Game Thread Sugar Bowl: tOSU vs Arkansas, Tue, Jan 4th, 8:30 ET ESPN

[Wells4Heisman]

Got my tickets in section 613.....

Great seats.

Not going to say anything about the game as it's my first bowl game since the 09 Fiesta... :tongue2:

but GO BUCKS!

 

[HogFan77]

what do you hog fans see as your team weaknesses. if you were game planning against your own team how would you attack the hogs?

My offensive game plan would be to attack the run defense right up the middle. We've down good at shutting down outside runs, but have been gashed up the middle plenty. If you can get long, time consuming drives and convert several 3rd downs our defense will get tired and start to lose focus. Then you can beat us deep with the pass. Its happened quite a few times, and would have happened more if the SEC had more QBs who could hit open receivers streaking towards the endzone.

I'm not entirely sure how to stop our offense, and I'm not trying to brag, I'm just being completely honest. If you sit in a zone and can't get pressure on Mallett then he will pick you apart, no matter how good your secondary is. If you can get him rattled(he's shown himself to be much more emotionally sound as the season has gone on) then you can cause him to make some mistakes. Knile Davis has really come into his own as a running back and has been able to gash defenses outside with his speed, but also has the power and agility to make people miss running inside. If your secondary is athletic and disciplined enough I would stick to man defense and come out with various different blitz packages to try and disrupt our rhythm and get us in must-pass situations.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

This game, like all others, will be won and lost in the trenches, really. The sooner Ohio State can make Arkansas one dimensional, the better (if they're able to at all).

That's true on the other side of the ball, of course. Pryor's mobility gives Ohio State a bit more of an advantage on that score, though, in my opinion.

 

[osugrad21]

I'm not entirely sure how to stop our offense, and I'm not trying to brag, I'm just being completely honest. If you sit in a zone and can't get pressure on Mallett then he will pick you apart, no matter how good your secondary is. If you can get him rattled(he's shown himself to be much more emotionally sound as the season has gone on) then you can cause him to make some mistakes. Knile Davis has really come into his own as a running back and has been able to gash defenses outside with his speed, but also has the power and agility to make people miss running inside. If your secondary is athletic and disciplined enough I would stick to man defense and come out with various different blitz packages to try and disrupt our rhythm and get us in must-pass situations.

Absolutely. I see tOSU spending this entire month trying to turn the band-aid secondary into something resembling a cohesive unit. Injuries have ravaged the back four and the effect has been obvious.

I definitely see this month of prep time as an advantage for tOSU as we possibly regain some contributors for depth and also get the extra time to seal down assignments against a single scheme.

Early on, expect a very vanilla defense and some probable Arkansas success...but as stated earlier, Heacock has earned his reputation as a master of adjustments. After the first 2-3 drives, I expect heavy tOSU pressure from the 2nd and 3rd levels if the DL isn't getting it done.

 

[NAZCARDAMUS]

Nice English

We lost, on the road, in one of college football's most hostile night-game environments, to the #4 team in the country. Our coverage team, which as a whole has been very poor most of the season, immediately put us in a 7-point hole on the opening kickoff. While Wiscy did take it to us in the first half, we rallied in the second half to pull within a FG at 21-18, only to fall short.

We had one really bad half all season. At least our defense didn't get ape-raped to the tune of 65 [censored]ing points like you did at Auburn. And we didn't lose at home to a 3-loss team.

You didn't lose to the #4 team, you lost to the #18 team at the time, don't try to butter it up. And you didn't even play anyone in the top 10 all year. We beat #5 when they were #5. Not to mention our strength of schedule was ranked 6th nationaly and still managed 10-2. We lost to the defending champs by 4, and to AUB who is going to the title game and beat #5 LSU. You lost to #18 Wisconsin and played no one in the top 10. I'm not gonna make excuses for our perrformance against AUB like you did for your performance against Wisconsin. We simply got beat, yet you neglected to mention that we scored 43 on AUB, the most they allowed all year.

 

[jimotis4heisman]

Our weakness? Run defense by far. My second concern would be our kickoff return coverage. Also the left side of the O line seems to get the most pressure. Mainly because we have Love on the other side who is 1st team all SEC and will be a late first/early secound round pick.

when you say run defense, in general? or can you be more specific. guys getting blown off the ball, or is it off tackle plays, stretch plays, plays that get bounced outside, qb read, wildcat type stuff? one of our most used plays "dave" a two tightend set that involves interior lineman pulling towards the tes. it takes awhile to develop and historically in tressels time if executed it is good for a 7 or so yard gain. granted it is known to get blown up for a short loss/no gain. it has produced lots of long runs over the years also.

 

[osugrad21]

You didn't lose to the #4 team, you lost to the #18 team at the time, don't try to butter it up. And you didn't even play anyone in the top 10 all year. We beat #5 when they were #5. Not to mention our strength of schedule was ranked 6th nationaly and still managed 10-2. We lost to the defending champs by 4, and to AUB who is going to the title game and beat #5 LSU. You lost to #18 Wisconsin and played no one in the top 10. I'm not gonna make excuses for our perrformance against AUB like you did for your performance against Wisconsin. We simply got beat, yet you neglected to mention that we scored 43 on AUB, the most they allowed all year.

...so where Wisconsin ended up is irrelevant? Did you know when tOSU won the NC in 2002, they were not ranked in the top 10 pre-season?

Just a thought.

Using your logic...

Preseason...Iowa was #9, Wisky #12, Miami #13, PSU #19

Sounded like a pretty decent schedule preseason.

 

[HogFan77]

when you say run defense, in general? or can you be more specific. guys getting blown off the ball, or is it off tackle plays, stretch plays, plays that get bounced outside, qb read, wildcat type stuff? one of our most used plays "dave" a two tightend set that involves interior lineman pulling towards the tes. it takes awhile to develop and historically in tressels time if executed it is good for a 7 or so yard gain. granted it is known to get blown up for a short loss/no gain. it has produced lots of long runs over the years also.

Our line is pretty good and we have a lot of speed and are able to block stretch plays and most runs to the outside. Big bodied QB's that are willing to punish a defender and powerful backs that are able to hit the hole hard and make the first guy past the line miss have been our weakness.

 

[NAZCARDAMUS]

what do you hog fans see as your team weaknesses. if you were game planning against your own team how would you attack the hogs?


and same for the large group of ohio state fans, would you agree that we have a strong defensive line but not great depth? that rolle is a player but a tad undersized and teams can be effective running right at him. getting old homan in space can be his weakness. generally speaking we also have a depleted secondary and the safeties are relatively average with the substantial injuries we have back there. how this will be compounded by having a star on the field probably most of the game remains interesting to me. (star is our fifth db, typically played by hines or another big/physical db).

Weaknesses? Simple. Basic defense and open field tackling. It has improved but it is our biggest weakness. Petrino is an offensive coach and our poor tackling shows it. I mean just basic tackling is lost. Have been many times where there were 3-4 missed tackles on one play this year.

How to beat us? Spread our DB's and scramble Pryor.

 

[LordJeffBuck]

Using Ryan Mallets performance in an '07 game? Man you are really reaching. And people on here are saying I'M being selective.

Reading comprehension .... I guess they don't teach that in schools any more these days....

If you notice, I never said anything about The Legend's performance in the 2007 Game (1 out of 3 for 8 yards, and a sack for -6 yards). No, what I said was, ask Ryan Mallett what he thinks of Ohio State's defense. He was a first hand witness to Ohio State's defense giving his team's offense a complete ass-kicking, and that team had Michigan's career leader in passing yards and passing touchdowns (Chad Henne), career leader in rushing yards (Mike Hart), two NFL receivers (Manningham and Arrington), and the #1 overall pick in the 2008 NFL draft (Jake Long). If Ohio State can hold a high-powered offense like that to just three points and 91 total yards, then I'd say that they could do something similar to just about anybody (like Oregon, whose "unstoppable" offense scored 17 points and put up 260 yards in last year's Rose Bowl).

Oh, wait, 2007 was a long time ago? Well, you're Mr. Statistics, go put these stats in your corncob pipe and smoke them: In 2007, Ohio State had the #1 total defense and #1 scoring defense; in 2010 Ohio State has the #2 total defense (#4 pass defense, #4 rush defense) and #3 scoring defense. Pretty similar, huh? So, the uniform numbers have changed, but the results remain the same.

Legend Mallett, Gnarls Davis, whatever ... been there, done that, seen it all before. I'm not saying that we'll win the game, but I am saying that there's no way in Hell that Arkansas' offense in anything to be overly concerned about. We play good teams all the time, just like you do, so this is nothing new for either team.




And by the way, Stats Geek, Ohio State has the #18 offense in the country, so even if your unstoppable offense (ranked #10 in the country) is able to score a few points, I'd still be willing to bet that we score just a little bit more.

 

[Fratteries]

when you say run defense, in general? or can you be more specific. guys getting blown off the ball, or is it off tackle plays, stretch plays, plays that get bounced outside, qb read, wildcat type stuff? one of our most used plays "dave" a two tightend set that involves interior lineman pulling towards the tes. it takes awhile to develop and historically in tressels time if executed it is good for a 7 or so yard gain. granted it is known to get blown up for a short loss/no gain. it has produced lots of long runs over the years also.

Like Hogfan77 said. Not the run defense as whole but just right up the gut. If you go outside our linebackers will get you most of the time. Jerico Nelson also comes up and hits you HARD. QB reads get us as well. I'm not sure if you guys watched the lsu game but they have a mobile QB and can run it vs a pretty good secondary and not so good run defense that gives up 157 yards a game. What does miles do? Throw the ball. I expect tressel to run it because he is not a retard like les miles is.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

Like Hogfan77 said. Not the run defense as whole but just right up the gut. If you go outside our linebackers will get you most of the time. Jerico Nelson also comes up and hits you HARD. QB reads get us as well. I'm not sure if you guys watched the lsu game but they have a mobile QB and can run it vs a pretty good secondary and not so good run defense that gives up 157 yards a game. What does miles do? Throw the ball. I expect tressel to run it because he is not a retard like les miles is.

I'm not sure whether I need to call a time out (and then blame it on my QB if it turns out I don't have any left) or to just chew on this turf.

I'll figure it out and respond in a few. Damn.... is that corndog?

 

[NAZCARDAMUS]

...so where Wisconsin ended up is irrelevant? Did you know when tOSU won the NC in 2002, they were not ranked in the top 10 pre-season?

Just a thought.

Using your logic...

Preseason...Iowa was #9, Wisky #12, Miami #13, PSU #19

Sounded like a pretty decent schedule preseason.

No, not saying that at all. I just think the ranking at the time of play is noteworthy. But if you want to use your logic then you are about to play the team that scored more points against the #1 team in the nation than anyone else did. Doesn't count for much, but just using your logic.

 

[Fratteries]

I'm not sure whether I need to call a time out (and then blame it on my QB if it turns out I don't have any left) or to just chew on this turf.

I'll figure it out and respond in a few. Damn.... is that corndog?

Haha, i guess we both agree on mile being the luckiest coach in football. But if lsu pounds the rock against us. We probably lose that game.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

No, not saying that at all. I just think the ranking at the time of play is noteworthy. But if you want to use your logic then you are about to play the team that scored more points against the #1 team in the nation than anyone else did. Doesn't count for much, but just using your logic.

So.. if Ohio State played Texas in the opener, you'd be impressed, because they were #4?