Got one…finally
A couple of weeks ago I said that the Penn State game was going to be the game of the season (at least the post USC loss season) and yep, Penn State looks to be it.
For the past couple of years, the Buckeyes have enjoyed playing spoiler to Penn States dreams of a championship season (Big Ten or BCS) and I’m looking forward to the opportunity once again. However, unless the Buckeyes can pull it together on both sides of the ball, I’m not going to get too excited.
For the first time this season, the Buckeye defense finally started to look like the defense we’ve been waiting to see. The pretty much stifled the Purdue spread clogging up the receivers and putting some much needed pressure on quarterback Curtis Painter. Unfortunately, we’ve also got to give some credit to Painter, who has been in more than slump lately. While Purdue coach Joe Tiller let him finish the game this weekend, he only hit 23 of 51 passes.
It was also good to see some early game special teams play with the Malcom Jenkins blocked punt. Earlier in the season, I was lamenting about how long it had been since we’d seen a blocked punt. It seems like during the 2002 BCS Championship run, it was happening all the time. Maybe this is a sign of some Tresselball style aggressiveness yet to come.
As for the offense…wow, that was painful. At the moment, it looks like all you need to do to stop the Buckeye offense is to shut down the option and prevent Pryor from scrambling. To think that Purdue, who up until this game has barely been able to provide any sort of defense against the run, was able to keep the Buckeye offense out of the endzone is more than a little concerning.
Once again, the offensive line is failing to hold. As we saw against Ohio, they are sitting back on their heels and not getting the jump. As a result, they are not giving Pryor the time he needs to run the option and suddenly the backfield was filled with Purdue defensive players.
Second, the Buckeyes need to figure out how to score in the red zone. There is no way we are going to win the big games when we find ourselves kicking from within the 10. It happened twice Saturday.
Yes, Pryor is young and it is obvious he has a way to go. The problem is at the moment, our offense is one dimensional. As a result they are falling into a rut. I don’t know about you but by about the middle of the third quarter, I was looking for Boeckman to come in and air it out a little.
As for Penn State…
Yeah, the pretty much kicked the snot out of Wisconsin. Maybe Wisconsin was banged up after a physical game against Ohio State. Maybe Wisconsin just sucks. I’m afraid it may be the latter of the two — at least when the Badgers get down. Right now, it appears that the key to beating the Badgers is to put them on their heels and make them struggle. As we saw against Michigan and again against Penn, once they start to slip, there is no coming back.
Penn state looked good both on the ground and in the air. However, if the Buckeye D. can play like they did yesterday, only against a much better opponent, then we’ll have a game on our hands.
For the record, I called the Toledo/Michigan game
Any other year, and yeah, this would be an upset. I watched the second half of this game and yeah, Michigan is that bad. It’s getting so it’s almost not even fun to gloat — we’ll maybe a little. And don’t forget, Rodriguez said early on that Ohio State/Michigan was just another game.
Any bets on how long till he’s gone?
The O-line is definitely where it is at. So sad after returning so many guys. You can see Beanie get frustrated with them and there is no way Pryor is going to develop significantly if he isn’t given the time in the pocket. Their red zone scoring is reminding me of the ‘05 campaign.
It was great to see the D actually run some man schemes and have some different looks. However, the D-line is obviously overmatched (maybe from size) and still unable to make any push or even make a move to get by the O-line. Without the D-line stepping up, I don’t know if we’ll be able to hold PSU enough times to get the victory without some mistakes made by them.
I’m definitely over the michigan losing thing. It’s the point that it is horrible for the conference and even The Game. Honestly, as hard as it is to say this, michigan winning is a great thing. I’ve always said the game is The Game because it’s so often for the Big 10, the Rose Bowl, etc. There is nothing better than two undefeated teams (or close to) meeting up in The Shoe or the Big House late in November.
I never bash Michigan. If I see someone wearing a Michigan shirt/hat, I say “Go Big 10.” I realize that it’s kisch in Columbus to hate “That Team Up North” and I will never root for Blue in The Game but I want them to do well all season so we can kick their ass in the show.
Great analysis of the Purdue and Penn State game–as usual. I’ve been spreading the word about your site to my blog audience and people I work with. It deserves more attention.
It’s not that I won’t bash Michigan — I often do. However, in a way nobody outside of the Ohio State/Michigan rivalry can understand, I respect them. At least I used to. Now it is more of a sorrow thing. I want “The Game” to be “The Game.”
At this point, I have little respect for Rodriguez. I don’t like the way he came in and I don’t like the way dismisses the rivalry of the Ohio State/Michigan game.
Penn State likes to think they’ve got a rivalry with the Buckeyes but it is a rivalry only in their heads.
For the Buckeyes, it is just fun to smash their dreams.