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Expectations

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Carmen Ohio

All-American
Yes, there is something good we can take from the Wisconsin game. The team can now take away the pressure of expectations and grow the way they ought to... without the specter of pre-season rankings that have little fact to support them. I still believe that before this season is over we're going to see what all the pre-season hype was all about. We are truly in a rebuilding year and we as fans should start focusing on the positives as this young team progessses. I for one am not looking at any game as a given. The Northwestern contest should have shown us that we're vulnerable to every team in the Big Ten and nobody should have been surprised with Saturday's outcome. It basically came down to our inexperienced offensive line against the best front four in the Big Ten leading to so many three-and-outs that our defense just got worn out... it's a simple as that. I still think that overall we had the better athletes, characterized by the vast improvement of our return game. It is for the first time in a long time a legitimate weapon. I was so happy to see Ted Ginn be a factor in the game and to hear his quotes afterward. He basically said that with all the great athletes OSU has on the field, we've got to do better. Wisconsin beat us the way we try to win... with enough ball control to keep the "D" fresh... yes Barry Alvarez plays "Tresselball". The best way to stay positive this year is to shed the unfounded notion that this team is a title contender that is somehow mis-coached or without the athletes to get the job done. How can we blame Justin Zwick playing with a bad ankle, bad left hand, running for his life and getting no help from our running game. He looked like he just left the emergency room! How can we blame the line when last year's seniors couldn't handle Hawthorne and Co., without Erasmus James. How can we blame the backs when there are no holes to run through. How can we blame the "D" when they're on the field most of the game. I'm as guilty as the next guy for thinking we had it all going into this season but it is now unmistakenly clear that these Buckeyes need a lot more reps. It should also be clear that with the number of returning starters, the freshmen in waiting and our phenominal recuiting class that if teams in the Big Ten are going to get us... they'd better get their best shots in now.
 
Next year if we dont' win our conference there's something seriously wrong. For one our schedule is dominant!!! we drop Wisconsin and Purdue, not only that be we'll also have like what? 16 or 17 starters back? If our Offense fails next year then we need to start look'n for some coaching changes you know?
 
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bukIpower said:
Next year if we dont' win our conference there's something seriously wrong. For one our schedule is dominant!!! we drop Wisconsin and Purdue, not only that be we'll also have like what? 16 or 17 starters back? If our Offense fails next year then we need to start look'n for some coaching changes you know?
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It should be a tremendous year. Don't get me wrong, I haven't written this year off... I'm just not going to make myself expect these guys to world beaters yet.
 
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bukIpower said:
Next year if we dont' win our conference there's something seriously wrong. For one our schedule is dominant!!! we drop Wisconsin and Purdue, not only that be we'll also have like what? 16 or 17 starters back? If our Offense fails next year then we need to start look'n for some coaching changes you know?
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Why wait? Bollman hasnt produced in 4 years why would he start next year?
 
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buckeyebri said:
Welcome to The Ohio State University where expectations run rampant....
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I guess there's nothing wrong with that... I had the same expectations. It just wasn't tempered with enough reality - young quarterback, inexperienced line. We should have all known this would take some time. I for one have never seen line problems trickle down so much to team problems at OSU.
 
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I predicted two losses as did many in the poll. I think as far as expectations we didn't expect to lose to NW and probably figured that we would beat Wisc. at home.

I also had great expectations of Zwick based on everything I had read. They probably weren't fair expectations. I expected more of the running problems to be solved this year even with the loss of some linemen.

I also expected that our defense would continue to play at a high level, since many of these players had seen playing time in the last year or two. I didn't expect us to play soft zones.

I was half joking/half serious with my initial reply, but I do think most people expect to reload at OSU not rebuild.
 
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Expectations are a funny thing. You can expect to lose 2-3 games... but when those losses actually happen you don't want to believe it. Guess what... we win next week and those expectations get rebuilt to think we can win out. Tis the life at a major program.

Reloading is a funny thing, you can only reload for so many years until a correction hits. Look at Miami, they took tons of hits of players going to the NFL. Now their offense is starting to show the wear of that. Wait until Miami gets into the meat of their schedule and trip because of Berlin or the lack of great WRs. Their fans will be screaming as much as we are now. Wait, you have to have fans first before you can scream as much as us. :lol:

But back to the thread... The win over NC State gave us dreams of another 2002 season. Defense carrying us to the promised land... but the problem is that our DLine is going through growing pains so the defense is not the same and cannot hide the weakness of our offense again.

Just hope that our team grows into what should be a great 2005 season.
 
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I'm with Piney on this one...... Miami will lose to Virginia and maybe Virginia Tech I believe.


I think our defensive line is just learning how to do some things the hard way right now and if means us being kick ass in 2005/ 2006 I'm all for it! Because in now way do I see us being any worse than 7-5....... thats 3 more loses...We won't lose to Michigan and we Won't lose this week! Other than those two questionable games that I believe we'll win we have a very very troubling game with Purdue.
 
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Pardon me for asking, but wasn't the '68 national championship team a young team thought to be one year away?

Wasn't the 2002 team a young team thought to be one year away?

Young I just don't think is a very good excuse. Could we be very good next year? Absolutely, but I don't think that our inexperience should be a reason for our team to perform this poorly. Maybe National Championships are a little to high of expectations, but a W over Northwestern, that is something I don't think is too high of expectation. To not to go 0-2, and unless their is major improvements made 0-3 in the Big Ten, I don't believe is too high of expectations.

Just saying we are young is not a good excuse for this year. The loss to Wisky without the loss to NW would have been easier to take. The truth is at this point I would be thrilled with playing anywhere on New Years day, and beating scUM, who is a younger team, but they don't suck near as bad as we do. Why? My guess is coaching.
 
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Pardon me for asking, but wasn't the '68 national championship team a young team thought to be one year away?

Wasn't the 2002 team a young team thought to be one year away?

Young I just don't think is a very good excuse.
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Killer- I tend to think those are exceptions rather than the rule. Ironically, the years the were supposed to be great, both of those teams lost a game... or two. Of course neither one of those teams had all Jrs and Sohomoes and at least in the case of teh '02 team, had very good senior leaders. And while Michigan is young too... they have experience at some places we don't... OL for example.

Anyway.. while you might be right... there may be a coaching issue... There still are experience issue, and I think a lack of leadership from the seniors... (Of course that's not the only palce leadership can come from, but they're first on the list).

The other thing is that, its heresy to say that the talent might not be there... but I've said it before... I just don't see a lot of Talent on the O-line or at Tailback... That's a major handicap. This isn't to relieve Bollman or Tressel of culpability.... but I think you might see a much Different O-line by the beginning of next year than what you saw at the beginning of this year... Mangold may be the only returning starter at the same postion... but I guess that will play out.

Anyway... I do agree that the coaches do need to be judged in some way, I prefer to do that based on what we do from here on out. My 'expectations' now.. for the team... is to show marked improvement between now and a hopefully a reasonably good bowl game. On one hand, I'd like to see us win most of our remainingg games... on the other hand... if we lost a couple close games to good teams and blew a couple teams away, just to show that we can... So if I see a good team out there January 1st (or whatever day) I'm going to feel a lot better about having gone through this whole learning process. The one thing that we do NEED to do is make sure we're bowl eligible, because the practice time is crucial. Also, beating Michigan would of course, be very nice.

Anyway... I was thinking.. QB controversy aside... it may serve us very well in the long run to have had Zwick go through these rough times. [Edit-] the reason is that, with the running game situation as it is... we'll ahve an opportunity to see what Zwick can do other than Manage the Offense (ala Krenzel) but that'll take time to learn too... not just a game or two... but it seems we'll have time to experiment.
 
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KillerNut said:
Just saying we are young is not a good excuse for this year. The loss to Wisky without the loss to NW would have been easier to take. The truth is at this point I would be thrilled with playing anywhere on New Years day, and beating scUM, who is a younger team, but they don't suck near as bad as we do. Why? My guess is coaching.
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Here all this time, I thought that it was Dustin Fox's fault that we lost to NW and Wisky.:tongue2:
 
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I will admidt that I didn't think that the O-Line would be that much of an issue. I thought that the old offensive linemen were the problem, or at least the problem within the coaching scheme. Now seeing the performance of our former O-line in the NFL and the performance of our new O-Line here at Ohio State, it becomes much clearer where our offensive line problems came from.

Was there anyone on here that thought that we would miss players like Adrien Clarke?

The case is just becoming better against the coaches when it comes to the offensive line.

As for your cheap Fox Comment, if you really want to discuss it there is a thread already to discuss it. Try to keep things on topic.
 
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