Thread: Reasons for the slump... and is it over now?
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Old 01-11-2009, 03:24 PM
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Funny, I'm working on an article about this right now....

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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
Some of you may have heard that tOSU football went through a bit of a "slump" between January 2007 and September 2008, marked by 3 "big-game meltdowns." Over the months, many of you on here, on other forums and blogs, in the media, and in Buckeye Nation at large have tried to give a well-founded diagnosis of what was going on. Here are some of the reasons that stuck in my mind. These are reasons we can see with hindsight, not excuses. None of them alone is responsible for what happened, but together they may explain a lot of it.

Sorry for not crediting the sources for each, as these were accumulated in my mind over the course of many months. I'm not saying I agree with all these, and there may well be others, but hopefully this can get a discussion started, without the doom-and-gloom naysayers bemoaning the death of Buckeye football and telling us how badly we "suck" and how Tress is the "worst D1 coach ever."
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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
Possible reasons for the slump:

1. Sub-optimal recruiting following the 2002 national championship: Recruiting was not at its very best in 2003 and 2004. The class of 2003 mostly withered away (Kirk Barton being a shining exception). Recruiting was hurt by the specter of Maurice Clarett, and incidents like the infamous "$500 handshake" (so beloved of Vulvarine fans) helped other coaches convince potential recruits and their parents that shady happenings were going on in Columbus.
Yes ... and don't forget about the under-achieving class of 2004 that produced three legit stars (Ginn, Gholston, Pittman), a few solid starters (Freeman, Nicol, Person, Rehring), and little else (including about ten outright busts). Recruiting took small steps forward in 2005-2007, and huge steps forward in 2008 and 2009.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
2. The loss of Mark Dantonio: Jim Bollman became (titular?) OC, and Tress assumed play-calling duties. As far back as 2004, the media have Herbie calling on Tress to relinquish play-calling and hire a new OC. Unlike other elite programs, Tress' coordinators were not being snapped up to head coaching positions elsewhere, raising doubts about just how desirable they are to other schools.
Dantonio was the defensive coordinator, so I'm not sure where you're going with this one. In any event, the loss of Dantonio has not affected the Buckeyes at all (except in the minds of Buckeye fans who somehow seem to associate Mark D. with the "good old days"....). The role of coaches is always over-emphasized by fans. Talent is the difference about 95% of the time.

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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
3. Tresselball: defense, special teams, punt, play not to lose, conservative play-calling, "frozen 1950's coach," yadda yadda. In addition, the much-ballyhooed "spread" seemed on the rise (we can thank DickRod's rookie year at Meatchicken for taking some of the luster off this snake-oil gimmick), and Tresselball seemed unable to stop it, especially against Florida.
Tresselball works in college and in the NFL, but it requires talent and mental toughness, qualities that have been somewhat lacking in recent years. As Florida showed in 2006 and LSU in 2007 and USC in 2008, a talent gap at a couple of positions combined with a few key mental/physical lapses can turn a fairly evenly matched contest into a blow out. But see Penn State 2008 and Texas 2008 - two games that were basically played "even" - for a reversal of that trend.

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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
4. The Debacle in the Desert: an overconfident, uninspired team got beat pretty bad. Some players got fat off the awards circuit (and from eating too much in AZ), rested on their laurels, took the opponent lightly (and they have SEC speed, mind you!), were looking ahead to the NFL, etc. Hubris gave way to humiliation. The younger players on that team took a psychological hit.
I'll discuss this one in my article....

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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
5. The ESPN Hatefest: ESPN's business interests conflicted with the launch of the Big Ten Network, so they took out their anger on the Big Ten's major power, and plumbed hitherto-unreached depths in the deep seas of bad sports journalism. This may have hurt morale on the team.
1000% irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
6. The weak Big Ten: As much as we love our conference brothers, for the most part they have been going through some rough times. They did not offer the Buckeyes too many challenges on the field, and the Buckeyes had little opportunity to learn how to "deal with adversity" and "come back from behind" in conference play.
If you beat all of the teams on your schedule, then you will be in the hunt for a national championship ... so, largely (maybe 98%) irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
7. Replacing Troy Smith with a "one-dimensional" quarterback: We may not have had much choice at the time, and Todd certainly earned his starting position, but tOSU offense would have benefited from a dual-threat QB, especially considering #11 below.
Todd Boeckman will be the last of his kind at Ohio State ... at least so long as Tressel is head coach. If tOSU had a "dual threat" QB waiting in the wings for 2007, it certainly would have made the TS-TP transition much smoother and easier ... and it might have given Pryor some more time to "learn on the job" as opposed to being "The Man" in his fourth-ever college football game.

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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
8. The regression of Todd Boeckman: After winning at Penn State, Todd's performance seems to have regressed through the Illinois game, the LSU game, and the USC game. If you go back to read the threads from the USC game on here, many of you pointed out how shaken he was.
Regression never helps, especially with the starting quarterback.

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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
9. The BCS Mess: The 2007 Buckeyes were supposed to be having a "rebuilding" year. Many talking-heads predicted they wouldn't even win the Big Ten Championship. Yet they overachieved, won the conference, and finished their season ranked 7. Not too shabby for a rebuilding year! The BCS mess that followed cornered them into the National Championship game against a much better equipped LSU, and they were set up to lose again, to the mighty SEC. (Remember, people, the SEC have a lot of speed.) There may also have been a sense of "Here we go again." (See #4.)
1000% irrelevant - crap like this just gives the talking heads something to jaw about during the halftime shows.

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Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
10. Lessons not learned: The LSU loss was a loss to a better team, but it was also marred by many mistakes on our part. The lessons from that game were clearly not learned between January and September 2008.
Don't see the point here....

Quote:
Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
11. The OSU offense struggled. The O-Line could not protect Todd in the pocket. Todd was getting sacked too often. It sometimes felt as if Beanie Wells WAS the Ohio State offense. Not having him in the USC game hurt us (as did not having Teddy against Florida). (BTW did I mention SEC speed? Remember folks that the SEC got speed!) While not scoring an offensive touchdown against USC can be attributed to the great USC defense, not scoring one against Purdue is an indicator of a struggling offense.
Self-evident. Offenses tend to struggle when a true freshman is playing quarterback. Offenses also tend to struggle when the head coach plays Tresselball, which emphasizes strong defense and special teams. Should the offense be better? Yes. Will the offense improve in 2009? Yes. Will we see the Bucks putting up sixty points a game like Oklahoma? No ... which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
Now on to reasons why I think the slump is over:

1. Jim Tressel: You can't say enough good things about him, as a coach, as an educator, as a father-figure to his players.Tressel is building up this program for the long-term. He runs a good program, has a solid focus on academics (His players even had MATH camp this year!), and with a more open and imaginative playbook, he may re-invigorate the battered image of Tresselball.

2. Our players (for the most part) are good kids, on and off the field. They are not a bunch of thugs, or sanctimonious hypocritical preachers. It doesn't hurt that they're also very good football players!

3. Recruiting is going very well. Our incoming recruiting classes are ranked high.

4. That new quarterback guy. Enough said!

5. All (or almost all) the guys who were at the Debacle in the Desert (which started this whole thing) are gone. Any psychological left-overs from that game are no longer on the team. The team is new and fresh.

6. The Fiesta, while still a loss, was the most exciting bowl game of the season, down to the last minute! It proved we can compete with anyone and restored a lot of respect to the program.
One reason - talent. I will say right now that the 2008 and 2009 classes combined have brought in more raw talent than the 2004-2007 classes combined. The talent in Columbus for the 2010 season will be absolutely unreal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JimsSweaterVest View Post
Last edited by LordJeffBuck; 01-11-2009 at 04:28 PM.
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