I've already posted my initial comments on the game, as getting to see it the first time (from 24B (NO obstructions (JXC 1, B deck polls 0))) but I like to digest things, and rewatch games in the middle of the week. One major thing I saw, which I am not sure if they noted on TV or you could even tell, is that Pryor threw the ball away on purpose a few times, and they were all great decisions. One time I recall him just throwing the ball low into tough converage, so either the reciever caught it, or nobody. He'd check down when guys weren't open all game. The only time I saw him not do this was the INT, he should have thrown the ball to Herron, not sure if you can tell that on film or not, but i'm sure it will be addressed in practice this week. Anyway on to the game...
-The television never does The 'Shoe justice. It's the most amazing thing one can see with their own eyes.
-Damn Saine almost returned that opening kickoff, great execution, but one of the blocks looked a little iffy. I remember looking for the flag when I saw it live. Brandon "Abdual" Saine is going to be a stud this year, I can feel it.
-First play Pyror threw it away, nobody was open. Looked smarter from the seats than on TV.
-Tim Herron off to a slow first start (Thanks Griese)
-Posey has great hands.
-Carter needs to be more aware of where the sideline it...freshman mistake.
-Great TD pass by Pryor. Just as Spielman was done saying he has been slow finding the open reciever.
-Kickoff coverage and returns looked good all game from the stands. Special teams were very good this game.
-Navy comes out passing on its first two plays. Shocked the hell out of me.
-So far i'm liking what i'm seeing out of Heyward and Rolle especially.
-3rd down conversions are the key to Navy's scoring drive. A lot of plays have been pitches to the right, Navy's triple option looks just as tough to figure out on TV as it did in person.
-I think it's tough to get a read on our defense with this game. They won't have to make so many deicisons or guesses against USC.
-I'd like to see Penn State play Navy, but they won't schedule an out of conference game against a team that went a bowl game last year. PSU's schedule hurts the Big Ten.
-Herron looks good taking the ball outside. I remember feeling this way many times while at the game.
-Ballard with his first catch. Loved seing the passing to the TE downfield. Would love to see that next week.
-Saine with his first run, I thought he looked the best of the two from the stands.
-Next week we can't settle for field goals inside the 10. This was a problem last year too.
-Torrence with a nice open field tackle. I am excited to see him grow this year. The very next play Rolle looked awesome. Defense stepped it up big time after that opening drive.
-Flag for blocking in the back, and my friend who was with me at the game noted that sometimes it's better to block in the back then let the returner get blown up. I agree.
-Missed assignment almost causes a saftey. Good job by Pryor not getting a saftey, but overall we looked confused on the zone blitz on third down.
-Big play by Gibson. I thought our defense made a lot of big plays. As many as you can expect against an offense like Navy's.
-Terrelle Pryor's strength when avoiding pressure reminds me of Ben Roethlisberger when he was in college. I don't think Ben could run that fast though, lol. I remember Ben looking like a man among boys...and Pryor reminds me of that.
-I really feel like we are showing A LOT on offense for the first game of the year. Every time we call a play that is going to get the ball in the hands of a speed guy in space, they end up getting huge chunks of yards. And we have a lot of speed guys.
-So far I think our LBs look great. This is a tough offense for them, and they are closing in on the ball nicely.
-Navy's cheerleaders are hot up close. Impressive.
-Haha...Griese has to pull Spielman into the picture, Spiels not knowing that they are going to be on camera. I'm sure Speilman was thinking, "Don't touch me you senile old man. I'm only here because i'm your eventual replacement."
-Okay, this is a direct quote from Griese...Greenies to anybody who can tell me what this means, "Matt Barkley. You know if if if I were Ohio State, if I were Jim Tressel, I would say alright of USC. I'm getting rid of Matt Sanchez. You bring- Mark Sanchez. You bring a guy in here and I'm gonna have you play with a true freshman quarterback."
I love how they just ignore this statement. Ignoring Griese is the key to calling a good game.
-First half impesses me. Just like it did when I saw it in person. I thought overall we looked VERY good in the first half, especially for the first game of the year. Taking Pryor out wasn't smart. Didn't need this. Other than this decision, we looked like a top 5 team. Without Pryor we are not a top 5 team.
-Second half starts out with the defense looking stellar.
-I guess offense didn't get the same message after halftime. Penalties right off the shoot kill a short field possible drive. That's deflating.
-Thoma with a great punt. Russell does an awesome job keeping it at the 1. Good job special teams!!!
-Coleman not strong enough to bring down Dobbs. This drive should have been a 3 and out, and instead it goes 99 yards. Unbelieveable. We were getting tired or lazy...neither is acceptable. Hopefully this game helps us not miss tackles next week, because we can't afford it at at all, this drive was FULL of them.
-On a side note, the Pirates just clinched their 17th consecutive losing season. That's a record for all major sports. Congrats Pittsburgh.
-Spitler not fast enough in my opinion.
-Navy finally has first penalty with 3 minutes left in 3rd quarter. I really like the way they play.
-Unreal 3rd and 14 and they get a passing TD. Navy sure looked good on that drive, but not as good as USC is going to look if we play like that. Our defense had played really well up until this drive, I feel. Russell just didn't execute the coverage correctly. Better work hard in practice this week. Phyiscally he's awesome. Looks like mental mistakes.
-Pryor 10 for 14 here before this drive with 1 minute left in the 3rd quarter. And I can recall 2 passes that he threw away on purpose.
-Seems like we really just want to run the ball even though we are up by 6. Field goal makes it 23-14. OSU fans are used to 52 yard field goals being made, this started with Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuge. I miss having a kicker whose name we can chant Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuue. Great kick!
-Coleman forces the fumble on the next drive. Great job Kurt!!! We need big plays like this from our D all year. Coleman, Rolle, and Heyward have impressed me the most so far this game.
-Griese to Spiels about the fumble not even being close..."Spoken like a true Buckeye." Way to call him a homer, ass. At least Spielman had a great reponse, "Spoken like a true defender."
-Great TD run by Herron. Up to this point, other than the penalties in one drive, I really like what our offense can do. I'd like to be able to run between the tackle better, but our offense still is able to move the ball well, especially for the first game of the year. Missed PAT can't happen next week.
-Hines with a sack...nice tackle.
-Great INT by Coleman...man he is all over the place!!!
-That looked like a facemask on Saine. Replay shows it definitely was. That gets called, this drieve is a different story.
-Pryor to Carter looks great. Carter impresses me the most out of the WRs. He's made some mistakes, but has great hands and it working hard.
-2nd and 3, run off tackle for 1 yard. 3rd and 2, run off tackle for no yards. Really??? And then you go for it because Pryor wants to get the first down. And then you take the ball out of Pryors hand and run the exact same damnplay!?!? Okay...I wasn't as upset about this when it happened. But rewatching it...THIS IS TERRIBLE. You can't call the same play 3 times in a row. 29-14 with 6:30 left in the game and you have the ball at Navy's 15. Well it's been said before. This is the only reason Navy could have won this game.
-First play for Navy, TD. Great pass. Russell had great closing speed to almost stop the TD, but come on Russell, read the QB and the ball quicker and knock it down. I can't tell if he was going for the INT or not, but it looked like it. Looked like he thought he had help. Again, like the other TD pass, our secondary is not on the same page. This can't happen next week. 3rd longest play in Navy history...wonderful.
-Wow...what a first down run by Pryor. Best run of the day. A man among boys.
-Pryor makes the only bad pass of the game. Spielman says Pryors eyes never left Sanzenbacher, but that's not true...he was looking at Herron. Should have thrown it to Herron, decided not to. Ball was definitely tipped. 2:45 ago OSU was up 15 with the ball on Navy's 15...now Navy has the ball inside Ohio State's 30 down by 8. Shows how quickly a game can change if you fall asleep on a team.
-Spielman says clog the middle, and Navy runs the ball up the middle for a TD.
-Dobbs looked great this game. I am excited to see how he plays the rest of the year. Wasn't this game out of reach 3 minutes ago? This isn't New Mexico State...it's Navy. They won't quit and can score quickly.
-Wow what a play by Rolle. Defense knew exactly what was coming. Practice showed in that play. That one is on Tressel. Way to go! Rolle is real fast, and has great hands. Awesome!!! I bet Rolle has a huge game next week.
-Good kick actually for an onside kick. Glad Navy didn't recover.
-Luckily we are able to run the ball and get a first down with Herron. One of his best runs of the day and that was all because of the line. Great job line. Way to execute. OLine plays a lot better when they think the game is still in doubt.
-Tressel at the end of the game to Navy's head coach, "You guys played your ass off." Yes they did Tressel...and quite honestly, I don't know if I could say the same about the Buckeyes. I think they let the foot off the gas in the 4th quarter. They better play as hard as Navy did next week. Navy has a lot of heart. Ohio State needs to have an equal amount of heart. You know the last time I saw an Ohio State team play with as much heart as Navy did...2002. And that's not a knock on Ohio State...we play hard and with a lot of heart usually. But 2002 was different, and I felt like Navy had the same attitude, they just don't have the athletic ability.
-Overall the standouts on defense are Coleman, Heyward, Gibson, and the defensive player of the game Rolle.
-Overall the standouts on offense are Carter, Saine, Boren, Ballard, and the offensive player of the game Pryor.
-I think the player of the game is Dobbs though, even though Navy lost, he played as well as he could. He plays like this the rest of the season, and Navy will win a lot of football games. I hope they beat Notre Dame.
-I stick with my original feeling. We are real good, we just lost focus. Mental problems were the only problems I saw. Physically we have the ability to win 11 or 12 games. The mental problems need to be fixed though. If we play smart next week, and don't miss assignments, I think we will have a chance to win late in the 4th quarter.
Go Bucks!!!
Bring on USC.
