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Spring Football - 2005 (mega-merge)

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Here's what I came away from the game thinking:
-I was way off on my pregame rankings. There were a lot of players that didn't play that I thought were going to play. Scarlet not having the Boar Hunter, Hamby, and Hall would have changed my pick to Gray at those positions.
-Dukes needs to work hard on his hands and learning what he is doing. I have to give him a pass right now because he was out Winter Quarter, but he needs to work his ass off. It looked like he was screwing up on routes a lot and he also dropped several balls and had and horrible fumble.
-Zwick looked ok starting out until he had a few drops. After that it looked like he didn't care what was going on until the 4th quarter when he played his best. JZ did have 2-3 balls that could/should have been picked, but so did the others.
-Smith looks to have the athletic QB curse of trying to do too much. His int was the worst pass of the game and his fumble made a 10 yard sack even worse except that he got on the ball. I think Smith will have a lot of trouble in a game if the opponent can keep him in the pocket and not let him run.
-Boeckman looked pretty good. His TD to Gonzo was a great play by him to buy extra time and find the open receiver, but I credit some of his success to Scarlet shooting themselves in the foot with turnovers in the 2nd quarter.
-Our LB's are going to be really good (duh). Hoobler and Freeman looked good.
-I'm looking forward to seeing Pittman and Haw in game action more. Haw looked like he was having a hard time before Gray put some of the scrubs in in the 4th quarter (Hawk, Freeman, and Terry will do that to you though). I think we'll be ok at RB this year especially since we'll be running shotGinn a lot. I can only imagine Ginn on one side and Haw on the other.
-Both OL's looked good while the starters were in there which make me happy. I'd say by the time the season starts we go 10 deep with guys who can play. The OL in front of Zwick in the 4th quarter wasn't very good, but they were mostly walkons.
-I don't think we're as deep at WR as most of us thought. Holmes, Ginn, and Gonzo are proven. I have no idea what to expect out of Lyons, Hall, Dukes, and Jordan right now. I don't remember Lyons doing anything in the game, and Dukes needs work as I said earlier.
-TE's looked decent especially since Hamby wasn't playing. Frost did a good job catching his TD, which just as well could have been a pick. Nicol made a couple catches, but also had a couple drops.
-DL is a big ? right now. I think Kudla, Pitcock, Green, and Richardson will be good, but we need more depth. Patterson, and Penton for sure, but some of the young DE's need to step up next year.
-Welch looked really good at CB. He should get some PT this year and maybe beat out Everett. We should have enough DB's to field a good unit.
-Punting is yet to be determined. Trapasso spent the whole day kicking away from Ginn and Scarlet's punters didn't look very good.
-The kickers looked ok. Most of the problems had to do with bad snaps an holds. Gray looked to have the better snappers and holders. Scarlet's snapper probably wanted to crawl in a hole after the game. Skeete and Huston will have a battle come this fall. I felt bad for Huston that he didn't really get a chance to kick a FG, but his KO's were short and his onside kick was really bad.
-Lane looked really good returning, but Haw should stay in the backfield.

 
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I thought the kicking game was pretty good considering how crappy the snaps, holding and weather was. Punting can't be evaluated b/c Gentry never had a chance (every time he had a bad snap) and Trapasso wasn't allowed to punt (you have to love how well he got the ball to bounce on those punts tho... I'm sure that had nothing to do with luck :wink:)

As for WR, Lyons made a great move to get 5-10 YAC and a first down. And Hall has reportedly had a great spring, tho he didn't see the field so there was no way to judge him in our eyes.
 
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KevinBuck said:
"After the Spring Game, has anyone become dissillusioned with all of our fresh talent?"


HELL NO!!!
Click to expand...
I agree with you all dispelling that "sky might be falling" fear.

Look, if this Spring game were run like certain other college team's end 'o' Spring Rites we would be seeing the 1st team Offense vs the 2nd team Defence --and vice versa..

That's not the way Tressel draws it up.

He wants to see what the young 'uns can do in odd circumstances and the draft by victorious scrimmage squad of all except Senior players fits the bill to a tee.

Another more typical model of an end of Spring Practice game is the earlier scrimmage -- and we all know how that went. Had Saturday's game followed the 1st team O vs 2nd team D model we would have seen (mostly on the ground) much higher production and a likely a roll-over win against a plucky D (if Hoobler had anything to say about things).

(They still need to get the kinks out of the punting game!! Practice, practice.)
 
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I thought Smith made some rather unwise decisions as QB. To preface, I'm a Smith fan, but he was doing things that no amount of bad weather could account for. He rolled out of the pocket way too early (especially in cases where he had perfect protection), scrambled at the slightest sign of a receiver not being open, and sometimes just pitching to receivers that weren't there. I heard at the press conference that one thing he did mention was working on his decision making, so thats good. I've said this many times, but its worth another go...in my opinion, it doesn't matter who our QB is, just as long as they are confident in their abilities and consistent. Of course, this is kind of turning into a non-issue since Smith is looking to be our starter after the Miami game anyway.

EDIT: Oh, and in person, Boeckman is REALLY tall...
 
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Some things I took from the game:

- Ashton Youboty and Tyler Everett played really well to almost completely shut down Ginn in the first half. Vanilla plays, but it's still no easy task to shut down TG2. I haven't heard many people give Everett much credit, but he looked really good out there to me. He seems like our #2 corner to me, but Welch and Lane both looked very good as well.

- We are even more loaded at LB than I thought. Terry, Hoobler, and Freeman all looked very good, and Lukens looked great for a walkon. I'm starting to agree with the people that were saying that Freeman is our 3rd best LB already (ahead of Schlegel and D'Andrea).

- Devon Lyons and Albert Dukes are still very raw, but oozing with potential. They need to work on the drops/fumbles, but these guys will be a very good duo for the future and I'm sure they will make a few contributions this year. In my mind, these 2 guys are the reason that Roy Hall is repping at TB, FB, and TE.

- Boeckman will be good, but he's still a little ways off. I like the optimism you guys have, but I really don't think he's ready to start against Miami. We could probably beat them with Schoenhoft or even Ben Kascindi at QB, but nonetheless, Zwick is probably the best guy for the job.

- And speaking of Zwick, before you rag on him too much, think about who the receivers he was throwing to were. He had TG2 for a half, but after that it was Dukes and a few scattered walkons. He made some bad throws, but some of the blame has to go to the WRs who may or may not have run the correct routes. I'm not trying to be a Zwick apologist, but don't judge him too harshly on this game, apparently he had a very good jersey scrimmage.

- TS is our #1 QB. He'll start against Texas unless things go vastly awry. He just knows how to make plays.

- Haw and Pittman both had good games, but the real surprise was Brandon Schnittker. If we could use him the way we've used Joe the last 2 years, it'd be incredible. One major concern I had was who to give the ball to in short yardage or goal-line situations. Brandon might just be our guy.

- It looks like all the hype on Frost over the summer might just be true. I was wondering if he was going to fall through the cracks after practically 0 PT in 2004, but he seems to be having quite a resurgence. Good for Marcel.

- Skeete looked much better than I was expecting, Huston looks solid, and it's too bad Pretorius missed his 40+ yarder. I was thinking that Pretorius was going to be the guy to win the job, but after the kick scrimmage and all the experience he has, should Josh Huston get his 6th year, he'll most likely win the job.

- AJ Trapasso is a helluva punter. Jonathon Thoma may push him when he arrives in the fall, but I have no concerns about AJ at all. He would be a great guy to have for 4 years.

- All the bad snaps were by a walkon with a tricky last name that I don't recall. Drew Norman played fine at LS, and seems to be solidly #1 on the depth chart at that position.
 
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This sounds exciting....

I was just at buckeye50.com and this is what they had on their site:

Monday, May 9, 2005, 7:31 PM (Eastern)

If you said Area 51, Groom Lake, Nevada you would be correct.

But based upon the Ohio State spring practice of 2005, if you had said The Woody Hayes Athletic Center (WHAC) on the Ohio State campus you might also be correct! Why?

While it received only minor publicity, if you didn't check into it, Jim Tressel closed virtually all spring practice this year. No no, we mean he REALLY closed it. Except for a few fleeting moments, ALL of spring practice and the football facilities were completely off-limits to everyone, including those with university-approved press credentials. And during those few fleeting moments we were told that the players and their practice routines changed from what they had been working on and became very ordinary and vanilla. So, what's going on here? Conspiracy theory, paranoia, or as in the case of Area 51, top secrecy? The correct choice is C: Top Secret.

Those who know me understand I love the x's and o's of football. I love analysis and dissecting a game. Those who know me also know I am a cheerleader and don't mind some intrigue from time to time. However, in this case, the intrigue is more serious than fun.

It is true that spring practice was closed. It is also correct to say there were armed, uniformed police officers at all major entrances at times. I even drove up to practice one afternoon, parked in the Jesse Owens track stadium and started walking up to the area in back of the old baseball field where you could actually get a slight glimpse of practice. I was about 50 yards away from the outdoor practice field which was separated by two chain link fences. Before I could even get to the first fence, I was politely ushered away by someone from the athletic department. Of course I didn't mind because if it is that important to them, I would not want anything to be compromised, so I left. I have never been to Groom Lake, Nevada, home of the infamous Area 51, but I understand the same thing happens if you try to get onto their property - you are escorted off.

I didn't give it much thought until about a week ago when a good friend (one of my inside sources) told me privately that the secrecy was for a good reason. He gave me little more than indicating that parts of a new offense were being installed. Apparently, they also didn't want anyone to see just who was doing what. I bring this up because since then, the Columbus Dispatch did a post-spring practice analysis and actually referred jokingly to the WHAC as, Area 51. There were even those within the athletic department using the Area 51 reference.

This has me thinking long and hard about the possibilities. Perhaps a new offense around Ted Ginn? Perhaps with the presence of a valid running attack, Jim Tressel might be able to do what he has probably wanted to do since he first arrived; have a power running attack based upon a balanced offense. Or, perhaps, he is plotting to stretch opposing defenses BOTH horizontally AND vertically with the likes of Holmes, Ginn, Dukes, Gonzalez, Lyons, R. Hall, Hamby, Frost, Nicol.....

Think about it: All of a sudden what started out as light fun at the top of this article might very well have turned into serious stuff for this fall!

------------

This looks very exciting, I hope some new amazing offfense will be unleashed September 10th versus Texas. I'm excited for the multiple posibilities tOSU has with such great talent on the offensive end like Smith Ginn Holmes Gonzo Dukes Hall Nicol Hamby Pittman Haw, etc

wow
GO BUCKS!!!
 
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We'll see. I think JT is going to open it up bigtime this year, but I'm sure we'll also see some conservative play more than we want to once we have a solid lead.

The exciting thing is that we have a number of teams on our schedule that should be easy to beat (*crosses fingers*) enabling our backups to get PT, but at WR and RB our backups are pretty exciting (Lyons, Dukes, MWells, etc)
 
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This is it, boys. The installment of a true fun'n'gun offense. I can smell it. QB draws, speed options, killer PAs, QB options, HB draws, air it out 50 times a game...
Click to expand...
Fun & Gun? I doubt...but I wouldn't be surprised to see some variation of the Urban Meyer Spread Option at times. The personnel is perfect.
 
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BuckeyeFROMscUM said:
Beckman's vast knowledge of the spread offense should help a bunch too. Is his specialty more in defending it or does he bring expertise to both sides of the ball.
Click to expand...
Any defensive coach who values his job will tell you that one must understand the offensive philosophy in order to stop it.

He would be helpful on both sides...
 
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I remember last season when i asked for the spread offense and was slammed down by plenty of people who wanted o be the smashmouth football team of the past. I still with to see a RB who will go out of his way to hit another player but i know the sread O is the one for the buck this year. I knew it.
 
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