Our Honor Defend

Plagiarizing what I said in yesterday’s post, this is a golden opportunity for the Buckeyes.  This is Senior Day, meaning this will be the last time we see Andre Amos, Jake Ballard, Kurt Coleman, Jim Cordle, Todd Denlinger, Joe Gantz, Tom Ingham, Andrew Moses, Aaron Pettrey, Dan Potokar, Rob Rose, Anderson Russell, Ryan Schuck, Ray Small, Austin Spitler, Jon Thoma, Marcus Williams, Lawrence Wilson, and Doug Worthington storm down the home team’s tunnel at the venerable Horseshoe.  For these seniors, and the other members of the 2009 Buckeye football team, this is a chance to put themselves in an elite place in the Tressel era: his first team to go to the Rose Bowl.  This is it.  Winner goes to Pasadena.  Winner gets showered with roses.  Winner gets to hoist the Big Ten championship in their locker room.  Winner gets championship swag.

Loser likely heads to Florida for a January 1 bowl game against the SEC.

As I also mentioned in yesterday’s post:

Further, and perhaps most importantly, it’d be a credible signal delivered to the rest of the conference that in a season where A) we wondered if our offensive line was on the verge of collapse, B) we wondered if Jim Tressel still had it as a playcaller, C) we wondered if our star QB would ever realize his potential, D) we suffered a monumental drop-off in production from the tailback position and E) we wondered how gone is our offensive coordinator, we’re still capable of winning the conference.

This would also continue the Buckeyes’ streak of 4 straight years with at least a share of the conference crown.  Lose, and it’s over because I don’t see anything outside of a plague in the home team’s locker room at Kinnick resulting in Iowa losing to Minnesota in the finale.

Here are some things worth knowing about the visiting Hawkeyes.

Mentor, Ohio product Ricky Stanzi is no longer the Manzi in Iowa City following his high ankle sprain against the Nerdcats last week.  Now, James Vandenberg is the Mandenberg¹ for the Hawkeyes.  Might as well get this out of the way too: He don’t want. Your Life.  With that out of the way, I fully expect Vandenberg to be much, much better prepared for the Buckeyes than he was against the Nerds last week.  Last week, he was thrust into a situation where the Hawkeyes were trailing and left to make up ground.  Now, he has a week to prepare his offense for a march into Ohio Stadium that they hope will allow them march further to Pasadena.

Better prepared he may be, but I gather that Hawkeye fans are still worrying about him entering this game.  It’s not enough that he’s making his first career start after seeing only mop-up duty against Iowa State and emergency playing time against the Nerds.  He’s making his first career start against the Buckeyes, in the Horseshoe, and against one of the nation’s best defensive lines.  I hypothesize that Iowa would ideally like to ease him into the game and will pound the rock if it works for them, but I also expect Vandenberg will start out with easy stuff if it presents itself.  I don’t think, nor does the Buckeyes’ defensive staff, that they’ll close half of the playbook for Vandenberg.  But, I also don’t expect Vandenberg to be thrown into the fire in the first quarter.  Expect former QB and current WR Marvin McNutt to get a wildcat snap here and there to see if it’s enough to catch the Buckeyes asleep at the switch.

Adam Robinson, the exciting young tailback for the Hawkeyes, suffered an unfortunate injury that opened the door for South Dakotan² Brandon Wegher to emerge as Iowa’s primary tailback.  Wegher is serviceable, but Iowa would really love to have Robinson for this game.  Wegher’s backup is, yes… yes… Paki O’Meara.

The injury bug has bitten Iowa, but not in the receiver corp.  The receiver corp may be the strength of the offense.  They know how to operate in secondaries and have greatly assisted Ricky Stanzi when he was quarterbacking the team.  Marvin McNutt, sophomore, was mentioned earlier.  Joining him are Ohioans Derrell Johnson-Koulianos (Campbell) and Trey Stross (Avon Lake).  Johnson-Koulianos is primetime for the Hawkeyes.  He does it all for them.  Meanwhile, McNutt is more of a downfield option and Stross, the big target at 6’4 200, is good for a few catches a game, usually underneath.  Blown coverages with these guys are not an option.  Ask the Hoosiers.

If anyone is going to ease Vandenberg into the game, it’s going to be otherworldly tight end Tony Moeaki.  He missed a few games to injury, but he’ll accomplish several things against the Buckeyes.  First, he’s a capable blocker who will help open running lanes against our ferocious front 7.  Second, there’s no better friend to an unproven quarterback thrown into an uncomfortable situation than a big target down the middle of the field.  He’s a red zone target too, evidenced in his 4 TDs.

Some players have come and gone.  Others, like Dace Richardson, are laying low because of injury.  Nevertheless, this is the offensive line that I feel was the conference’s best in the 2008 season.  The line goes Bryan Bulaga, Riley Reiff, Rafael Eubanks, Julian Vandervelde, and Kyle Calloway left to right.  Players of note on this line: Vandervelde is subbing for Dace Richardson and has injury problems of his own, Bryan Bulaga is probably the best player on the unit and was all-conference last year, and Kyle Calloway is in his third year as a starting tackle.  The Hawkeyes’ line is big and still mobile.  If there’s things to be said against them, it involves the players playing out of position.  Iowa has quality backups, but the dropoff in production when backups are put in and players are shuffled around is noticeable.

Iowa’s defensive line is scary.  The thought of being an opposing offensive lineman and having to stop defensive end Adrian Clayborn just crossed my mind and, honestly, a little bit of pee came out.  Clayborn, best known for the punt block and go-ahead TD against Penn State earlier in the season, has 44 tackles and leads the team in sacks (7.5) and TFLs (13.5) by a comfortable margin.  When not cannibalizing players in the backfield, running mates Broderick Binns and tackle Karl Klug are creating similar havoc.  Binns is second in team sacks with 4 while Klug has 10 TFLs.  Christian Ballard is the other defensive tackle.  He’s serviceable, but overshadowed by his teammates.  When these guys are having their A game, there may not be a better defensive line in the country.  When they take plays off or, more importantly for Iowa, are having to take a breather, it gets easier to contain Iowa’s front 4.  Iowa’s starting defensive line is great, but they lose a lot when they plug in a backup.  Contrast this with Ohio State’s deep defensive line and the production we can get from subbing in players like Nathan Williams, John Simon and Todd Denlinger.

Pat Angerer, the mike linebacker, is the leader of the unit and one of the premier players on the Iowa defense.  He leads the defense with 106 tackles on the season, which is something you like to see if you’re defensive coordinator Norm Parker.  To be honest, I don’t have the outside backers — AJ Edds and Jeremiha Hunter — well-scouted.  Angerer is the star of the show, but the other two contribute in their own way.  Hunter is better in run defense than he is pass defense.  Yet, what he lacks there, Edds makes up for in pass defense.  He leads the linebackers with 3 interceptions.

The secondary revolves around strong safety Tyler Sash, who is a semi-finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award.  He is every bit that good.  He’s third in team tackles with 70 and leads the team in interceptions with 6.  One of his INTs was returned to the house (against Indiana, which I think was that screwy 6 bounce TD).  Sash gets mention from the fans (and for good reason), but the Hawkeyes get a lot of production from cornerback Amari Spievey.  He’s the shutdown corner of the group (over other corner Shaun Prater) and contributes alot to the Hawkeyes’ rush defense.  I have no idea who the free safety will be.  Brett Greenwood is normally the guy and may return against Ohio State.  If he’s not starting, the Hawkeyes will go with his backup: Joe Conklin.

This should be an exciting game, though I’d be perfectly happy getting ready to buy my Big Ten championship gear by halftime.  Of course, I’m not expecting it to be so simple.  The Buckeyes played a whale of a game against Penn State to even put themselves in this position.  Meanwhile, Iowa’s luck ran out against the Nerds last week.  They’ve relied on their defense keeping them in games while the offense eventually did just enough to put the game away.  With their undefeated streak now over, I fully expect the Hawkeyes to regroup and put their best foot forward  in order to have our senior day ruined for the second time in three years.  Buckeyes are 17pt favorites (would be great if it panned out that way), but I take nothing for granted with our team.  The same team that played so well against Penn State is the same team that wet the bed against Purdue.  Injury concerns abound with Pryor and one unfortunate twist means Bauserman gets thrown to the wolves against Clayborn, Angerer, Sash and crew.

But the Buckeyes going to the Rose Bowl just feels so right…

Oh, hell…

Curtains up.

1. Not my bit… stole it from BHGP… [↩]
2. How often do I get to say that?  Even more interesting.  He lives in South Dakota, but attended high school in Iowa. [↩]