High Buckeye Offense Expectations?

[MistriBuck]

i expect the same thing we've seen the last few years: frustrating and sometimes completely baffling play-calling............with that being said, there is enough talent on this offense, and enough of a willingness by the staff at the end of the year last year to adapt and mix things up that we should be able to put up 28-30/per game............i agree with Taosman, this is not going to be an offensive juggernaut, because, despite how much we love Tressel and want to defend him, running a well oiled offensive powerhouse is just not his strong-suit

i'm not completely condemning JT and his play-calling, just talking realistically...........we have weapons, and they will be utilized, and we will score some points, but i don't think the potential of this offense will be maximized, unfortunately, although the talent alone should be enough to compensate for the lack of scheme

i think, without question Troy Smith will be the key to this offense..........i think a focused Troy Smith earning his job back and keeping his head on straight is the key element to this offense being explosive...........if you want to question that, just go back to the Michigan game and count how many times he nearly single-handedly made something out of nothing, by either scrambling for big yards, or escaping the pocket and buying more time to find open receivers (example, we line up in the I and run that half-assed play action pass on 3rd and 15 and send out 2 receivers, Smith get outside the pocket and throws a pinpoint accurate pass to Ginn for a big gain........this was not our design that made this play happen)

Anyway... Get ready for a lot of spread... I don't mean fun n' gun spread... I mean option spread... both short and vertical passing... using space... Both QB's will have to run some... lots of attacking to perimeter... misdirection running plays, etc.... Shot Ginn is right out of the Urban Meyer Option book... so... I think a lot of thought is going to be given to merely creating space for the WR's and Fast Backs to Work....

actually i hope and pray that you are CORRECT, because if that is the case then it means we are utilizing our talent as it should be utilized and we can expect to put up a lot of points............my fear is that we spend too much time trying to create a power running game, or reverting back to old mindsets that only hamper our offense (e.g. the lovely 3rd and 15 I-formation play action pass, 2 WR's in the route)

[cincibuck]

"scUM we were able to run every time we were on our 1, which is the hardest time to do so. In fact we not only ran well, we had big 9-15 yard runs at least once per 3 downs in taht situation."

Yes and no. We had the ball TWICE, first down on the Michigan 2, and setteled for 3 points. My point remains that Ohio State used to run on everybody and we didn't need a spread formation and a very athletic quarterback to do it. You can blame Lydell Ross if you want, but the fact remains we head into the 05 season with a questionable running game and that means a questionable offense.

[AKAKBUCK]

actually i hope and pray that you are CORRECT, because if that is the case then it means we are utilizing our talent as it should be utilized and we can expect to put up a lot of points............my fear is that we spend too much time trying to create a power running game, or reverting back to old mindsets that only hamper our offense (e.g. the lovely 3rd and 15 I-formation play action pass, 2 WR's in the route)

I hope we don't see that stuff either... and I don't think we will... mostly due to the idea that if you're QB can run... He is best served to be able to scramble with the D spread out too... Also... if we can pass protect... at least better... you'll see that less and less.

(I reserve the right to be proven wrong about the pwoer running game anytime we have a 10 point lead in the 4th quarter... then... yeah... it'll still probably get boring)

[bukIpower]

Good Point buckfromscum... OSU did fair pretty well against a top run defense in Penn State. I said that back during the season a while back and got hammered for it so I'll acknowledge that I felt the same way about the PSU game.


If you look at it if Haw/Wells/Pittman can just get 125 yards combined which would be about 41.6 yards each if my math is correct. We can get 75 yards from Smith/Ginn for sure. Which would come out around 200. I don't think we need a GO TO guy desperately. It would be nice and theres no denying that, but I think if we give all our backs and maybe ginn/holmes/smith some carries good things will be bound to happen. Plus that and its alot harder to game plan IF all the players get carries and actually get the ball. They'd have to account for everyone and that's probably the hardest thing to do as a Defensive Coordinator.

Very Excited about our offense! Although I'll wait till after he Iowa Game to actually say anything about us being a nation power on the offensive side of the ball.

[Def]

Offense...always the big ? for the bucks. It's great to be able to be able to take our D for granted like we do year in year out. Hopefully the O can get to that point as well.

I think the coaches took way to long to recognize that the strengths of our offense last year was at WR and tailoring an offense to fit that. Maybe I'm too impatient and it just took that long to for the players and coaches to synchronize but imo the coaches should have been able to recognize the strengths before the first game was played or at least started down that track much sooner.

Like others have said, the strength should be the same this year (granted the weaknesses not nearly so weak). Hopefully, the coaches play to the strengths of the players like they said they would do, but I have my doubts. If they can score 30 points per game it's almost given that we'll be in the NT hunt imo. I think we have the personel to just that.

[crazybuckfan40]

You guys are forgetting two important things when talking about the power running game.

Dionte Johnson - He is an upgrade at the fb position in terms of blocking then what we had last year. He can knock the backers on their ass.

Ryan Hamby - We really need to him to block, b/c if he can seal the end our backs can get outside and use their speed.

I still don't think that the o-line has been the whole problem the last two years. It was lack of a rb with vision and average blocking from te, o-line, and fb. We should be upgraded in 3 out of the four areas and hopefully hamby can come through.

Also remember how many players teams have been putting in the box. They can't do that anymore.

[martinss01]

tressel didn't get to the position he is at by being an idiot. he isn't going to go against his greatest strengths just because he is headstrong and likes power running games. tressel is going to lead with his strength which comes in the form of an experienced qb, be it smith or zwick, and the most dangerous wr core in the nation.

he isn't going to blindly go into a nc year leading with an unproven run blocking line followed by our current rb core. pittman seems like a good back. but he has yet to prove he can handle the load nor has he ever been given the chance to do so. there is a reason we converted joe to a tb from fb. if pittman were the man he would have simply stepped up ala MoC. wells? haw? neither are proven in anyway shape and or form. to alter an offense such as ours to cater to a completely unproven back is increadibly foolish.

we will play miami mostly in the i to try and find a tb and to mask our intents for texas. but unless one of them is MoC 2 the revenge we will be right back in the shot ginn for the texas game with or without smith in the lineup.

people draw far to many conclusions from the 02 team. when you look at the offense it becomes painfully clear why we relied so heavily on our defense and special teams. we didn't have a flippin offense! take MoC out of the game and we were good for what? 15 points per game? counting the 7 the d put up? our o-line then was no better than it is now. without MoC we couldn't run for squat. krenzel was field general not a qb. the only wr we had on the team was jenkins. gamble was ok at wr, but he wasn't what i would call "special". and with krenzel at qb, he was never going to get the ball enough to make any real impact which is why he was moved to d. we had a tough blue collar defense and exceptional special teams. i think if you would have given tressel the option of just punting the ball away on 1st down he would have about half the time. i can't believe we played the offense we did because tressel doesn't like scoring points or because he has such a massive woody for ball control offenses. i think he played to the strength of the team. and in 02 the offense was a liability, not a strength. so he played offense to not loose the game and to take advantage of the opponents mistakes. mistake free smart football. tressel knew we flat out didn't have the talent on offense to come back from 14 down and win against a good team. you can call 02 a ball control offense all you like. sad facts are we never had the ball long enough to merit such a designation...

we don't have that problem anymore. our offense is full of talent that can score anytime they touch the ball. if tressel comes out and tries to play ball control all year long one of those tb's had best be a flat out stud. if not... pink slips all around will be in order. i love tressel but there is no way you can be so inflexible and turn your back on something so effective for something so totally and completely unproven. thats just insane.

cliff notes: conservative ball control against miami to establish a starter at tb, to see how improved the line is, and to confuse texas. shot ginn and wide open offense against texas. i fully expect to see the same offense that played scum and oosu alot this season.

[brutus2002]

I agree with Martinss01 there is no way Tressel is gonna be stupid enough to go away from what worked for him the last half of the season. The guy has not won 5 NC's by being an idiot. We all know he wants a strong running game but IMO he isn't gonna go away from the offense he has now until the game is in hand.

I guarantee Lyons, Ginn, and Gonzales will all get better over the summer. I guess that means our WR's will get better.

We lost Mike Kne on the O-line but have more than enough talent coming back. I guarantee we will be as good if not better than we ended the year on the O-line

TE's will get better with the addition of Roy Hall. I'm sure Nicol will improve...they didn't lose anybody how can they get worse. IMO the TE's can only get better.

RB's cannot get worse than last year. I'm confident that the RB's will perform better than last year.

Why in the hell are we gonna struggle on offense? I guess people are banking on Tressel being incompitent...I'm not. IMO the offense is gonna be a hell of alot better from the beginning.