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THE GAME, tOSU at tCun, Sat. 11/25, 12pm ET, FOX

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osuvictory1 said:
Didn't know where to place this:

I know some fans want returners from this team. I want a blood letting. Weak schedule next year, and it's time to purge. Get a new crop of hungry kids for the 2024 season. Day will get a fresh restart next year. Bring in a couple new coaches. Start back. Perfect schedule to even break in a frosh qb if need be.

Time to move on.

This has been 3 years with many of these same players with consistent critiques about their intensity during the season and especially The Game.
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Well, I want some returners where appropriate. I want the entire OL back to hopefully keep progressing, the alternative is worse. New blood at WR and RB is coming, QB is another that may be best.

On defense, I want Sawyer back (he was the only one playing with piss and vinegar against ttun imo) and Ransom would be great to have back. But reality is that you know the following key players will declare for the Draft/graduate: Harrison, Egbuka, X, Stover, M Jones, JT, Tyleik, Hall (maybe), Eich, Chambers, Burke and Proctor. Those are all big hits rather than detriments to me overall.

But I don't disagree that some new players could help shift the mindset and get us back on track away from the late season blues. Tate, Innis and JJ Smith can fill in nicely for the Harrison, Egbuka and X void, no talent drop off imo other than Harrison who is irreplaceable. Hicks and Powers for Eich and Chambers I think falls in the same category, especially if Simon is back and I really think that happens. Davison, Hancock and Mathews/CSH/Scott/West in some combination will cover for Burke and I am confident in that.

My real concern is the DL. We need at least 2 of 4 to come back from Tyleik/Hall/Hamilton/Sawyer, preferably 3 of 4. As of now, I would say Hamilton is back, Sawyer is a strong lean to be back, Hall is a giant question mark but could be back, and Tyleik is likely gone...JT is definitely going pro and he should. We have an influx of talent coming in at DL with Houston, Amaris Williams (hopefully), Scott (could start immediately imo with his size and ability), Mensah and hopefully one of Wilor or C Jones, but that is a position you typically don't see true frosh step up for. So to your point, I would say DL is the biggest transfer portal target with OL as a close second.

DontHateOState said:
This is revisionist history from someone who was likely a child during the Tressel era. You are showing your age by what you're leaving out.

The wins against Washington State (#10), Miami (#1), Washington (#17), Philip Rivers' NC State (#22), Kansas State (#8), Notre Dame (#5), and Texas (#2) were all big deals. People forget that 41-14 came as such a shock because Tressel seemed invincible in big games with preparation.

The paranoia that enveloped the OSU fanbase and, it must be said, the program itself, during the latter Tressel years came as a result of one game: the debacle in the desert. That debacle was itself caused by the tremendous success his teams had in big games until that point. The key players on the roster thought they could just show up and the coaching staff failed to provide the reality check the team needed.

You can divide the Tressel era into two, before that disaster and after. Everything about what came after was colored by memories of that game. The loss against LSU only hurt because of its proximity to the year before. OSU literally should not have been in that game; it took the craziest year of college football in all of our memories for that to happen. LSU was the better team at every position except running back and the team played as well as they could against a simply superior opponent.

There was then one blowout loss to USC, which increased the paranoia, and close losses to USC and Texas. Big game wins against Oregon (#7), Miami (#12), and Arkansas (#8) were clear signs of another turning point. After the Oregon win, you could feel the exhalation in the fanbase and in the WHAC. That was the first time 41-14 was really forgotten.

Two blowout losses (41-14 and USC), the first of which still stands as the biggest aberration game of my lifetime and the second caused by huge recruiting disparities between the two programs. I suspect your age lines up with that terrible, terrible game in Glendale because of your inaccurate recollections. It is a shame the younger fanbase takes for granted Tressel era.
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I agree with most of this post as someone who remembers all of the JT years with a little skin to shred from my Cooper memory years (I just fondly look back at Eddie George, Germaine, Katzenmoyer, and Boston for those years). When JT was fired, it felt like Hogwarts after Dumbledore died is how I put it in the Lantern article I wrote, which is a very millennial way to describe it. We were devastated and the campus had zero life to it until Sully, Aaron Craft, etc. coordinated a flash mob in the Oval to get spirits back up. If you were not on the campus then, it is impossible to describe really but we all loved JT when he had to leave.

But to the point of your post, from a standpoint of a student at OSU during that time, the Oregon game was little bit of hope but not some rally call that we thought would bring us back to prominence. We all loved JT, but there was never more excitement than when we brought in Urban a year later. Then he methodically destroyed Tcun every year and we loved him for it. Urban also actively involved students with the team and built a bond, not just in athletics but also academics/careers. Urban was beloved for good reason and the whole "scandal" shit is exactly that...shit. An assistant coach was a hothead but was exonerated (even if guilty, how does a HC have the responsibility to babysit?), and afterwards he enjoys a little attention from a co-ed after a bad loss? I will take that over a cheater that defies authority at every corner, and actually beats the team that matters. There is a reason why fans want Urban back, and that comes from a guy that borderline worshipped Tressel and has multiple items in his house with JT's signature on it.

With that said, as the younger fanbase member that I am that lived through that era, I think this is unfair to @baremu527 on his post. UF, LSU and USC beat our asses in the second stage of the JT era. In the last 3 years, Day has not won a meaningful game aside from ND. Throwing aside the 1-6 record against the top 5 opponents, he is 0-3 to ttun. I don't ever want to see a generation of OSU fans that take that lightly, beating Tcun is all that matters and any coach that doesn't realize that can pack their bags. JT didn't take it lightly, Urban didn't, and that is really the point here...Day doesn't get a pass for winning every game except the ones that matter. I would rather lose to Purdue or Iowa than lose to Tcun.

But I will agree that the JT era was fantastic and paved the way to where we are after Cooper. It might have not been thrilling, but it was very successful.
 
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The exhalation in the WHAC was palpable after the Oregon win. The 2010 team played more freely than any team since The Game 2006, because the atmosphere around the program had changed. You could feel it in the buildings.

As to the LSU game, compare the draft talent on that LSU squad to the OSU team. If it's not for young Cam Heyward and young Malcolm Jenkins, OSU doesn't have any NFL success represented in that starting line-up. To say that OSU ''had every right to be in that game'' is a technicality. It took the craziest two week stretch of college football to even get the team in that game. OSU had one position better than LSU: RB. You can talk about the Hartline drop or the Spitler roughing call, but LSU made plenty of mistakes too and still won. That's what happens when you have a better roster top to bottom. That 2007 OSU roster had almost complete turnover from the year before and suffered from some serious under recruitment in the years 2004-06. There is nothing to be embarrassed about that game in retrospect, but it felt horrible at the time because of what happened the year before.

Edit: let me add Little Animal to the list of NFL talent. I neglected him.

Also, my point to Woody1968 isn't that OSU shouldn't have been allowed in the game. We deserved it as much as anyone. The point is that wasn't a national championship team and we all knew it at the time. It took an insane final two weeks of the season for us to end up back in the game, and at #1 in the polls no less, despite being a 5.5 point underdog. Check the season threads on here and you will see plenty of anxiety about whether we'd even win the Big 10 after losing that much talent in 2006. Chad Henne and Mike Hart were returning for Michigan and they were Big 10 favorites nearly across the board. And Tressel won another one against them and another Big 10 championship. It was a worthy season and not that disappointing a game with the benefit of 15 years' hindsight.
 
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DontHateOState said:
The exhalation in the WHAC was palpable after the Oregon win. The 2010 team played more freely than any team since The Game 2006, because the atmosphere around the program had changed. You could feel it in the buildings.

As to the LSU game, compare the draft talent on that LSU squad to the OSU team. If it's not for young Cam Heyward and young Malcolm Jenkins, OSU doesn't have any NFL success represented in that starting line-up. To say that OSU ''had every right to be in that game'' is a technicality. It took the craziest two week stretch of college football to even get the team in that game. OSU had one position better than LSU: RB. You can talk about the Hartline drop or the Spitler roughing call, but LSU made plenty of mistakes too and still won. That's what happens when you have a better roster top to bottom. That 2007 OSU roster had almost complete turnover from the year before and suffered from some serious under recruitment in the years 2004-06. There is nothing to be embarrassed about that game in retrospect, but it felt horrible at the time because of what happened the year before.
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LSU lost to 2 8-5 teams that ended the year unranked. Ohio State lost 1 game to a 9-4 Illinois team that finished the year at #20 Yes, we got dropped after the loss, but who else would you say deserved to be in the game with LSU?
 
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Tressel was hired to do two things: win the Big Ten and beat Michigan. He implemented a strategy of prioritizing Ohio recruiting to suffocate the Big 10 and especially Michigan of talent. He augmented the recruiting strategy by cultivating an ethos around the program that emphasized peaking in November and playing the best game of every season against Michigan. What is lost in these retrospective accounts from people who did not live the Cooper years is that Tressel forced the decline in Michigan, and the Big 10 at large, and did not simply benefit from it. He cut Michigan off from their traditional route to success and it took until now for them to figure out an effective response to it.

There were undoubtedly negative consequences to that approach. For one, the expectations shifted because of his success. It was no longer enough to beat Michigan and win the Big 10. It became normal to expect national championship contention every year for the first time in OSU history, an expectation which has not gone away and has made this fanbase pretty miserable. In addition, shifting demographics made national recruiting vital and he was slow to adapt to that, although I think he was deliberately slow because he recognized that every national recruit he brought cost an Ohio recruit a roster spot.

But you saw the shift occurring already with the 2008 ''Brew Crew'' class that brought TP and Florida talent to the roster. The wins over Oregon and Arkansas were extremely satisfying and the third or fourth period of the Tressel era was gelling. You saw what happened when you took him out of the equation in 2011. His recruits were the foundation of the 2012 team. What would have happened without the tattoo fiasco will never be known, but there is a definite strain of revisionist history at work in younger fans to minimize the sea change Tressel effected. To some extent this is already beginning to happen to Meyer, too, whom I personally have never liked and still do not like but whom I recognize as an incredible football coach.

No one should defend Day by minimizing the achievements of his two predecessors. It is bad for the program, makes fans look petty and Day weak, as if he cannot stand on his own accomplishments, and most of all it is factually wrong. It requires a distortion of what it took these past two decades to get Ohio State to this point.
 
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DontHateOState said:
Tressel was hired to do two things: win the Big Ten and beat Michigan. He implemented a strategy of prioritizing Ohio recruiting to suffocate the Big 10 and especially Michigan of talent. He augmented the recruiting strategy by cultivating an ethos around the program that emphasized peaking in November and playing the best game of every season against Michigan. What is lost in these retrospective accounts from people who did not live the Cooper years is that Tressel forced the decline in Michigan, and the Big 10 at large, and did not simply benefit from it. He cut Michigan off from their traditional route to success and it took until now for them to figure out an effective response to it.

There were undoubtedly negative consequences to that approach. For one, the expectations shifted because of his success. It was no longer enough to beat Michigan and win the Big 10. It became normal to expect national championship contention every year for the first time in OSU history, an expectation which has not gone away and has made this fanbase pretty miserable. In addition, shifting demographics made national recruiting vital and he was slow to adapt to that, although I think he was deliberately slow because he recognized that every national recruit he brought cost an Ohio recruit a roster spot.

But you saw the shift occurring already with the 2008 ''Brew Crew'' class that brought TP and Florida talent to the roster. The wins over Oregon and Arkansas were extremely satisfying and the third or fourth period of the Tressel era was gelling. You saw what happened when you took him out of the equation in 2011. His recruits were the foundation of the 2012 team. What would have happened without the tattoo fiasco will never be known, but there is a definite strain of revisionist history at work in younger fans to minimize the sea change Tressel effected. To some extent this is already beginning to happen to Meyer, too, whom I personally have never liked and still do not like but whom I recognize as an incredible football coach.

No one should defend Day by minimizing the achievements of his two predecessors. It is bad for the program, makes fans look petty and Day weak, as if he cannot stand on his own accomplishments, and most of all it is factually wrong. It requires a distortion of what it took these past two decades to get Ohio State to this point.
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Really good post, probably a GPA if we still had that function. I remember JT's first speech after he became coach when he said his team would make the fans proud in the exact number of days until we played *ichigan. I got a chance to interview him after the national title win and asked him how many days until we beat *ichigan. He said "beating *ichigan is a privilege, but we play them in ___ days". I forget the amount of days but he was one day off because I saw the countdown clock in the WHAC weight room. After the camera cut I told him he was a day off, and he demanded the we re-shoot that part of the clip. I told him the shoot wouldn't run for about a week from then and he let it go, but every year at OSU camp he remembered me and constantly asked how many days until we beat *ichigan. If I was wrong, I had to do 50 pushups. By my senior year I had the days until The Game saved in my phone so I wouldn't disappoint JT, I knew he was going to drill me on it by then. I wasn't even in serious consideration for an offer at OSU for football, but he really enjoyed the whole routine. That is the shit right there that we are missing when we play that team at the end of the year, a coach that gets it.

To that end, why can't we bring in JT or UFM on a consultant basis to solely focus on beating *ichigan? Just watch film on *ichigan all year and give the breakdown to Day and the rest of the coaches, talk to the players on how important this game really is. And before anyone says it, no we are not sending people to games to cheat by scouting. Instead, simply have someone that focuses on The Game and that is it.

UFM is not an outstanding person and made mistakes, but I thought he got screwed on his way out...he can't handhold every player, staff member, etc. at every waking moment. He was a damn good coach, Ohio ran in his blood, and he beat ttun...I would prefer the personality/character of Day over UFM and really am rooting for Day hardcore, but UFM was a great coach that not only won, but paved the way for national recruiting to the level we are at. He was 7-0 against *ichigan, won 3 B1G titles, and won a national title...JT was 9-1 against *ichigan and won a national title. Day is not close to either of those metrics yet. Can he get there? I sure think so, but something has to philosophically change with this specific game...we can beat anyone in the country with our talent, but we won't have the chance to do it if we cannot beat Tcun.
 
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