New Offense Unveiled - what did you think?

[ScarletArrow]

I think we are all hoping for them to do the near impossible, and God knows we owe them a couple, but if you look at where we are and where they are, it is nearly impossible to believe we can pull this off. We would have to play a perfect game, which I don't believe we are capable of, and they would have to play like shit, which is highly unlikely.

Isn't that exactly what happened for us in 2001?

How many times did this happen for them against us in the '90's.

osugrad is right - anything can happen, and we can win this game.

 

[UGABuck]

I think it sucks just like day one of the JT era.

 

[osugrad21]

Absolutely I have something positive...

It is damn scUM week...

There is plenty of motivation for this week...ruining scUM's outright B10 title, going into the Bowl season on a high note, ruining their BCS hopes.

My point wasn't directed at any of you guys personally and I know we are still stinging from yesterday, but it is time to pull ourselves together and get ready for the greatest week in college football.

There is nothing to lose on our end and if you guys want, come back next week and tell me what a dumbass I was actually thinking we stood a chance.

But the team made a ton of mistakes yesterday and all season, but they have played with tremendous HEART. Injuries, scandal allegations, youth, etc....those are all viable excuses, but they played hard all game and never quit.

That type of heart makes anything possible this week. IMO we need to support that...win or possible loss.

For one damn week, drop the bullshit and just support these kids.

We have an entire offseason to talk about all of the negative shit, but this isn't the week.

 

[ohiobuck94]

I think we have alot of positive things to talk about in the off season. This is a young team who will get better because of their experience and learning from their mistakes.
Scum will go down this week. :)

 

[Buckeye513]

We can't score in the redzone. Simple as that.
We finally had some drives going yesterday coming out in the shotgun, but we couldn't execute in the redzone. That's what we get for not having a consistent running game.
"The School from Up North" scares me.

 

[UGABuck]

This is also the first game I can remember turning off to get dinner for. I turned it off after the option pitch for a fumble.

I can't for the life of me remember a team dropping so many passes, playing 11 deep zone coverage, calling options, making half time adjustments that should have been in the game from play one, etc, etc.

However!!! While I was at dinner I sat right next to a scUM fan. I had on my Georgia Alum sweatshirt so he was giving me grief for that. And then I called him out as a scUM fan and told him tOSU was going to kick his ass next week and so forth. That's what makes this game and week so great. I believe that somehow JT will pull his head out of his ass (where it has been hidden the last two years) and find a way to make this team win that game. Then we'll celebrate that victory until our bowl victory and then we can celebrate that victory while eBOLLaMAN is getting canned this winter.

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

I am debating not going to the scUM game because I know what is coming. We are going to get our asses kicked.

can i have your ticket?

 

[cincibuckeyenut]

and after everyone BITCHED about getting the ball to Ginn, this guy is BITCHING we gave it to him TO MUCH?!?!?!

If this is referring to me, you are missing the point.

I wasn't bitching about getting him the ball too much. I was wondering if they were trying too hard to get him the ball. Get him the ball in the flow of the offense. Don't throw him a bubble screen on 3rd and ten. Don't force it to him. That is what I felt was happening. They put in too many plays that were designed to get Ginn the ball, rather than running a few, but the same offense and getting him the ball within the offense.

Throw him a slant out of the 2 WR, I formation. Have run a hitch and go. But, get him the ball out where he can go run under it too.

And Purdue was focused on stopping him, too. You have to know when to go another way.

And for goodness sake, run the ball. We had been having success the last few weeks lining up and running the ball. And I didn't see a straight ahead running game the entire first half, at least.

Please for once, give our defense a chance to stay off the field.

 

[martinss01]

i have a singular problem with this offense. if smith goes down with an injury (yeah i know i said the "i" word, sorry) this offense is basically null n void. show of hands, who here thinks ANY defense is going to lay awake at night worrying about zwick OR boekman running the option?

so, if one guy goes down you basically have to completely reinvent your offense at the drop of a hat. if you want ginn and holmes to get the ball more... THROW IT TO THEM!

id like to see us follow up successful running plays with play action. not successful running plays with a loss of yardage on first down on yet another running play followed by a pass play that everyone and their dead relatives expect. id like to see our qb's (zwick or smith) moved outside of the pocket. id like to see our play calling be used to actually setup the defense. start out with go patterns for the first 3 plays with ginn. then burn em 2 or 3 times on out patterns that you actually throw to. i think we all know where we go with this little play next.

the only game this year i have seen the opposing defense on their heals was indiana. teams sit back knowing exactly what we are going to do and they t off on us. a radical formation means nothing if you continue to call the same types of plays in the same situations. tressel is getting "better" with this, but we are still very predictable imo. expecially in the first half.

21 is dead on. throw the records and talent out the window. this game is special. we beat michigan this week. we win ugly, but we win. and i gain 3 more gray hairs... *shakes fist at tressel* im only 26! people think im 40! stop doing this to me!!! :p

 

[JXC]

I'll take anybody's scUM game tickets if they don't want to go to the game because they think we are going to get our assed kicked. I guess we should have assumed the same thing in 2001 right? We lost against Purdue because of turnovers. Turnovers haven't been a problem lately, and now they are back, the L instead of the W is back. I'm pretty sure we have the ability to beat scUM in six days. And this is Tressel and this is scUM week. And the game is in The Shoe. The players are going to show us an effort better than we have seen all year. This is not the week to be negative. I hope the players and coaches are looking forward to this game a lot more than some of you are.

 

[Savante]

I don't think it is that hard to see that the mistakes on offense are generally due to a lack of experience. Lyons clearly hasn't gotten a ton of reps, and as a result, he wasn't prepared for the past to be that fast. You can't throw an out too fast, so Smith did a nice job there. Ginn needs to learn how to catch the ball so if you don't, you don't pop it up. Simple as that. How many times have we run the option? Probably between Smith and Pittman, they don't have a ton of reps together on that. Bad play call.. if Hall's in there, he might not outrun Smith. Smith threw it poorly, though, and he's made some mistakes, (his pick inside the redzone was awful), but he did some nice things today. Also was plagued by a lot of drops, and anyone who's ever played or coached QB will tell you that there's nothing that gets you out of your rhythm faster than drops. Still, he didn't have an issue with that.. he looked decent overall, I thought.

EJ got beat bad on that play action. He should have pounded Orton's ass into the turf. He learns from that. It's tough. I don't know that he ever lives up to his potential, but if he wants to stick around and dedicate himself to improving, I believe his senior year could be a great one. It's up to him how it goes.

If you think we don't have a chance against Michigan, then get out of here and come back and say "I told you so". I don't want to hear it this week... this is the week where diehard Buckeyes get psyched. This is where the scarlet and grey in our veins (yes, our, I *am* a Buckeye) starts pumping and this is where we start losing sleep over excitement for THE game. Throw out records, throw out EVERYTHING.. the worst Buckeye team of the last 30 years (which this is NOT) could most certainly beat the BEST scUM team of the last 30 years. And vice versa. You throw out the records, because you know this is what the boys have been playing for and this is what we've been building to for the whole year. But somehow, people lose sight of that.

We're 6-4. Could easily be 7-3 or 8-2 with a couple of plays going our way, could be 4-6 with a couple of plays not going our way. It's the way it's going to be playing a tough schedule. Some years you have the team to get those breaks, some years you don't. Either way, we're still Buckeyes, and if you don't want to be a part of it? See you next week when you can come back and eat crow, or come back and gloat. Either way, we can beat them, and if you don't believe.. I feel sorry for you, I really do. If you don't believe that every game is winnable.. then I feel bad for you. Do I think we're going to win every game? No. But we can, and I fully believe that this week? We will.

 

[KillerNut]

First of all I have no scUM tickets, I am an usher, so anyone with those ideas can forget it. I will most likely, go, and I hope I can enjoy at least a good game. Also their is no way in hell I would give osu v. scum tickets away. A person would have to be all kinds of stupid in order to do that. If you really want to go, their will be tickets this year however. Call a broker, walk around the stadium, you will find plenty of tickets.

The other thing is everyone keeps talking about 2001. This team would get beat down by that 2001 team. That team could block, that team could run the ball, and that team played half way decent defense. There is no real positives this season to look at. Usually I can see that if we play mistake free football and players play up to their potential a chance, most of the time a good chance for us to win. I don't have that feeling this year. Their is not one single unit that I think can match up with them. I am hopefully that osugrad is right and we are looking at a monumental upset where everything comes together. I am hopeing, but I don't see it happening.

osugrad I am hopeful that you are not crazy but look at the matchups you are likely to see, and tell me how we are going to win this game. I would love to hear it, and it would help me get excited. Right now I am dreading Saturday.

 

[emr33]

We just don't have the OL to play the power football running game that JT likes. That means if the D isn't shutting the opponent down, you need to mix it up so the opponents D has no idea what you are going to do (run when they are thinking pass and pass on first down). The new offense just didn't look like they were running it naturally...it looked like they were thinking instead of playing. IMHO, we just don't have the dominating DL and OL to play like JT wants to play. Unless he is working a battle of the wills with this team, he needs to open up the play calling a little if we want to compete and win games. This new offense may be his way of trying to open it up and work with the lack of OL play.

With all this said, I wonder how Boeckman might do. I just haven't seen Zwick or Smith lead this offense at all this year. Smith did well for a spurt but it was against weaker competition and we got ahead very quickly in the games and didn't need to muster much of any offense. Maybe the OL is so weak Zwick and Smith just don't have the time to make good decisions, I'm not sure. I have seen both make bad reads this year which is making me think JT needs to take a long look at the Zwick/Smith/Boeckman situation after the year is over for next season.

My cousin coaches at Moeller who played St X yesterday. He told me Schoenhoft is very raw. He has a great arm but doesn't read High School Defenses real well (he was 5-19 vs. Moeller yesterday with 2 or 3 int's). So it looks like he will need to redshirt a year to work on mechanics/mental aspects of reading defenses.

I just hope like heck we can somehow turn a switch on and beat scum.

 

[osugrad21]

osugrad I am hopeful that you are not crazy but look at the matchups you are likely to see, and tell me how we are going to win this game. I would love to hear it, and it would help me get excited. Right now I am dreading Saturday.

That is the point you are missing...all of those paper matchups go out the window this week. I figured an usher at Ohio Stadium would have figured that out by now. The best team does not always win this game...there is more on the line than a win or a loss.

Damn, if I have to pump you up for this week you really have no clue and there is nothing I can say to change that.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

I am debating not going to the scUM game because I know what is coming. We are going to get our asses kicked.

Tell you what...if we do indeed end up winning the game, how about I ban your ass through the bowl game so we don't have to listen to your pathetic faggoty whining?