged speed, and Blount fumbled away his chance for redemption.
17. Last year, I told someone, "If Ross Homan is the tenth-best player on our defense, then we'll be okay." Well, obviously I underestimated Homan's abilities a bit, but has any Buckeye had more of a breakout season than Homan? In 2008, Homan had a pretty good year, as he was tied for fourth on the team with 67 tackles; however, he was did not make many big plays, as he had only 6 TFL's, a sack, 2 fumble recoveries, 1 pass break-up, and no interceptions. This year, Ross has played like an All American, as he racked up 108 tackles, 5 TFL's, 2 sacks, 2 fumble recoveries, 5 passes broken-up, 9 passes defensed, and 5 interceptions. Homan gets my vote for most improved Buckeye. If Ross continues his upward trend, then he should have a tree in the Buckeye Grove after next season.
18. When talking about the Buckeyes' excellent defense, the names Homan, Coleman, Gibson, Heyward, Rolle, and Chekwa keep popping up, but fifth-year senior defensive tackle Doug Worthington quietly put together a terrific season. Worthington recorded 42 tackles, 5 TFL's, and 2 sacks while being the steady anchor of the interior line.
19. All in all, the Buckeyes played a great game last night. And for a change, they won a big game against a non-conference foe, and in a BCS bowl game nonetheless. Will their dominating performance in the Rose Bowl against an allegedly unstoppable offensive juggernaut finally stop all of the chatter about Ohio State being a bunch of big, fat, slow, farmboys who can't compete against the elite speed spread teams of the south and west? Probably not....
20. With their win in the Rose Bowl, Ohio State now has five wins this season against opponents with at least ten victories: Navy (10-4), Wisconsin (10-3), Penn State (11-2), Iowa (11-2), and Oregon (10-3).
21. Ohio State could end up with another top-5 finish this season. Alabama, Texas, Florida, and the winner of the TCU-BSU game will all finish ahead of the Buckeyes, which means that the #5 spot will be filled by either Ohio State, Cincinnati, or the loser of the TCU-BSU game. With Ohio's Real BCS Team getting spanked by Florida in the Sugar Bowl, 51-24, the Buckeyes should move past the incredibly-overrated Cincinnati Bearcats; in fact it would be an outright travesty if bUCkeye state remains ahead of Ohio State in the polls. If #3 Texas Christian lays a similar beat-down on #6 Boise State, then Rose Bowl winner Ohio State should have the strongest claim on the fifth position.
22. Don't tell anyone, but the Buckeyes should be favored to win it all next year. Too bad that we have to wait eight whole months for that show to get under way.
Anyway, enough with the increasingly irrelevant media, and on to the game:
1. Coming into the Rose Bowl, Ohio State's defense was fifth in the nation in both scoring defense and total defense, having given up an average of 12.2 points and 262 yards per game. Yesterday, the Ducks scored 17 points and racked up 260 yards of total offense, which essentially means that Oregon was the "average" team that Ohio State played in 2009. Yes, that's right - far from being the #7 team in the country with an unstoppable offense, Oregon was basically just another Indiana (14 points, 228 yards) or Michigan (10 points, 309 yards).
2. In 2009, Oregon played two teams with better records than their own: Boise State (currently 13-0) and Ohio State (11-2), both of which (not so coincidentally) were out-of-conference foes. In those two games combined, the Ducks put up 25 points and 412 yards of total offense, which is below their per game averages for the season (37.7 points, 424.7 yards). The Quack Attack also had relative difficulty with non-conference opponents Purdue (38 points, 356 yards) and Utah (31 points, 312 yards). During their nine-game Pac 10 slate, Oregon averaged 41.7 points and 475 yards per game, or four points and fifty yards above their overall averages. Maybe there was something to that argument that the Pac 10 teams play no defense ... or maybe that big "O" on the Ducks helmets stands for "Overrated".
3. As I mentioned above, props to all of the BP staff who prepared the Rose Bowl preview that currently appears on our front page. But special props to DaddyBigBucks (DBB) and his Differential Statistical Analysis (DSA). Now don't ask me to explain the math behind the DSA, but just look at the results: using his DSA, which "compares each team's results on both offense and defense to the average results of the other games played by their opponents," DBB predicted that Ohio State would score between 24 and 27 points, and that Oregon would score between 17 and 19 points. The actual score: Ohio State 26, Oregon 17. Now don't you wish you could see that kind of analysis on ESPN instead of some babbling buffoon bellowing about Pac 10 speed?
4. With its victory in the Rose Bowl, Ohio State now has a 5-3 record in BCS bowl games. That means that the Buckeyes have more BCS bowl wins than the rest of the conference combined (4 wins, 8 losses), and of course they have the conference's only BCS championship. Here's how the other Big Ten teams have fared in BCS bowl games: Wisconsin, 2-0; Penn State, 1-1; Michigan, 1-3; Illinois, 0-2; Purdue, 0-1; and Iowa, 0-1, with the Hawkeyes having a chance to even their record in the upcoming Orange Bowl.
5. Ohio State is now a perfect 8-0 against Oregon, and the Bucks have outscored the Ducks 190-69 in those eight contests. Ohio State is also 2-0 versus Oregon State, which means that the Buckeyes have never lost a football game to a team from the state of Oregon.
6. The highly-touted Pac 10, which many pundits felt would sweep their seven bowl games, finished the 2009 post-season with a 2-5 record. And what's worse, the offensive juggernauts of the west coast were held to an average of 21 points per game, and they were outscored by a combined 205 to 145. The only Pac 10 victories were over unranked opponents, and neither was what one would call impressive (Southern Cal looked very pedestrian in defeating Boston College, 24-13; and UCLA needed a late comeback to beat lowly Temple, 30-21).
7. Going into the game, much was made of the Buckeyes' three-game bowl skid. However, Ohio State's recent lack of success paled in comparison to Nebraska, who lost seven straight bowl games from 1987 to 1993 by a combined score of 207 to 99. What did the Cornhuskers do for an encore? They merely went on one of the best runs in the history of college football, compiling a 49-2 record with four bowl victories and three national championships during the period from 1994 to 1997. Can the Buckeyes use their victory in this year's Rose Bowl to propel them to a similarly great run?
8. With 266 yards passing and 72 yards rushing in the Rose Bowl, Terrelle Pryor finished the 2009 season with 2,873 total yards of offense, which is the fourth-best total in Buckeye history. By comparison, Troy Smith had 2,893 total yards in 2005, and just 2,746 total yards in his 2006 Heisman campaign. For his two-year career, Pryor now has 4,815 total yards, which puts him on pace to become the Buckeyes' career leader in that category (Art Schlichter currently holds the top spot with 8,850 total yards). In fact, if Pryor stays in Columbus for four years and remains relatively injury-free, then he should easily eclipse the 10,000-yard mark. If that does happen, will Pryor enter the discussion of the greatest Buckeye ever? Or will he simply be a statistical anomaly unless he manages to do something truly special before he graduates, like win a Heisman Trophy or a national championship?
9. Pryor's record as the Buckeyes' primary quarterback is now 19-4, with two wins over Michigan, a Rose Bowl victory, and two Big Ten championships. Three of Pryor's four losses were by one score to teams ranked #3 in the country at the time: Penn State in 2008 (13-6); Texas in 2008 (24-21); and USC in 2009 (18-15). Ohio State led each of those games in the fourth quarter, and probably should have won all three. The Rose Bowl had the potential to turn into another fourth-quarter meltdown, but Pryor made big plays down the stretch and actually extended the lead with a late touchdown pass to DeVier Posey. Will a more mature, experienced Terrelle Pryor continue to win those tough games in 2010 and beyond, and lead the Buckeyes to another national championship? If so, then Pryor's name would definitely belong in the greatest Buckeye ever discussion.
10. Even though he took a huge step forward last night, Pryor is still prone to inconsistency. A perfect example was Ohio State's final touchdown drive, in which the Buckeyes took over possession at their own 19-yard line with 13:03 left in the game. Pryor got two first downs with an 11-yard run and an 11-yard pass to Dane Sanzenbacher. Then, with the ball near midfield, Pryor inexplicably began to unravel. On a first down pass play, he scrambled to the left and had room to run, but he was a bit indecisive, and his split-second delay cost him a two-yard sack. On second-and-12, Pryor slipped to the turf on an option play, losing another yard. Finally, on third-and-13, Pryor scrambled right, panicked, and made an ill-advised lob downfield. Somehow, tight end Jake Ballard made a miraculous leaping 24-yard reception, and Pryor's prayer was answered. After that hook-up, Pryor regained his composure and led the team to the game-clinching score, an absolutely picture-perfect 17-yard pass to DeVier Posey in the endzone.
11. Despite a few hiccups along the way, yesterday's performance was probably the best of Terrelle Pryor's young career. Although he still has plenty of things to work on, he generally showed poise and confidence in both the running and passing games ... and when the game was in the balance in the fourth quarter, he put it away with a 13-play, 81-yard touchdown drive and an 11-play drive that ran the final 5:10 off of the clock.
12. Speaking of DeVier Posey, he would have earned my vote for most disappointing Buckeye player for 2009. After showing much promise as a true freshman (11 receptions, 117 yards, 1 touchdown), Posey never really seemed to put it all together as a sophomore. Sure, he had several big gains, but almost all of those occurred when he was ten yards behind his defender due to a blown coverage. Entering the Rose Bowl, Posey had 52 receptions for 707 yards and 7 touchdowns, but he also had several drops, and displayed an inability to make the tough catches when tightly covered. In the first quarter of yesterday's game, Posey once again failed to make a big-time play while being harrassed by a defender, as he couldn't come up with a would-be touchdown grab despite getting both hands on the ball in the endzone. But on the game-clinching drive, Posey was put in a nearly identical situation, and he came up golden with a beautiful touchdown reception. Maybe the Rose Bowl was not only the emergence of Terrelle Pryor as the Buckeyes' field general, but also of DeVier Posey as their true number-one receiver.
13. It is difficult to question the play-calling during yesterday's game, but I am still wondering why Heacock elected to go soft on Oregon's fourth-and-9 play in the second quarter. Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli has a pronounced tendency to throw ducks when under pressure, but the Buckeyes came with just a three-man rush and he was able to complete a pass for the first down. If the Buckeyes dial up some pressure in that situation and force an errant pass, then maybe it would have been game-set-and-match before halftime. As it was, the Ducks went on to score the game-tying touchdown on that drive and killed off all of the Bucks' early momentum.
14. Oregon's Kenjon Barner had 227 all-purpose yards, and he set up each of Oregon's three scores with a big play either rushing or in the return game. Without Barner, the Ducks might have been looking at a shut out instead of merely being held three touchdowns below their season scoring average.
15. The final score - 26 to 17 - doesn't suggest "domination", but a look behind the numbers is much more revealing:
DOMINATION: Ohio State 420 total yards, Oregon 260 total yards
DOMINATION: Ohio State 26 first downs, Oregon 12 first downs
DOMINATION: Ohio State 11/21 third-down conversion, Oregon 2/11 third-down conversions
DOMINATION: Ohio State 41:37 time of possession, Oregon 18:23 time of possession
What's even more revealing is the yardage differential: Ohio State held Oregon to 260 total yards, which is 164.7 below their season average, while at the same time amassing 420 total yards, which was 55.2 above their own season average. That's a net differential in favor of Ohio State in the amount of 219.9 total yards. Now that sounds like complete domination to me.
16. If the number one story surrounding the Rose Bowl was Oregon's "speed", then the number two story was LeGarrette Blount's "redemption". Although Blount did score a cheap touchdown in the second quarter, he was basically a non-factor in the Ducks' running attack, and he literally kicked the game away in the middle of the third quarter when Oregon was poised to regain the lead and a stranglehold on the momentum. Ohio State's defense debunked Oregon's alleged speed, and Blount fumbled away his chance for redemption.
17. Last year, I told someone, "If Ross Homan is the tenth-best player on our defense, then we'll be okay." Well, obviously I underestimated Homan's abilities a bit, but has any Buckeye had more of a breakout season than Homan? In 2008, Homan had a pretty good year, as he was tied for fourth on the team with 67 tackles; however, he was did not make many big plays, as he had only 6 TFL's, a sack, 2 fumble recoveries, 1 pass break-up, and no interceptions. This year, Ross has played like an All American, as he racked up 108 tackles, 5 TFL's, 2 sacks, 2 fumble recoveries, 5 passes broken-up, 9 passes defensed, and 5 interceptions. Homan gets my vote for most improved Buckeye. If Ross continues his upward trend, then he should have a tree in the Buckeye Grove after next season.
18. When talking about the Buckeyes' excellent defense, the names Homan, Coleman, Gibson, Heyward, Rolle, and Chekwa keep popping up, but fifth-year senior defensive tackle Doug Worthington quietly put together a terrific season. Worthington recorded 42 tackles, 5 TFL's, and 2 sacks while being the steady anchor of the interior line.
19. All in all, the Buckeyes played a great game last night. And for a change, they won a big game against a non-conference foe, and in a BCS bowl game nonetheless. Will their dominating performance in the Rose Bowl against an allegedly unstoppable offensive juggernaut finally stop all of the chatter about Ohio State being a bunch of big, fat, slow, farmboys who can't compete against the elite speed spread teams of the south and west? Probably not....
20. With their win in the Rose Bowl, Ohio State now has five wins this season against opponents with at least ten victories: Navy (10-4), Wisconsin (10-3), Penn State (11-2), Iowa (11-2), and Oregon (10-3).
21. Ohio State could end up with another top-5 finish this season. Alabama, Texas, Florida, and the winner of the TCU-BSU game will all finish ahead of the Buckeyes, which means that the #5 spot will be filled by either Ohio State, Cincinnati, or the loser of the TCU-BSU game. With Ohio's Real BCS Team getting spanked by Florida in the Sugar Bowl, 51-24, the Buckeyes should move past the incredibly-overrated Cincinnati Bearcats; in fact it would be an outright travesty if bUCkeye state remains ahead of Ohio State in the polls. If #3 Texas Christian lays a similar beat-down on #6 Boise State, then Rose Bowl winner Ohio State should have the strongest claim on the fifth position.
22. Don't tell anyone, but the Buckeyes should be favored to win it all next year. Too bad that we have to wait eight whole months for that show to get under way.
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