Game Thread UCF Knights at tOSU - Sat, Sep 8, Noon ESPN2

[Coqui]

The game will depend on UCF's secondary. UCF will take away Braxton's ability to scramble . Our front 7 is very good and should be used to athletic, athletic qb's. They've practiced for 2 years now with Godfrey at QB, who has the same skill set as Braxton. Hopefully he was taking snaps this week to simulate what Braxton can do. I believe we can contain Braxton, but the secondary looked horrible against akron. If UCF can lock down on OSU's WRs then this game will be close/ a war, if our secondary sucks, you guys blow ucf out. I think that is a more important match up than ucf's run game and osu's front 7.

Watching highlights of Godfrey, Godfrey doesn't have Miller's ability to make tacklers miss. Godfrey does have a better stiff arm though and better downfield vision.

 

[Buckeye86]

Agreed...however our defensive strength is directly against their offensive strength. That should help dramatically.

That's the general idea of this preview:

Preview: Ohio State vs. UCF

I don't think UCF will test Ohio State nearly as much through the air (Dysert was a very good quarterback) and a run heavy offense plays right into Ohio State's biggest strength.

On offense, I think it all comes down to how quickly Ohio State can identify and adjust to what UCF is doing.

According to some of the coach interviews, the defense is reliant on base formations and solid fundamentals... something that Ohio State's superior athletes should seemingly be able to exploit with the right gameplan, play calling and adjustments.

 

[Tlangs]

The game will depend on UCF's secondary. UCF will take away Braxton's ability to scramble . Our front 7 is very good and should be used to athletic, athletic qb's. They've practiced for 2 years now with Godfrey at QB, who has the same skill set as Braxton. Hopefully he was taking snaps this week to simulate what Braxton can do. I believe we can contain Braxton, but the secondary looked horrible against akron. If UCF can lock down on OSU's WRs then this game will be close/ a war, if our secondary sucks, you guys blow ucf out. I think that is a more important match up than ucf's run game and osu's front 7.

If Godfrey had Miller's skillset, he would be starting.

 

[tillmatic]

The game will depend on UCF's secondary. UCF will take away Braxton's ability to scramble . Our front 7 is very good and should be used to athletic, athletic qb's. They've practiced for 2 years now with Godfrey at QB, who has the same skill set as Braxton. Hopefully he was taking snaps this week to simulate what Braxton can do. I believe we can contain Braxton, but the secondary looked horrible against akron. If UCF can lock down on OSU's WRs then this game will be close/ a war, if our secondary sucks, you guys blow ucf out. I think that is a more important match up than ucf's run game and osu's front 7.

Good luck with that.

 

[OSUK]

From watching some of the Akron game, I think we will have our hands full with UCF.

Very well could. This is a Florida school that gets Florida talent - not the elite, but the leftovers - which is still pretty good.

This isn't directed at you specifically Stowfan, but football fans make the same mistakes every year in the first few weeks of the season. We make assumptions based on last year, media predictions, pre-season rankings, and scores from early games. We start declaring national champ contenders and Heisman candidates after a game or two.

The reality, as we sit here, is we don't know what Miami of Ohio is. I thought their passing game was terrific, but outside of that, I wasn't that impressed. Still, they might be a really solid football team and Ohio State was just that good. Or they might be bad, and a 56-10 drubbing doesn't really mean that much.

I'm pretty sure I know what Akron is, but their game with UCF tells us next to nothing about how UCF matches up with the Bucks.

Best example: I think Alabama is a really, really good football team. Their LB's look like DE's and their DB's look like LB's - except they are faster than what you would expect from their size. But I thought before the season, and think now, that scUM is the 4th or 5th best team in the BIG. If Bama is a top SEC team, and elite national contender, and they beat the 4th/5th best team in the BIG 42-14, what does that mean for both teams? It's a result that was pretty predictable. But what if scUM proves to be the 7th place team in the BIG? Alabama may not be what we assume they are. What if scUM wins the BIG? Then Bama is one scary unit.

At this point, to borrow a phrase, we don't know what we don't know.

 

[BGBuckeyeFan]

Interesting quote from an offensive lineman from UCF:

Goins compared OSU's active defensive ends to former UCF standout Bruce Miller.
"If we stay after them, their motor will die," Goins said. "That's why we're practicing to finish in the fourth quarter. That's when we'll have our chance."

I wonder what our D-line and Marotti thinks about that statement? We have not really had a chance to see it yet, but my guess is that our team will be pretty darn well conditioned, and the chances of the UCF offensive line wearing down our defensive front guys is slim to none. Especially considering the rotation of players we are likely to see, I think this lineman is perhaps a bit optimistic.

 

[Frohlich]

Very well could. This is a Florida school that gets Florida talent - not the elite, but the leftovers - which is still pretty good.

This isn't directed at you specifically Stowfan, but football fans make the same mistakes every year in the first few weeks of the season. We make assumptions based on last year, media predictions, pre-season rankings, and scores from early games. We start declaring national champ contenders and Heisman candidates after a game or two.

The reality, as we sit here, is we don't know what Miami of Ohio is. I thought their passing game was terrific, but outside of that, I wasn't that impressed. Still, they might be a really solid football team and Ohio State was just that good. Or they might be bad, and a 56-10 drubbing doesn't really mean that much.

I'm pretty sure I know what Akron is, but their game with UCF tells us next to nothing about how UCF matches up with the Bucks.

Best example: I think Alabama is a really, really good football team. Their LB's look like DE's and their DB's look like LB's - except they are faster than what you would expect from their size. But I thought before the season, and think now, that scUM is the 4th or 5th best team in the BIG. If Bama is a top SEC team, and elite national contender, and they beat the 4th/5th best team in the BIG 42-14, what does that mean for both teams? It's a result that was pretty predictable. But what if scUM proves to be the 7th place team in the BIG? Alabama may not be what we assume they are. What if scUM wins the BIG? Then Bama is one scary unit.

At this point, to borrow a phrase, we don't know what we don't know.

These are my thoughts as well. We likely beat a nobody Miami team in week one. A lot of teams beat a nobody team in week one. Half the teams won and half did not in week 1. We are right now in the top half of Div 1 teams. Any talk about Heismans and undefeated seasons is fun but is also nonesense. We don't have nearly enough data to come to any conclusions. If we show progress on both sides of the ball and after we play MSU and Nebraska, then we will have a much better picture of what the 2012 Bucks are capable of.

 

[cincibuck]

That's the general idea of this preview:

Preview: Ohio State vs. UCF

I don't think UCF will test Ohio State nearly as much through the air (Dysert was a very good quarterback) and a run heavy offense plays right into Ohio State's biggest strength.

I thought Dysert was one of the most talented passing QBs I've seen play in Ohio Stadium, so I'm not concerned about the yards the defense gave up to him. But I wonder about the UCF running game. Who was the kid from Northern Illinois who gave a good buckeye defense a long afternoon of work? I seem to recall that he managed to gain over 200 yards against a good defense that day. Does UCF have a back of that quality? I doubt it. The NIU back led the nation in running one year and was near the top another before suffering an injury.

 

[jlb1705]

Interesting quote from an offensive lineman from UCF:

Goins compared OSU's active defensive ends to former UCF standout Bruce Miller.
"If we stay after them, their motor will die," Goins said. "That's why we're practicing to finish in the fourth quarter. That's when we'll have our chance."

So, the plan for them is to hope that an entire cadre of top-shelf d-line talent just gives up at some point during the game, and this is going to work because he used to know a guy like that.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

Interesting quote from an offensive lineman from UCF:

"If we stay after them, their motor will die," Goins said. "That's why we're practicing to finish in the fourth quarter. That's when we'll have our chance."

You can bet that quote is already making the rounds amongst the DL...

 

[Buckeye86]

I thought Dysert was one of the most talented passing QBs I've seen play in Ohio Stadium, so I'm not concerned about the yards the defense gave up to him. But I wonder about the UCF running game. Who was the kid from Northern Illinois who gave a good buckeye defense a long afternoon of work? I seem to recall that he managed to gain over 200 yards against a good defense that day. Does UCF have a back of that quality? I doubt it. The NIU back led the nation in running one year and was near the top another before suffering an injury.

Garrett Wolfe had 171 yards rushing (no TDs) and 114 yards receiving (1 TD) against the Buckeyes in 2006.

Wolfe's longest run was 51 yards and his longest reception was 65 yards. He was obviously a big play threat for the Huskies.

My counter argument would be that 2006 was the peak of Ohio State's struggles to defend in space, Garrett Wolfe was likely one of the best in-space weapons Ohio State has faced in the last decade, UCF doesn't have a player that has a comparable skill set, UCF's power running attack isn't designed to get players in space in the first place, Ryan Shazier > 2006 linebackers at defending in space, and finally the 2012 D-Line > 2006 D-line- particularly in the depth department.

This is not directed at you cinci because I think you brought up a valid question, but I forgot how much Buckeye fans agonized over the greatness of mediocre teams during the season. It seems to be worse this season, possibly due to the disastrous results last year?

Either way, the nit picking and worrying in this thread reminds me why I paradoxically become less involved in football talk during the actual season.

 

[brutus2002]

We showed absolutely nothing on offense or defense. It was about as vanilla as you can get. Miami is darn lucky we started out the game slow and didn't score right before the half or we would have hung 70+ on Miami.

Half of Miami's offense came from 3 plays that are easily correctable. They were mental errors.

Teams that run the ball are playing to our strength.

OSU big.

 

[Jaxbuck]

Garrett Wolfe had 171 yards rushing (no TDs) and 114 yards receiving (1 TD) against the Buckeyes in 2006.

Wolfe's longest run was 51 yards and his longest reception was 65 yards. He was obviously a big play threat for the Huskies.

My counter argument would be that 2006 was the peak of Ohio State's struggles to defend in space, Garrett Wolfe was likely one of the best in-space weapons Ohio State has faced in the last decade, UCF doesn't have a player that has a comparable skill set, UCF's power running attack isn't designed to get players in space in the first place, Ryan Shazier > 2006 linebackers at defending in space, and finally the 2012 D-Line > 2006 D-line- particularly in the depth department.

This is not directed at you cinci because I think you brought up a valid question, but I forgot how much Buckeye fans agonized over the greatness of mediocre teams during the season. It seems to be worse this season, possibly due to the disastrous results last year?

Either way, the nit picking and worrying in this thread reminds me why I paradoxically become less involved in football talk during the actual season.

I agree.

Bottom line for me is take off the names on the helmets and ask yourself what kind of team you'd most prefer OSU to face on both offense and defense.

On defense the OSU strength is stopping the run and not so much defending the pass. I would like to see a run heavy, power football team come in to Columbus that has an inexperienced QB so that if/when OSU takes away the run it's the OSU defense and crowd vs some kid making his second college start. Check

On offense I'd like to see a team that struggles to defend well in space and deal with an uptempo pace. Check

UCF is a fine team, well coached and fundamentally sound. That said, OSU is a bad match up for UCF. Forget who did what to who last week or what they may do for the season. An athletically out manned team that depends on the power run game is going to need some serious help from an athletically superior team team that excels at stopping the run if they are going to have any shot at success.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just highly improbable.

 

[Buckeye86]

UCF is a fine team, well coached and fundamentally sound.

Who went 5-7 last season with losses to Florida International, BYU, SMU, UAB, Tulsa, Southern Miss and ECU.

What is differene this season that makes them a threat other than they trounced one of the worst D-1 teams last week?

Do people really think that the 16 returning starters from that 5-7 squad improved that drastically over the off season?

And it's not even a good matchup for them as you (and others) point out.

 

[OSUsushichic]

Do people really think that the 16 returning starters from that 5-7 squad improved that drastically over the off season?

Are you talking about the Buckeyes? :)