Open Thread: Minnesota
I think the biggest news of the week in Buckeyeland is that the USC game may have been just the third strike necessary to bring Evil Jim Tressel out of retirement. There have been several mixups to the roster, all of which at the behest of Tressel and his new meddling. At first glance, everyone would agree that benching Boeckman and starting Pryor would be the biggest change. However, let’s not look over the other important development: Tressel has appointed himself the Assistant Offensive Line Coach. Better yet, he’s been getting in offensive lineman’s faces and uncharacteristically raising his tone of voice at them. Boone and Tressel had a one-hour closed door meeting. While the subject of the meeting was not disclosed, Alex Boone said it had to deal with Tressel’s expectations of Boone and Boone acquiescing to every single one of them. Alex Boone says he loves this side of Jim Tressel. Practices, particularly for the offensive linemen, have been very intense all week. I think this might have something to do with recent comments made by USC players about how slow the Buckeyes were and how it’s probably a function of the idea that they don’t practice at full speed.
However, the performance of the Buckeyes is, sadly, not just a function of its own preparations. That is, the Bucks have to play other people. The 4-0 Minnesota Gophers come into town, looking for their fourth victory over the Buckeye program in the past 58 years. Despite close calls against Northern Illinois and Montana State, the Gopher players have every right to be optimistic about their prospects coming into Columbus. This is certainly not the same Gopher team whose putridness was graciously overshadowed by the uncharacteristic woefulness of the Irish. Further, their victories include a 4th quarter thrashing of Bowling Green, in Bowling Green, who beat Pitt (in Pittsburgh) the week earlier and is projected to be possibly the best team in the MAC. They also pounded Florida Atlantic, projected to be one of the best teams in the Sun Belt. Much of the Gophers’ defense comes from opportunistic play from their secondary, and clutch receiving by two-sport athlete Eric Decker.
Of course, this new confidence for the Gophers has also lent itself to behavior that I can only hope becomes bulletin-board material.
Minnesota will be a heavy underdog in Columbus, but (safety and JUCO transfer Tramaine) Brock doesn’t sound too afraid of the big, bad Buckeyes.
“They’re just regular to me,” he said. “No. 2 [Pryor], he’s regular, too. He’s nothing special to me. The only person we will be worried about is 28 [Chris Wells], and I don’t know if he’s playing or not. But everybody else, they’re just regular receivers and tight ends.
Respond accordingly, plz.
I still hesitate to do “keys to victory” type analyses, since I just kind of assume the key to victory remains constant across all cases, that is: blow up their line (defensive or offensive). When Minnesota has the ball, Eric Decker must be accounted for (I’m guessing the Decker assignment will largely go to Malcolm Jenkins). Eric Decker appears to be Adam Weber’s, the sophomore QB, safety valve and most certainly his first option. Weber has locked in to Decker 32 times in this young season, and has a completion percentage at around 72 percent to go with 7 TDs and 1 interception. Of course, there’s not going to be a lot of passes he can complete if we can dominate their offensive line. On that note: is it just me or does our defensive line never stunt? I can’t think of any game this season with any kind of different looks from the front four alone to get pressure.
Likewise, the Buckeyes will have to account for DE Willie VanDeSteeg while on offense. He appears to be their star defensive lineman and already has 6 TFLs on the season. Minnesota’s opportunistic turnovers on defense have propelled them to their early success, with much of these coming from the secondary. Accordingly, there is very little margin for error for Terrelle Pryor in the passing game. Making the task for the Buckeyes easier is the ground game. It looks like Beanie will play, but will probably split carries with Boom Herron. The offensive line must make running lanes for Herron. Again, this is nothing new or pathbreaking. If you wanted to see why Ohio State got ransacked by USC or hypothesize how Ohio State will win the game, you don’t need to look further than the offensive line. They decided the USC game. They’ll decide this game. They’ll decide every game.
But what do some individual players need to do? Well…
- You: Prove to me that you’re worth a third round pick in the next NFL draft. Prove to me that you get it now, better late than never.
- You and You: Great start to your careers, but more violence please. Apparently Tramaine Brock doesn’t think you’re anything to write home about, so what are you going to do about it?
- You: Evidently you didn’t get my message for the Youngstown State game, but the only thing you’re allowed to break is someone else’s face.
- You and You: TFLs would be nice.
- You and You: Get your shit together.
Again, we won’t be around during the game, instead watching it at a bar with some beer and friends. Feel free to leave comments.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2008/09/26/osufb_notes26.ART_ART_09-26-08_C7_7UBEDCR.html?sid=101
Also, Tressel said receivers coach Darrell Hazell thinks he has been playing Brian Robiskie and Brian Hartline too much. Hazell plans to rotate receivers more freely this week.
hallelujah.
oh, and Eric Decker is probably also going to get a healthy dose of Jermale Hines this game as well. I’m guessing Hines plays very prominently into the defense’s plans for the Gophers.
It’s possible, but since he wasn’t mentioned, Jermale might be considered nothing special, pretty regular, in fact.
Very true, Ken. Just another nameless, faceless regular guy on the Buckeyes’ roster.
I hope the score becomes comfortable enough to where we get more Nathan Williams sightings. I’ve really liked what I’ve seen out of him so far. More reps could only help.
The thing about saying stuff like this Brock character did is that, if you play for Minnesota, there’s really no downside to it.
End up getting stomped? Well, you were supposed to, you were playing Ohio State. If you get personally called out for your trash-talk, no biggie – you can say 1. you were just trying to fire up your boys, or 2. it’s kind of pathetic to think that Ohio State needed something like that to get motivated.
OSU’s offense struggles but the Buckeyes eke out a close (or just closer-than-expected) win? Well, then you’re – sort of – vindicated. And if the Gophers win – actually I don’t even want to contemplate that eventuality.
The hell of it is (other than calling out Pryor), Brock is right when he says “they’re just regular receivers and tight ends.” Not one of them has done anything special all year. And we don’t yet know how special any of the freshmen are because Tressel/Bollman/Hazell, for whatever reason, haven’t given them any opportunities to shine. Jake Ballard looks like an excellent receiving option every time he’s thrown to, but you don’t even need to take your other mitten off to count those throws up in any given game.
you’re right Caballo, but I can only hope that it awoke the bloodthirsty serial killer in Brian Hartline… or anyone else in that receiver corp.
On the subject of gameday threads here: it has to kind of suck for you guys to not be able to watch the games at home – over and above, that is, the general suckiness of living in Alabama
Myself, I prefer to watch all but the biggest of games at home: I can utilize the DVR to replay plays where I want to see who fucked up, who got an excellent block, who locked down a route, etc. When it comes to Michigan/bowl games/the big out-of-conference matchups/assorted night games vs. Wisky and Penn St., if I can’t be at the games I like to watch them with friends at a party or bar – there’s just something about the atmosphere of being around a bunch of fans that makes it more enjoyable. But during the “lesser” games, if I may call them that, I like to enable my inner ultra-focused, obsessive, cares-who’s-playing-during-garbage-time type of fan. Just the kind of thing that game threads were made for.
I hereby promise to inhabit next week’s Wisconsin thread, I’ll be watching at home this time. You guys are running an excellent blog here; I think it’s up there w/ 11W among the OSU blogs and together you and they are head and shoulders above the rest of them – no disrespect intended (other than to Buckeye Commentary, where they have an asterisk that’s supposed to represent a buckeye leaf, and the spelling/grammar/overall writing ability SUCKS. Those kinds of things matter when you have a website devoted to WRITING about things) to ATO, BBC, etc. You deserve a larger commenting community, and I think you’ll get it, just like the commenting @ 11W has seemingly increased a lot in the last few weeks. Hopefully y’all’s threads will liven up some when you’re actually in them.
GO BUCKS!
Yeah, I prefer to watch them at home by myself or with a friend, mostly because when I have to go out and watch them (the BTN games, that is), there’s just our group of 3 (sometimes 4 or 5) watching the Buckeyes and responding to that game… in a bar… in Alabama. Awwwwwkward. I’ve had to tell more than a few people to shut the hell up while we watch the game.
On that note, if anyone’s reading this and from the area, feel free to join us. We’re trying to build up an irredentist militia to detach west Alabama and rechristen it as an Ohio satellite state.
Thanks for the kind words on the blog, Caballo. To be honest, part of me wonders if the quality of the blog has taken a nose dive since the season began. I think this mostly because we’ve been really busy with work-related projects and when we think of something to say, we already notice 11W has said it. No sense reinventing the wheel, so we’re left kind of grasping at straws. Thanks for the kind words, though. Always appreciated.
Enough chit-chat. It’s beer thirty and we’re on our way out.
O-H!
Are you ready? Hell yes! Damn Right!
Hotty Toddy, Gosh almighty
Who in the hell are we – Hey
Flim Flam, Bim Bam
Ole Miss By Damn!
Max and I agree, Vandy for SEC champions!