Columbus Dispatch Writers

[CausticMick]

Here are some direct quotes from today's paper that really ticked me off about the Buckeyes and Tressel:

Regarding slogans for tOSU offense (Rob Oller)-

"'OSU offense: not great, not even very good' doesn't do much. Likewise, 'You'll only feel a little sting' and 'It'll only hurt for a minute' lack buzz. Then there is 'It could be worse, but we're not sure how,' which at least is accurate."

Regarding the National Polls (Rob Oller)-

"But the Buckeyes can control, to a certain extent, where voters position them in the rankings by scoring more points. Why did Louisville leap over Ohio State in the USA Today poll? Could it be that the Cardinals' offense puts up so many points so quickly that it's not impossible for voting coaches not to notice? Defense might win championships- and OSU's is darn good- but offense moves teams up the rankings to give them the opportunity to play for championships. You've got to get there to win it, and with one loss already, the Buckeyes need to impress voters on the scoreboard."

Regarding the lack of a vertical offense (Ken Gordon)-

"One statistic that illuminates the Buckeyes' offensive struggles: OSU has just two gains of more than 25 yards, a 36-yard touchdown throw to Santonio Holmes against Texas and a 42-yard TD toss to Ted Ginn Jr. against Miami. On Saturday, San Diego State came into the game having surrendered nine plays of 22 yards or longer. OSU managed two such plays, a 23-yard pass to Ginn and a 25-yarder to Holmes. The Buckeyes' longest run is 17 yards."

These writers probably never played football. They have no clue how to go about managing an offense or what elements make up a productive unit. I can't believe what these people can conjure up after THE FIRST THREE GAMES OF THE SEASON. Come on, everyone in the world (except these two nitwits) knows that the defense is always ahead of the offense. Tressel is an expert. A football genius of sorts. It is nearly impossible to become a D1A head coach and not be a great football mind. It seems no one can grasp the concept that Tressel intentionally runs his offense for a 12 game season, not for one game. That was Coop's problem. By the time he got to the last game of the season (scUM for you new fans) he had no aces up his sleeve and those teams knew everything about that year's tendencies because he let the cat out of the bag. What was Coop's record against scUM? It's not that I don't think Coop did some great things at tOSU, but he's no longer the coach at the greatest (football) university in the world for a reason. Jim Tressel led our team to a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP three seasons ago. How many teams can say they've won a D1A NC within the past 5 years? Here's a hint- 5, OUT OF 119 D1A schools (4.2%). Since when did Mr. Tressel go from god to goat? It works. That's it. The only reason it didn't work in the Texas game was because of missed opportunities by the players. Sure, no one is perfect and Tress could always have done a couple of things better. You know what they say- something about hindsight, 20/20 vision. And since when did a high scoring offense solely provide the opportunity to win National Championships? Let's throw out a few examples:

• David Klingler and Andre Ware years at Houston
• Kyle Orton and Drew Brees with Purdue
• recent California teams quarterbacked by Kyle Boller and Aaron Rogers
• the Joey Harrington teams at Oregon
• C-Ryan Leaf and the Washington State Cougars

There are many more. All top teams in their own right. All some of the most potent college football spread offenses of all time. Where did it get them? No where. Not one National Championship. Great teams are balanced. Coaches (and even their ballot-fillers) know that no team can win without a top ranked defense. These two writers intentionally slight the polls and the intelligence of those behind them. Are some of those people who help produce the AP/USA Today polls ignorant? Bet your ass. BUT, they know much more about football than these morons. Louisville hopped tOSU because Louisville is a solid team with a weak schedule and they are UNDEFEATED. Not because they score points.
Now, not only do we have idiots like Marc May and the rest of ESPin baggin' tOSU every chance they can get, but now we have two local ones who don't know the difference between an 8 and a 9 route.
Finally, since when is the focus of an offense aimed at long plays down the field? This is assinine. The focus of an offense is a FIRST DOWN. Ten yards, that's it. Yes, you must stretch a defense with fades, posts and go routes in order to keep corners and safety honest. However, just having Ginn, Holmes, Gonzales and Hall on the field will automatically give you that respect. It is three games into the season and these dookie-brains are crying about only 4 plays over 25 yards. So, let me ask genius', how effective do you think we'd be at running a complete route tree at 30-plus yards? Second, how is Tressel supposed to make the decisions for the quarterbacks to take the long shots down the sidelines? Just a little secret- ***shhhhhhhh*** Tressel does not throw the ball. Tressel only does his best to put these great athletes in positions that best give them the opportunity to succeed. That's it. I am [censored]ed that these know-it-alls are calling for Tressel's head in a subtle way. I am [censored]ed that these two "fans" (who call themselves writers) can always make their Sunday morning claims to be better than our coach. I am [censored]ed that the Dispatch can't hire someone who knows about sports to write about them. [censored] happens, and these guys should know more about that than anyone who walks the home team Horseshoe sidelines. The Bucks slipped up once this season, these two produce [censored] every week.

[smith288]

For the most part, I agree with their assessment. OSU's offense has shown to be pretty blah. You wont get looked at as sexy by the pollsters to get moved up . Its just how it is, sadly.

[MililaniBuckeye]

The guy is right in his "Regarding the National Polls" comments. When we were #4 without a loss we could get away with winning boring games against over-matched opponents. But now, at the bottom of the top 10 with a loss already, we can't. Right or not, we have to work at "impressing" the pollsters to get us a high up as possible...

[great1]

Well saturdays spanking of Iowa will definitely move us up. Hopefully LSU will drop one to Tennesse and theres a 1 spot.

[CausticMick]

Let me ask this- if tOSU blew out Miami and SDSU by 50, how many slots higher would they be? Maybe I am giving the pollsters too much credit. Maybe they are that shallow. I think that the "W" matched with the quality of opponent is the conditioning factor. Not if we beat Bum U. by 50, but rather a solid win over solid teams. To contradict myself, if Texas beat us by 30 we probably would've dropped out of the top 15.

As you indirectly said, maybe the pollsters are supplying the lack of knowledge in this equation. Maybe it's justified. I guess I like the style because I think I know Tressel's motive, and I don't think these writers have the merit to question a great head coach.

[Brutus1]

You are giving the pollsters too much credit. Do you really think the coaches on the coaches poll watch very many games? Heck no, they don't. And, alot of times the coaches are even the ones doing the voting. It's the SID or someone else. So, they have to vote based on scores.

If we whip up on SDS last week by 54-6, there's no way Louisville jumps us. We score only 27 and L-Ville puts 70(?) on a Pac 10 team, they're gonna jump us every time.

A good showing this week will go a long way in the polls.

A good offensive performance will go a long way toward erasing any doubts we have about the offense.


Personall, I would like to see a rb get 25 carries to see what can be done. If AP gets 25. then I'd le to see Haw get 10 or more, to see what he can do. I'm just not sold on MW's endurance at this point. I just wonder about his size ,as a freshman, and being able to withstand the pounding of the B10. I'd like to see Haw get a chance.

[WestEnd]

Originally Posted by Brutus1

You are giving the pollsters too much credit.

For the sake of argument, lets assume the pollsters are intently watching the bucks, like us. The loss to texas was flat out a result of an inability to get the job done on offense, especially in the red zone.

If I'm a pollster, then the way I look at any win the buckeyes get from the texas loss on is "what did they do to demonstrate that their offense, especially their red zone offense, is capable of getting the job done against an elite defense?"

Against a really [censored]ty SDSU defense, the buckeyes did little to nothing to show that their problems were getting fixed. We really should be GLAD the pollsters don't watch these games that closesly.

In my mind, there is no question that the defense and defensive scheme is rose bowl caliber. What the buckeyes need to do to show they belong in pasadena is prove to the country that the offense is way better than what it looked like in prime time on national TV two weeks ago.

[Steve19]

It's possible that pollsters widely understand that Troy Smith suspension issue and its impact on the Ohio State offense. If you agree with that argument, then it is reasonable to conclude that we have a game or two to sort out the kinks in the offense. If so, then the damp squib we fired at SDSU probably was overlooked by pollsters.

However, if we fail to fire on offense this week, then pollsters are more likely to ascribe the output to a poor offense and we will have a lot of trouble climbing higher in the ratings than some of our other top 10 challengers who play weaker schedules.

Tressel will not open this offense up and give Iowa's linebackers a trip to the pick 6 window, but he is going to have to make the offense control the game. A credible running game that utilizes running backs is a necessary prerequisite to opening up the field for a Ginn and Holmes breakout day. Pull that off, you are back to #6 at least, I think.

[FKAGobucks877]

I can't argue with anything the Dispatch writers said. I find the ledge-jumping over-reaction to be a tad extreme, but hey, to each his own.

The fact is, any pollster, and any football observer, many OSU fans included, see certain things that influence their vote. What the average non-OSU fan sees here is that tOSU has, without a doubt, one of the top five WR corp's in the nation. And then they see those same receivers do nothing week after week, because they rarely get the ball. They see not one, but two ineffective QB's. They do NOT see a rushing game. They see a good, possibly great defense that keeps this team in games. They see a team that has already suffered a loss, yet struggles to put away weak-ass opponents, and can't seem to find the endzone.

Now, as OSU fans, we see the same problems. We take offense, however, when they are pointed out, and many of us won't admit we see them...this is because we also KNOW the talent of this team. We know Zwick and Smith are both good QB's, and we have tremendous faith that Pittman, Wells, Haw, or any combination will break out at any minute. We cry as our mantra, "Defense wins championships." Well, it can, and does, but as we learned to our sorrow, the defense can't do it every single time. Regardless, I DO disagree with JT's philosophy. I acknowledge he's a great football mind, and obviously knows his job much better than I do. I freely admit that he's a great coach, and I couldn't respect him any more. I've only ever seen him truly outcoached ONCE. But, for the life of me, I cannot understand his offensive scheme and play-calling. And if I can't, then I can guarantee you neither does the national audience, and neither do the pollsters.

I take issue with the fact that having our WR's on the field stretches it. BS. The greatest key to more national respect and improved poll position rests with the OL. If they can dominate the LOS, giving our backs a definite 4-5 yards per carry, and our QB's 4-5 seconds with which to throw the ball, then everything else will fall into place. If that doesn't happen, or maybe IN ORDER for that to happen, I think the play-calling needs to get a little more aggressive. Not a lot. Take a shot deep on second and 6. It doesn't matter if it's a completion or not, it keeps the D honest. Every 4 year old in the country looks for Ginn to catch the bubble screen, because that's almost the only pass that has come his way. What about a pump fake to Ginn, then a deep ball to a streaking Gonzo? Like I said, Tressel is the expert. Unlike many others, I don't know that he needs an offensive guru, and I have a ton of faith in his abilities. It's his philosophy on offense that I just can't understand.

[3yardsandacloud]

The poll that matters has not yet been published.

[Brutus1]

Originally Posted by WestEnd

For the sake of argument, lets assume the pollsters are intently watching the bucks, like us. The loss to texas was flat out a result of an inability to get the job done on offense, especially in the red zone.

If I'm a pollster, then the way I look at any win the buckeyes get from the texas loss on is "what did they do to demonstrate that their offense, especially their red zone offense, is capable of getting the job done against an elite defense?"

.

Michigans defense, for some reason, is regarded by people not in the know, as a good defense. Say, for example, our red zone offense goes 7 for 9 against them, with 5 td's and 2 fg's. That's 41 points against a scUM defense. As a pollster, you may be impressed ....................until......................... ..................................................

you see that our defense gave up 42 points. That kind of defeats your importance of red zone scoring doesn't it ?


Point being , both are important. We can get away with a less than stellar offense by having a great defense. But, after having 1 loss, we have no room for error and our offense must get more efficient if we're going to rise dramatically in the polls. I'm assuming (right or wrong) that any pollster with any knowledge, knows that the strength of tOSU is almost always going to be the defense, not red zone offense.

I'm with you though, that our offense must get better . It's just more important to you.

If we beat Iowa 31-7, but score 2 td's from the defense and 1 from special teams and only 1 on offense, the pollsters won't care, they'll just see 31-7 and be impressed.

[Zurp]

Originally Posted by 3yardsandacloud

The poll that matters has not yet been published.

What poll? Zurp's "Which Women Would You Most Like to Kick in the Nuts" poll? I didn't think that poll mattered.

[FKAGobucks877]

Anyone, I don't care who you are, anyone that fails to score a single TD after starting FOUR drives inside their opponents 35 yard line is going to be shunned by pollsters. You have to have an offense. It doesn't have to be spectacular. It DOES have to be efficient. Ours is not. Will it be? Yeah, I think it will be, and I think the nation will surprised tomorrow when they see it. This offense has the potential to be spectacular. With an spectacular offense and great defense, nobody can beat us....but that's down the road. For now, the offense needs to be efficient. If they can't be, there will be at least two more losses this year.

[GiNn AnD ToNiC]

Mr Incredible you must have been really bored to type all that. You could have summed it up in like one sentence like this, our offense sucks at the moment, everyone knows it, and if they don't turn it on tOSU will lose 3 games in the B10.





GO BUCKS!!!!

[3yardsandacloud]

Originally Posted by Zurp

What poll? Zurp's "Which Women Would You Most Like to Kick in the Nuts" poll? I didn't think that poll mattered.

Harris Poll ... which drives the BCS. The AP and Coaches do not.