Game Thread Southern Cal 18, at tOSU 15 (Sept 12th, 8 pm, ESPN)

[BUCKYLE]

Man, I think you guys misunderstand me.

I never said he wouldn't have made a difference. Obviously it makes for a different game and a different set of plays that Ohio State can run, and different things the USC defense has to look for.

All I was saying is that I don't think his presence was going to make the difference in the outcome of the game. Most of you seem to agree with that, so I don't see what all the argument is about.

I don't think you can put a point total on a top ten all time tOSU RB. You seem to think you can.

Difference of opinion. You're wrong, but you don't think you are.

I'm right, and I know it.

It's pretty simple.

Of course you don't want to believe that the game would've been different had Beanie played. I'd want to think the same thing if I were in your shoes.

 

[osugrad21]

Link

As USC arrives, It's a Buckeye state of pessimism in Columbus

By Scott Wolf Staff Writer
Posted: 09/10/2009 11:27:21 PM PDT


USC FOOTBALL: Fans at Ohio State express trepidation, noting team's performances in big games recently.
Former Ohio State All-American linebacker Chris Spielman knows there is a lot of excitement surrounding the so-called Game of the Year, as eighth-ranked Ohio State hosts third-ranked USC on Saturday.
But Spielman, who hosts a daily radio show in Columbus, Ohio, also sees an unprecedented emotion from Buckeyes fans, considering his alma mater has won 84 games in the past nine years.
"There's a lot of pessimism," Spielman said. "More pessimism than I've been around before. Some people say maybe (Ohio State) can keep it close. I've never heard that here."
Spielman, an Ohio native and Lombardi Award winner, knows the reason for the fans' lack of confidence: Despite the Buckeyes' accomplishments under coach Jim Tressel, there's a feeling Ohio State (and the Big Ten) struggle in big games.
Last year, Ohio State was 1-3 against ranked teams, including a 35-3 loss to USC at the Coliseum. Buckeyes fans still recall losses to LSU and Florida in the 2007 and 2008 BCS title games.
"There's no pressure (on Tressel) but a fan will say we haven't won the last five big games if we lose," Spielman said. "Ohio State knows it hasn't performed well in big games. It's a chance to change that perception, which is now a reality."

Cont...

 

[osugrad21]

Link

OSU will win despite critics

BILLY BRUCE
Originally published 02:11 a.m., September 11, 2009
Updated 02:11 a.m., September 11, 2009
Dear Buckeyes fans?.. and haters (Hello, Matt Stuntebeck):
No need to tune in and watch one of the most publicized college football games of the season this Saturday. The result has already been recorded. USC gallops into the Horseshoe and kicks the guts out of Ohio State.
Why we are playing this game, I don?t know. OSU has no chance. They barely beat Navy last weekend. The talent just isn?t there. The Buckeyes, as usual, are overrated.
After last year?s 35-3 mercy rule defeat at USC, who can blame anybody for thinking the Bucks have no chance?
So, while everyone in my home community of Lawco Lake gathers at our party pad to watch the Buckeyes and Trojans take center stage, I?ll probably be home doing laundry and reading Mein Kampf by Mark May and Pat Forde.
Or, maybe I?ll watch Rudy. I love underdogs.
Have you heard anybody?anybody at all?say with confidence that they believe the Buckeyes will beat the Trojans? Of course you haven?t, because nobody really thinks OSU can win.
But you are going to hear it from me.
The Buckeyes will win.
Cont...

 

[buckeyemania11]

Link

Mr.Bruce

[censored] the critics

 

[Buckeye86]

I am glad it's Friday, the last day I have to get through without passing the time by getting drunk.

Also, I wrote up five reasons Ohio State will win tomorrow if you want to check it out.

Of particular interest (and something I didn't know until I looked at it), USC has not exactly been stellar on the road over the past two years.

#1 USC struggles on the road.

You read that right (gasp!), USC struggles at something. In fact, I went back and looked at USC’s road games over the last two years and found some interesting results.

In 2008 USC lost on the road (at night) against a 9-4 Oregon State team in front of 46,000 fans. They also won a close game (17-10) on the road against an 8-5 Arizona team in front of a whopping 56,000 fans.

The rest of their road games last year were against 5-7 Virginia, 2-11 Washington State, 5-7 Stanford, and 4-8 UCLA. If you see any challenges in there let me know.

In 2007 USC lost on the road to a 9-4 Oregon team at Autzen Stadium. While Auzten is known to be one of the louder venues in college football, it still only holds 54,000 fans.

They had trouble with a 4-9 Washington team (you know, that awful team that we took so much heat for having the audacity to schedule) pulling out the close victory 27-24 at Washington in front of a crowd of 72,500.

They also struggled to put away a 7-6 California team on the road in front of 76,000 fans, eventually pulling out the victory 24-17.

The rest of their road games in 2007 were against 5-7 Nebraska, 3-9 Notre Dame (haha), and a 10-3 Arizona State team that they beat 44-24 (wow, that seems like it might be a quality road win!).

So, uhhh, notice a pattern here.

First of all, they haven’t played in front of nearly as many people or experienced nearly the crowd noise that they will on Saturday (see #3).

Second of all, USC has clearly struggled on the road over the past two seasons. Combine that with #5 and # 4 and you will have to excuse me, but can someone please remind me why we are the underdogs again?

I don’t know what is getting into me, but as this game approaches I am starting to feel pretty damn confident.

GO BUCKS!

 

[Coqui]

That's fine, and I understand the idea, I just don't think Wells is worth 32 points.

May not be 32, but it's much closer. Not saying we would have won but:

Beanie on the field = More balanced attack. He could run through anyone. Let's just say for sake of argument, we get one touchdown from this. That's 7 points there. Because of Beanie, playaction is much more effective. That means the chance of Malaluaga getting that interception for a touchdown drops drastically. That's another 7 points. Time of possession goes down for USC. Let's make that another 7 points. And I don't care how deep the team is....Beanie bruising them will and has worn down deep defenses. He scores another 7 points. So not 32, but 28. I'm sure if I wanted to nitpick, I could find another 4 points somehow.

 

[MondayAMGenius]

Beanie's not gonna play tomorrow so look at what we have...
Saine(healthy now) showed me some bursts I hadn't seen before Navy.
Pryor spread the ball around to a number of receivers like a Junior Troy Smith.
Duron Carter is ready now.
Please continue to ignore Sanzenbacher! He's always open.
The roll out pass and the improved option play make the O line less significant and open the field up to Pryor.
The most underrated player in the world.. Jake Ballard. Amazing hands.
Stoneburner look-lika-man.
And the O line,, well they seem to protect the pass well.
We've seen Boom do great things before, so maybe he'll get some openings.

The defense survived Navy's running attack. Sure they got bloodied a little, but they survived. Better that than a laugher against Youngstown State.
Kurt Coleman is truly a beast.
We already knew J Hines should be playing more. Now he gets his chance.
Rolle looked really fast. We'll see.

Finally, I actually pity the kid with USC being asked to play here in week 2. To favor SC with a freshman qb is to suggest we are horrible!. Freshman QB beats #8 Bucks at the Shoe??? That would be a Herculean feat. And yet it's a foregone conclusion. I say BullS#$%@t.

Also, even haters have to admit, Tress always shows something new in the big games, and 99% of it works.

X factors.... strength and conditioning of D line, O line. We know our D line is better this year. Just couldn't see it last week against the lab experiment called the flex-bone.
Can we adjust during the game? Will a freshman back step in?

I like us at home in an early season ugly win. Carroll has a history of losing to underdogs.

Go Bucks

 

[zincfinger]

That's fine, and I understand the idea, I just don't think Wells is worth 32 points. And as far as I recall, Beanie didn't play defense I could see the argument if it was a much closer game that he would have made the difference... I just think that with USC's defense last year, with that linebacker corps, there wasn't going to be much happening either way.

Wells almost certainly wasn't good for 32 points all by himself. But that fairly simple analysis overlooks the fact that football is a game of momentum. Particularly so in the first half last year, where 4 or 5 plays made the difference between a fairly even halftime score and a very lopsided halftime score. USC scored two offensive first half touchdowns. OSU was on the doorstep twice. The first time, they had first-and-goal, and settled for three. If Wells were in, it's plausible they power rush him instead of trying things like a Boeckman option keeper, and Wells gets in. On the second, they were denied after back-to-back borderline holding calls and missed a field goal. If Wells is in, that one very plausibly turns out differently as well. USC's third score came on a pick-six, where Boeckman was pressing due to being behind by a couple scores. Again, largely a result of momentum. Overall, it's very plausible that if Wells were in, the halftime score would be more along the lines of 14-10, or even 14-14, rather than 21-3. In the second half, USC dominated, the main difference relative to the first half being that the OSU offense did virtually nothing. While USC played great, I personally think part of the reason for the difference between the two halves was the psychological impact on the OSU players of going into halftime, after having done a lot of the things that they wanted to do, and still being down big. Again, momentum. I'm not saying that if Wells plays, OSU wins. Most likely they don't. But Wells would not have needed to personally score 4 or 5 touchdowns, or played defense, in order to make a huge difference in the way the game played out. Probably (but far from certainly) USC still wins, but it would have been a very different ballgame. Not 7 points closer, not 10 points closer. Completely different, and probably tight to the end. And frankly, I think OSU would have had a realistic shot at pulling it out.

 

[joefoshow]

Yes Wells could not have won the game by himself but if he is in the Ohio State offense uses a different gameplan. But he did not play so we will neverknow what the game would have been like.

 

[JimsSweaterVest]

A win on Saturday will be one of the defining wins of the Tressel era. God I can't wait.

WE THE FANS WILL PLAY A PART IN THIS GAME. We have to be LOUD. We have to make our team feel that we have their backs. This is our home, this is the Shoe. This is where we finally have that home field advantage (unlike the USC and LSU games).

We also have to be LOUD in rattling the other team. Boo them. Yell at them. Taunt them. Just don't throw stuff at them. Make them lose focus. Let them not even hear each other speak. When their Tebow-wannabe quarterback makes a mistake, laugh and boo hard. He won't recover.

FARK U$C!!! GO BUCKS LET'S WIN THIS SHYTE!!!!

 

[MondayAMGenius]

A win on Saturday will be one of the defining wins of the Tressel era. God I can't wait.

WE THE FANS WILL PLAY A PART IN THIS GAME. We have to be LOUD. We have to make our team feel that we have their backs. This is our home, this is the Shoe. This is where we finally have that home field advantage (unlike the USC and LSU games).

We also have to be LOUD in rattling the other team. Boo them. Yell at them. Taunt them. Just don't throw stuff at them. Make them lose focus. Let them not even hear each other speak. When their Tebow-wannabe quarterback makes a mistake, laugh and boo hard. He won't recover.

FARK U!!! GO BUCKS LET'S WIN THIS SHYTE!!!!

Amen

 

[Best Buckeye]

Cmon people, Remember when pryor was a freshman for last year's game? well Barkley isn't any better this year.
Go Buckeyes
Go Buckeyes
Go Buckeyes

 

[BB73]

It comes down to the trenches and the QBs.

I expect USC to play mostly zone coverages in their secondary. The two big reasons for this relate to Pryor:

1 - If they play man-to-man and he avoids the pass rush, he can get huge gains. They'll mix their coverages, but primarily employ zone in order to reduce the chances of getting burned by TP's legs.

2 - He has a tendency to throw the ball high, and having guys back in a zone make it likelier to get interceptions on any high throws.

I think tOSU will use a lot of rollouts so USC won't know where to go after TP. If a timed route isn't there, he'll need to look for Sanzo and the TE's finding holes in the zones. And if that's not there, he needs to take off quickly.

USC will utilize a lot of short throws, and try to get an occasional mismatch in coverage to get a big play. Hopefully tOSU keeps the pressure on Barkley all night, and the crowd stays loud (I'll do my part), in order to not let the frosh QB get comfortable. The USC O-Line is rock solid, but sending plenty of rushers will force some mistakes. I think that will be worth getting burned by an occasional big play. The Buckeye defense needs to take chances, especially on third downs, in order to get off the field.

Go Bucks!

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

It comes down to the trenches and the QBs.

I expect USC to play mostly zone coverages in their secondary. The two big reasons for this relate to Pryor:

1 - If they play man-to-man and he avoids the pass rush, he can get huge gains. They'll mix their coverages, but primarily employ zone in order to reduce the chances of getting burned by TP's legs.

2 - He has a tendency to throw the ball high, and having guys back in a zone make it likelier to get interceptions on any high throws.

I think tOSU will use a lot of rollouts so USC won't know where to go after TP. If a timed route isn't there, he'll need to look for Sanzo and the TE's finding holes in the zones. And if that's not there, he needs to take off quickly.

USC will utilize a lot of short throws, and try to get an occasional mismatch in coverage to get a big play. Hopefully tOSU keeps the pressure on Barkley all night, and the crowd stays loud (I'll do my part), in order to not let the frosh QB get comfortable. The USC O-Line is rock solid, but sending plenty of rushers will force some mistakes. I think that will be worth getting burned by an occasional big play. The Buckeye defense needs to take chances, especially on third downs, in order to get off the field.

Go Bucks!

And thanks to you I shall do mine!

:cheers:

See ya tomorrow!

 

[starBUCKS]

USC practicing on my old field today at Dublin Coffman... wow.