If Tresselball would have worked, we would have all been LOL!!!!ing right now at USC and Pete Carroll. We’re not. In fact, it shouldn’t have been close. Try a TE screen or try a read option or try a wildcat. Something. Anything. 0 second half points.

Terrelle Pryor said OSU should have won by 2 or 3 TDs easily, and USC probably agrees. The offensive ineptitude has made Buckeye football hard to watch.

barkley made plenty of mistakes. And they almost cost USC the game. He was clearly a frosh QB. However, pregame, he wasn’t asked to put the game on his shoulders. How many “experts” said that for tOSU to win, Terrel had to have a monster “breakout game”. The game plan was way different to the point of apples to oranges.

The more years I attend tOSU game (32 season as a season ticket holder) the more I am astounded at how unintelligent, supposed experts are. The Sports talk station here in Cleveland, has a really great afternoon host who DOES play by play of small college. I am astounded at some of the misinformed and downright wrong things he says. Its like he’s reading JJ Huddle for his information, but using the wrong posters for sources.

The morning host (he wasn’t alone, but clearly drinking the national koolaid) said tOSU would lose 45-3. I said all along that we would cover and did.

The other thing that makes me laugh is the “The only thing tOSU has to do to win the game, blah blah blah.” Saturday, it was stop the running game. Or the OLine. Or Terrell Pryor needs to break out. Different holes, same crap. Guess what. They were all right and all wrong. None were the only thing they needed to do. tOSU needed to do ALL of them and could only get 2 out of 3 and it wasn’t enough. I’ve had it with the national media.

And another thing. If the B10 is so bad, what the f^^&&&^$ is the B12 and ACC? Do they even have defensive coordinators on teams in the b12? As for the ACC, forget whether they are a BCS quality conference. Aren’t they actually a FCS conference in disguise.

And finally, if I hear one more UCinn fan say they are the best team in Ohio I may walk down the street about 4 doors and go all Oregon Running Back on my neighbor who just graduated from there. Thats why I don’t want to play them. Why legitimize their fantasies that they are big time. They are more our little brother than sparty is of the wolverweasels. Actually, from now on, I think I will refer to them as our little sister.

Rant over…time to go to work.

1. Do you think the presnap reads, or lack thereof, have to do with the timing of gettting plays signaled in to him?

2. Yeah, I think that TP is more athlete than quarterback, so the analogy with Troy Smith makes sense to me. I think the kid is still learning big-time football, and he will do just fine. Meanwhile, they (coaches) ought to give him more plays to make use of his athleticism.

3. JohnBoy, I agree that Barkley seems more polished, but let’s be realistic. The USC game plan was to put Barkley in positions where he could succeed. I mean shit, dumping off to a RB, handoffs to said RB and QB sneaks aren’t exactly a dynamic offensive performance.

The more I’m thinking about it, the more aggravated I am with the offensive coaching. The philosophy of playing it ‘close to the sweater-vest’ doesn’t cut it when playing top notch competition. We need an offensive coordinator; let JT gave more time to manage the game (we could improve that as well) and generally do what HC’s are supposed to do.

Getting beat in Big Games like this is really frustrating; if you’re content to maintain this style of play and continue to be a Conference power, or possibly a Regional power, fine. I think our expectations are a little higher than that.

1) Terrell Pryor’s progressions are ok. That is not his problem. His presnap reads are horrendous to non-esistant. However, that is usually one of the last things a QB learns and can only be learned by experience. That isn’t something that is gained much in practice. Lots of film work followed up by real life experience.

2) It is WAAAAAAAY too early to write him off as a QB. He’s not championship quality yet. But just like with Troy Smith, the light bulb will go off at some point and he will be devistating.

Also, He throws well on the move to the right, but not so much rolling left. When he has time and the defense is ID’d by him, his mechanics are actually pretty good. When he is scrambling for reads in panic mode is when his mechanics break down. Some of that will only improve with time on the battlefield. Learning to square his body quickly and then throwing will also come at some point.

Patience Buckeye Fans. And don’t feed the trolls.

Pryor does not seem to have the vision or mental sharpness to be a QB. Immensely talented, but he gets tunnel vision on the field. Some guys have it, and some don’t. I’m beginning to think Pryor would be better served NFL-wise by switching to WR, because he certainly isn’t showing the gravitas to play QB in top tier college FB, let alone the NFL.

Lastly, I am so proud of our fans. I was there last night in the stadium. I’ve never seen an environment like that before in the ‘Shoe, and all of us still were holding our breathes. As that last drive developed, we started to realize we were going to lose. But we still kept screaming. For a few minutes there in the early 4th quarter, we had our swagger back. It was just pure joy. We lost that feeling on the final drive, but dear fucking God do I miss that freewheeling feeling of swagger. It’s been since Nov. 2006 since we had that feeling. I want it back, for good.

Good write up, again. Even after my rant last night, I’m still running a little hot today. Good observation about Herron not ‘Booming’ into the holes, and i think that TP was, uh, less than sharp last night. What amounted to an easy ‘almost pick-6′ was not the way to start the game. I guess I rationalized it in that TP is still a soph, and maybe he is more an ‘athlete’ quarterback than a ‘quarterback’ quarterback. I think that he didn’t compare as well against Barkley is that Petey called a better game for a young QB.

I’m still pissed about Tressel’s approach to play calling. If he, to paraphrase Mussberger is ‘rock-solid conservative’, I think it may be time to get a ‘liberal’ in there to call the plays. I wholdheartedly support JT as a head coach, and most certainly as a decent person, but just give up the play-calling to someone else, please.

And, again, I have a lot of praise for the overall defense, and only somewhat less so for the offensive line. Both units acquitted themselves well, I thought.

Finally, God bless Jack Tatum. I didn’t realize that his health had deteriorated some much. Tatum has been and always will be one of my favorite Buckeyes.