Competition

[Bestbuck36]

Honestly I think the Purdue game is going to be a tough one to win at their place. We'll score but so will they. I watched that game this week while the Buckeye game was on also and they have weapons everywhere. They will spread us out like everyone tries to do and Painter will have success. I hope Rose/Gholston have found their midseason form by then. I love the way Cam Heyward is playing! Dont overlook this next weeks game either. Washington has come out and surprised this year and that game will be very tough now that I look back on what I'd thought earlier in the year. Its 2002 all over again people. We won't have an easy game the rest of the year util the Oline becomes dominant, if ever.

[BrutusBobcat]

Washington looks tougher now than they did pre-season, that's for certain.

Penn State has taken care of their business as has Wisky. Both are talented, fundamentally sound and well-coached. Those games will give me indigestion for the week leading up to them, PSU especially so, being a night road game, and 100% certain to be another drunken "White Out". Argggh.

Purdue looks like a very strong team, and it's another game at night on the road, a formula of which we should not be fond.

I reserve the right to add MSU to that list if Mark Dantonio's crew shows up for their game in Mad Town. I'm not ready to drink that Kool Aid just yet, though.

Really, other than the obvious exception below, the B10 looks like a tougher road than it has in a while.

As far as TSUN goes, rivalry game, throw out the records, yeah, yeah...whatever. This Michigan team has talent at a few positions, and a striking lack of it at others. It's lacking in some very important football fundamentals -- past coverage technique, playing coverage assignments, pursuit angles, everything involving the words "special" and "teams" when those words are concatenated, just to start the list -- and it's poorly coached. I am not sure at all how they'll get measureably better. The fans are so demoralized that if we come out and smack them in the mouth the first quarter that they'll go back into "Emo Week Mode" and commence crying like little girls. Expect that to be "pacifiers and Kleenex" day at the Big House. This will be the least-hyped tOSU-Michigan game in our lifetimes to date, and with good reason. I'm not saying that there will be a Woody-style 50-14 smackdown or anything, just that on my "Fearsome Teams" scale they're a notch above Northwestern and a notch below Minnesota.

[NightmaresDad]

Originally Posted by Yertle

Bollman is used as an excuse too much. However, with the preseason hype that the o-line seems to get most years, they often struggle for much longer than expected. So, although I do not think Bollman is a negative, either he or the o linemen are over-rated most years. Not that the line is bad, it's just not as dominate as we all think it will be... at least until later in the season.

Part of that learning curve lies with the QB and the center.
The QB has to be able to recognize when we are in a "bad" play based on the D alignment. and the center needs to be able to correctly adjust the blocking assignments. that takes a while, especially this year.
What I have noticed is that on most of our negative and zero yardage offensive plays, it a CB or Safety who is making the play.
Once we are reading those run blitz packages better at the LOS, we will be making them pay dearly, like we did last year.

[OregonBuckeye]

Bollman may not always produce the best college o-line but he sure is good at preparing them for the NFL. Mangold, Bentley, and Sims are all Pro Bowl caliber players already.

[Taosman]

Please get healthy all you veteran WRs!
We need you to help out this new QB!
Please get healthy quick Ray Small!

[Bleed S & G]

@ Happy Valley is going to be the hardest.. close 2nd is Wisky.. I'm not including scUM because it's a diffrent game.

[Dryden]

Originally Posted by OregonBuckeye

Bollman may not always produce the best college o-line but he sure is good at preparing them for the NFL. Mangold, Bentley, and Sims are all Pro Bowl caliber players already.

Adrien Clarke, Shane Olivea, and Alex Stepanovich have done OK for themselves and their families too.

[bukIpower]

While I think bollman is ripe for critism I also think he's a good coach but rather the coaches don't give the offense a chance to succeed in games against lesser opponents. Tressel and Co. will just never be able to blow a lesser talented team out. He will never allow it and we get very predictable and redundent play calling because of it. Thats not Bollmans fault..... I wish we would open up the play calling though from the very beginning because you can't expect a team to randomly be ablet o execute the whole play book when they've only been running half of it in the previous games. We need to have reps with every formation and every play.

Back on Topic no question it's Penn State followed by Washington, and Purdue.

Michigan is michigan but come on....