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

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jwinslow;1835480; said:
The Game was played in a mud wrestling pit. They struggled against Illinois, and were just alright against PSU.

They also had a sharp, mobile QB who was on top of his game. Had they had the overweight (mentally & physically) Troy in the regular season, they would have dropped a few games.

The 07 line was not that great, they were getting stuffed by Akron for crying out loud, they just were the least ugly team after a month long series of failures by the top ranked foes.
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That's why I say they were generally decent, as opposed to consistently excellent. My perspective is that that would be an accurate description of this year's O-Line as well. And I'm not sure that sloppy conditions particularly favor the O-Line. The '06 O-Line struggled against Penn State in sloppy conditions and rain, and I think that generally speaking, sloppy conditions will result in a lower scoring game, not 42 points.
 
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Tlangs;1835443; said:
I'm not sure they should be excited for this. Wisconsin was the only decent "pro-style" team we played this year and they whipped us.
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Wisconsin put 14 first-half offensive points on the board (you can't put the opening kickoff TD on them) despite pushing our DL around like little kids. Once our defense made adjustments, Wisconsin wasn't nearly as successful. We held them to 139 yards and 10 points in the second half, and actually ended up with more TOP for the game.

Arkansas's OL isn't in the same solar system as Wisconsin's. If we don't put ourselves in an early hole via poor coverage teams like we did at Wisconsin, I like our chances of playing the style of defense we want to play. And if we're able to rattle Mallet early, look the fuck out...
 
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zincfinger;1835477; said:
It's not clear to me that this year's O-Line is that much better than some of the previous ones. In '06 for example, the O-Line generally did a decent job against some good-to-very-good defenses. Florida had an excellent D-Line, no doubt, but it wasn't THAT much better than Michigan's, if at all. And yet, a couple of botched long-snaps aside, OSU's O-Line held their own against an excellent Michigan D-Line, and then imploded against a comparably excellent (in my opinion) Florida D-Line. I'm still not sure why that is.
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I should clarify that I too never expected Ohio State to struggle that bad with Florida's defensive ends. I thought the line was good the entire year and didn't see any kinks in the armor until Boone and Barton were still in their stance while the Gators were on Troy Smith.

I thought what Florida exposed then translated into 2007, 2008, and 2009. The LSU defensive line might not have been terribly disruptive in that game, but St. whatever his name was earned MVP of that game and stopped Beanie Wells through out the middle of the game.
 
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I've heard that Arkansas' special teams is bad. I don't think I've heard it mentioned here about it, though.

Could Jordan Hall be a game changer? Say what you will about our ST, our return team is quite good, and I could see JHall doing some wicked things on returns if Arkansas has had the same STeam coverage problems that we did earlier in the year.
 
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Poe McKnoe;1835511; said:
The LSU defensive line might not have been terribly disruptive in that game, but [Ricky Jean-Francois] earned [defensive] MVP of that game and stopped Beanie Wells through out the middle of the game.
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Offensive and defensive MVP's are usually going to go to the winning team, unless someone from the losing team just had a blatantly phenomenal performance. If OSU had won, maybe Laurinaitis would have won defensive MVP, even though he wasn't really dominant. But generally, sure the LSU line did a solid job in that game. But that was a really excellent D-Line, and everyone knew that coming in. They were certainly a good enough D-Line that if the entire defense stacked against the run, as they mostly did in that game, they were going to contain the run against virtually anyone. For the OSU O-Line to merely hold its own more-or-less, was, I thought, a pretty solid performance. Not a great one, but solid. Certainly far better than the previous year's performance, against a probably comparable D-Line.
 
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Mrstickball;1835520; said:
I've heard that Arkansas' special teams is bad. I don't think I've heard it mentioned here about it, though.

Could Jordan Hall be a game changer? Say what you will about our ST, our return team is quite good, and I could see JHall doing some wicked things on returns if Arkansas has had the same STeam coverage problems that we did earlier in the year.
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ST could very well be the difference make on either team.
 
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MililaniBuckeye;1835504; said:
Wisconsin put 14 first-half offensive points on the board (you can't put the opening kickoff TD on them) despite pushing our DL around like little kids. Once our defense made adjustments, Wisconsin wasn't nearly as successful. We held them to 139 yards and 10 points in the second half, and actually ended up with more TOP for the game.

Arkansas's OL isn't in the same solar system as Wisconsin's. If we don't put ourselves in an early hole via poor coverage teams like we did at Wisconsin, I like our chances of playing the style of defense we want to play. And if we're able to rattle Mallet early, look the fuck out...
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Since our defense averaged giving up 14 points a game on the season, I would consider 14 points in the first half a whoopin.
 
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MililaniBuckeye;1835504; said:
Wisconsin put 14 first-half offensive points on the board (you can't put the opening kickoff TD on them) despite pushing our DL around like little kids. Once our defense made adjustments, Wisconsin wasn't nearly as successful. We held them to 139 yards and 10 points in the second half, and actually ended up with more TOP for the game.

Arkansas's OL isn't in the same solar system as Wisconsin's. If we don't put ourselves in an early hole via poor coverage teams like we did at Wisconsin, I like our chances of playing the style of defense we want to play. And if we're able to rattle Mallet early, look the [censored] out...
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I am not quite sure which planet you are living on......but i must say Arkansas's O-Line is most certainly in the same solar system as Wisconsin's. Since the Hogs are averaging 6'5" 300+ lbs they aren't small. That being said, we did NOT have much of a running game except for the last 6 games. The O-Line DID push LSU around all day and opened holes that even I could have ran through. Wisconsin certainly may be better on the O-Line, I have not seen them play, but don't think Arkansas's O-Line is a slouch either. I'm just sayin'...........
 
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kchogfan;1835649; said:
I am not quite sure which planet you are living on......but i must say Arkansas's O-Line is most certainly in the same solar system as Wisconsin's. Since the Hogs are averaging 6'5" 300+ lbs they aren't small. That being said, we did NOT have much of a running game except for the last 6 games. The O-Line DID push LSU around all day and opened holes that even I could have ran through. Wisconsin certainly may be better on the O-Line, I have not seen them play, but don't think Arkansas's O-Line is a slouch either. I'm just sayin'...........
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We all might need to reevaluate that after the Rose Bowl. Wisconsin's OL is the best I've seen this year. I personally think they are going to roll TCU's #1 ranked D.
 
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kchogfan;1835649; said:
I am not quite sure which planet you are living on......but i must say Arkansas's O-Line is most certainly in the same solar system as Wisconsin's. Since the Hogs are averaging 6'5" 300+ lbs they aren't small. That being said, we did NOT have much of a running game except for the last 6 games. The O-Line DID push LSU around all day and opened holes that even I could have ran through. Wisconsin certainly may be better on the O-Line, I have not seen them play, but don't think Arkansas's O-Line is a slouch either. I'm just sayin'...........
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I don't think Mili really meant that as a knock on Arkansas, it's just how good Wisconsin's offensive line is.
 
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Sportsbuck28;1835674; said:
I don't think Mili really meant that as a knock on Arkansas, it's just how good Wisconsin's offensive line is.
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Exactly. He wasn't talking about size (IMO), he was talking about run blocking. I think most experts are saying that Wisconsin has two first day picks in the NFL draft coming up in April on their line.
 
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Mrstickball;1835520; said:
I've heard that Arkansas' special teams is bad. I don't think I've heard it mentioned here about it, though.
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Our special teams as a whole isn't bad, certain units are horrible though. Our kickoff return team is mediocre at best and our kickoff coverage has been absolutely abysmal in two games (LSU and Auburn). Other than that our punt return team is incredible, our punt coverage is pretty good, and our PK and punter are really good. Overall I would say B+ maybe just a B.

I'm still amazed we beat LSU even after giving them the ball on the 50 on half of their possessions... All I can say is while our defense as a whole is decent to good, our red zone D is actually pretty good.
 
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jdevers;1835797; said:
Our special teams as a whole isn't bad, certain units are horrible though. Our kickoff return team is mediocre at best and our kickoff coverage has been absolutely abysmal in two games (LSU and Auburn). Other than that our punt return team is incredible, our punt coverage is pretty good, and our PK and punter are really good. Overall I would say B+ maybe just a B.

I'm still amazed we beat LSU even after giving them the ball on the 50 on half of their possessions... All I can say is while our defense as a whole is decent to good, our red zone D is actually pretty good.
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And LSU has the 92nd ranked offense in the nation. :biggrin:
 
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