Our Honor Defend

The conference’s coaches and relevant media handed down their verdict for first and second team honors in 2009.  All told, six Buckeyes — Kurt Coleman, Justin Boren, Thaddeus Gibson, Ross Homan, Brandon Saine and Cam Heyward — were recognized for their efforts on the gridiron this season.

Kurt Coleman was the only Buckeye to appear on the first team for the media and the coaches.  In short: you’re damn right he is.  I understand that the safety position is lumped in with cornerbacks; players are recognized not by their position, but as defensive backs.  Still, I’d be hard pressed to get an explanation for why this wasn’t a unanimous selection.  Amari Spievey, Tyler Sash and Brad Phillips are good players as such.  Yet I think I could be a non-partisan, make 100 first team Big Ten teams and he’d appear as a first teamer in all 100 trials.  He had 5 INTs (second to Sash), housed one of them, forced 3 fumbles, forced one fumble in the all too important category of plays that can apparently be negated after the fact because of the lack of forward progress of a ballcarrier inching forward for yards and was an all-around ballhawk on the league’s conference champion.  He may have added a few more stats if he wasn’t suspended for the Indiana game.

Justin Boren was the only other first teamer, appearing on the media’s first team (coaches’ second).  It’s been a good season for Boren.  The offensive line has had its ups and downs in 2009.  Nevertheless, Boren anchored the interior, the strength of the line, and performed admirably in his left guard spot.  There’s some good candidates in the Big Ten for the guard spots, but Boren would’ve definitely appeared in my first team line.

Brandon Saine was selected to both the media’s and coaches’ second teams.  Buckeye fans know all too well that the ground game was hit and miss this season.  Saine had a breakout game against Indiana, subbing for the concussed primary (1a, if you will) tailback Dan Herron and finished strongly against Iowa and Michigan.  On the heels of that, he joined Purdue’s Ralph Bolden in the second team’s backfield.

Maybe there should be greater outrage that so many Buckeye defensive players were second teamers at best.  I’m not that concerned that some Buckeyes may have been slighted.  The front 7s are the strength of the conference.  There’s just so many good players to be considered for these spots that some Buckeyes will be on the outside looking in.  I feel this is particularly the case for Brian Rolle, who is having to compete with the likes of Greg Jones¹, Pat Angerer, Josh Hull, Sean Lee, Navorro Bowman and so on². Further, consider our defense.  I feel the strength of our defense was its depth.  Iowa and Penn State had more star power in its first team, but the Buckeyes had the advantage of subbing liberally with players like John Simon, Todd Denlinger and Nathan Williams.  This creates havoc for opposing offensive lines late in games, but is not conducive to players getting more press.  Hey, fine by me.  Cam Heyward, Thad Gibson, and Ross Homan are second teamers, but will begin their 2010 calendar year in Pasadena.

The bigger story for Buckeye fans is that Jim Tressel was passed over for coach of the year.  Yeah, Tressel probably fell a little short of expectations this year.  His two losses this season were both very much avoidable.  Still, I thought he’d get coach of the year honors, if only as a lifetime achievement award type of recognition³.  There was no “up and coming” coach like Bret Bielema in 2006 or Ron Zook in 2007, or even Kirk Ferentz in 2002 after he righted the Iowa ship⁴.  Tressel has a very young team and was able to guide them to an outright conference crown.  Impressive, but not good enough to beat Kirk Ferentz, who followed a solid 2008 campaign with a 2009 campaign that started off fantastically before sputtering to a 2-loss finish in November.  Some Buckeye fans are acutely using any objections of lack of conference champion Buckeyes in the first and second teams to their advantage.  If Iowa had 6 first team selections to Ohio State’s 1, shouldn’t Tressel get the nod for doing more with less?

Oh well.  At this stage, I hope he never gets a Dave McClain Coach of the Year Award.  If he hasn’t gotten one already, why start now?  There’s nothing new Tressel can accomplish in regular season play.  He’s gone undefeated twice and has three outright conference crowns⁵.  He can (and hopefully will) continue to do that, but it’s hard to project that any future Big Ten championship seasons will be substantively different from previous championship seasons.  However, it would be pretty sweet for a coach who, on the average, wins a Big Ten championship 2 out of every 3 years (6 in 9 years) to never have a coach of the year award.  Hell, why not?

All told, congratulations are definitely in order for the 6 Buckeyes receiving recognition by the coaches and media.  There were some ups and downs, but lots more ups than downs, en route to Pasadena.

1. Tough year for the Spartans, and I wondered if the league’s preseason DPOY would’ve suffered for it.  He was a unanimous selection and the media’s DPOY. [↩]
2. I’d definitely put Rolle over AJ Edds on the coaches’ second team, though. [↩]
3. See: Eric Decker, first team WR. [↩]
4. I guess being 13-0 in your second year isn’t “up and coming” either. [↩]
5. That’s not including 2002, where both Iowa and Ohio State were undefeated in conference play but Ohio State got the primary share for having the better overall record. [↩]