QB Todd Boeckman (official thread)

[rocketman]

Only one thing matters about Todd....

1-0 as a starting QB against Michigan.

Todd himself didn't care about his attempts or completion percentage because he knew he did what was needed of him to beat Michigan. He was so thrilled in his post game interview, you might have thought he threw for 500 yards, not 50.

 

[daveeb]

A lot of Todd's problems could be attributed to playcalling and/or formations. Empty backfield on 1st and 2nd down just isn't great, and I saw it a lot in the Illinois game.

 

[Zurp]

A lot of Todd's problems could be attributed to playcalling and/or formations. Empty backfield on 1st and 2nd down just isn't great, and I saw it a lot in the Illinois game.

Tressel is never going to win everyone over, is he? If he lines up in an I-formation, we'll hear people yelling to open up the offense. If he lines up with an empty backfield, 5 wide receivers, we hear "what are you doing? This is a running situation!"

Boeckman is possibly the most versitale quarterback I've seen at Ohio State, other than Troy Smith. He's commanded the spread formations better than I ever imagined, he can throw from the pocket as well as on the run, and he has confidence in his own ability to pull it down and run with the ball. He's also shown that he knows when to throw it away, how to stay in there and take a big hit as he throws it, and when he just has to take the sack. I think I'd give him an A- for the season so far. I think he really needs to work on his deep passes. Is he not seeing safeties, sometimes? Other times, he's just underthrowing receivers.

I think if Boeckman can light up the bowl game opposition, he'll be on many people's pre-season lists for Heisman consideration.

 

[SubDude]

I'm wondering if he didn't get hurt in the Illinois game. His passes and his "anxious" pocket presence the last 2 games are very telling of something.

 

[Lockup]

A lot of Todd's problems could be attributed to playcalling and/or formations. Empty backfield on 1st and 2nd down just isn't great, and I saw it a lot in the Illinois game.

Are you kidding? your going to blame playcalling or formation? How about your the QB for OSU and you better be able to throw on 1st and 2nd down.

A lot of Todd's problems are while he may be 23 he is making rookie mistakes. He throws into double coverage way to much. He trys to put the ball in places where he shouldn't be. For the life me while I think he throws a nice long ball I do not see all the praise people give him for it. More often than not I have seen him under throw the long ball and over throw it. I rarley ever see him hit the reciever in stride.

All that being said I think he is doing a hell of a job for the first year considering what he had to replace. I think he will be even better next year.

 

[Cicero]

I learned my lesson about criticizing a first year starter with Troy. Jim Tressel has forgotten more football knowledge than I will ever have so I defer to his judgement.

 

[matcar]

Are you kidding? your going to blame playcalling or formation? How about your the QB for OSU and you better be able to throw on 1st and 2nd down.

A lot of Todd's problems are while he may be 23 he is making rookie mistakes. He throws into double coverage way to much. He trys to put the ball in places where he shouldn't be. For the life me while I think he throws a nice long ball I do not see all the praise people give him for it. More often than not I have seen him under throw the long ball and over throw it. I rarley ever see him hit the reciever in stride.

All that being said I think he is doing a hell of a job for the first year considering what he had to replace. I think he will be even better next year.

Yeah, I agree that Todd has done a marvellous job as a first year player with little prior experience. I would also agree with other that he played a tense game and the conditions made that tension worse. Todd's play in this game was the worst I've seen of him and I doubt we'll see him like that again. I'm sure the staff will get back to practice, and the comfort and confidence will come back before bowl week.

 

[Bleed S & G]

How about your the QB for OSU and you better be able to throw on 1st and 2nd down.

I think the point is, if Beanie is in the backfield it forces the defense to play honest.

I think thats why JT had Todd running so much against Illinois, trying to make them respect the run even with an empty backfield.

 

[daveeb]

Are you kidding? your going to blame playcalling or formation? How about your the QB for OSU and you better be able to throw on 1st and 2nd down.

Tressel is never going to win everyone over, is he? If he lines up in an I-formation, we'll hear people yelling to open up the offense. If he lines up with an empty backfield, 5 wide receivers, we hear "what are you doing? This is a running situation!"

First of all, I love Tressel as much as anybody. I am one of the guys who dresses up as him. I absolutely love what he does at Ohio State. We go 11-1 in rebuilding years because of Tressel.

But, empty backfield on 1st and 10 over and over? Beanie and Mo were running the ball well enough. Mo was having his best game all year. Having a back keeps them honest.

One thing we used a lot earlier in the year was the playaction pass. Todd Boeckman is amazing at selling a playaction pass. Playaction pass, go deep. Defenses bite on that constantly.

Kind of an easy to understand point: Without a back in the backfield, you don't have anyone to fake a handoff to.

Todd had his worst day throwing the ball all season against Illinois. Why? Everyone was guarding the pass when there was an empty backfield. Todd was able to tuck and run in some situations, which is nice. Then, he would try and make a throw deep to Robiskie, and Brian would be double covered. Interception.

Ohio State is praised for having a balanced offense. But, what is the point in having a balanced offense when the opponent knows what we are going to do because of basic formations?

One play comes to mind: Short yardage situation. Illinois had a ton of players in the box. Everyone thought that we were going to run. We had runners in the backfield. Boeckman instead passes to Rory Nicol. It was off the mark, but it was a GREAT play call.

Why would that play of worked? We kept the defense honest with players in the backfield.

Think about all the major highlights you have seen of Todd Boeckman. All of the deep passes. Was there a back in the backfield? Yes. Was there a play fake? On a lot of occasions.

So yes, I am going to criticize Jim Tressel for having an empty backfield on so many occasions. I was upset watching the game whenever they took that formation. Any time we empty up the backfield, we are not presenting a balanced attack. Of course Illinois is going to double cover Robiskie when he goes deep and send people after Boeckman. Combating the Ohio State offense becomes easy when we have an empty backfield over and over.

Must an Ohio State QB be able to throw? Yes. But, we have to play to our strengths. And our strength is when we have a back in the backfield, and the opponent does not know what we are going to do.

 

[shetuck]

I think Todd will leave a fine legacy behind at Ohio State when he graduates. ...

So, in short, I expect him to be back in shape after a couple good completions against our bowl opponent and Tressel to call on him as he has all year.

:gobucks4:

 

[Lockup]

Todd had his worst day throwing the ball all season against Illinois. Why? Everyone was guarding the pass when there was an empty backfield. Todd was able to tuck and run in some situations, which is nice. Then, he would try and make a throw deep to Robiskie, and Brian would be double covered. Interception.

3 times this year Todd has thrown 2 or more INT's in a game. Two of those three times he threw 3 in one game. That is not from no backfield setups all the time that is from poor decision making and maybe some bad luck.

As far as no backfield setups and balanced attack.

OSU threw the ball 23 times against ILL
OSU ran the ball 36 times. 8 of these were Boeckman running so even if you take those 8 away and add them to passes (this is assuming he got in trouble and had to bail out) we still pass/attempted to pass 31 times to running 28. That looks pretty balanced to me.

Out of the 36 or 31 times we ran Beanie was a biggest runner at a whopping 76 yards for 3.8 yards per carry. Looks like ILL was doing a pretty good job stuffing the run.

I just don't bad that we ran empty backfield sets all day and that is why we had a problem. No we had a problem because Todd threw 3 INt's, 2 of which he should have never thrown. Even if e was in empty backfield for all three you still have to make good decisions.

I am not trying to say you don't have some truth to what you are saying but I don't buy that all of Todd's or the offenses problems that day were because of empty backfield sets. You can't line up 5 wides without getting rid of the back. We did it plenty last year and I heard nobody complaining.

 

[martinss01]

Todd started getting some serious mentions in the Heisman race and a lot of positive confirmation of his performance on the field. In the Illinois game, that came a bit unravelled for him. He was seeing pressure like he had not seen since the MSU game second half. The O-line just did not hold. Then, TB got thrown down in a tackle that swung him by the arm onto his other shoulder very hard. I think he may be nursing a bit of an injury from that tackle and some of the other hits he took in the Illinois game.

As the Illini game continued, TB uncharacteristically missed a couple easy passes, throwing behind his runners and was short on the long ball that he loves to throw. Then, he made a couple of really bad throws into coverage.

here is the issue. todd as a thrower is limited. he can't throw hash to hash with authority. he tends to throw high over the middle. he has a strong tendancy to throw behind receivers. the psu int for example. hartline was open. he just threw the ball 2 full yards behind him. and this "wonderful deep ball" bit. ive seen 2, what i would consider, good deep balls so far this year. everything else has been 50/50 throws that could easily go either way if the cb was competant. not to mention he really doesn't handle pressure well which really showed in the illi game. the latter really should't be a surprise for a first year starter who has in essence sat the bench for 4 years.

It was nearly freezing on the field and it was wet. Fingers don't work the same, the muscles are more rigid, blood flows away from the extremities in those conditions. All of this affects a QB's performance. Henne also looked like crap, even Ryan Mallet (the Great) did.

agreed, i really don't fault him at all against scum. one could argue henne played better, but henne also threw 3 should have been picks vrs. boeckman's 1 int. that just wasn't a good environment to throw in. if hart were racking up the yards beenie was, henne wouldn't have been throwing the ball either. boeckman's lack of throwing in the game was less boeckman and more the situation.

So, TB, already questioning himself then falls and loses the handle on the ball a few times on the slippery field turf. You could see in his eyes that he was coming onto the field for each set of downs looking really stressed and lacking his normal confidence.

i think he was frustrated. its one thing to throw a bad pass into coverage. thats a mental mistake that can be remmedied the next drive. its another to loose your footing on the turf. its another to have the ball in your hands and flat out drop it not once, but twice. and in both scrambles for the ball he lost it a second time on top of that. so in reality he put the ball on the ground 4 times in 2 plays. thats the kind of thing that gets in your head and stays there.

as i said above, if scum is up 14 - 3 in the 3rd. ill bet you any amount of money they don't throw the ball either. that just wasn't the day to be airing it out.

That interception was really a bad decision. If there is one thing that Tressel doesn't want happening at QB, it's bad decisionmaking.

agreed. i liked the call but that was about the only thing about that play i liked. crable coming free didn't please me. boeckman throwing on his back foot in the face of a rush certainly didn't. oh and 2 wr's literally standing on eachother putting 2 cb's and a safety in position to react to the ball... yeah.. someone ran the wrong route me thinks. not much to like from that play. boeckman should have thrown that one away.

But I think the weather conditions were more likely the reason why he put it on the ground and drove it down their throats. The O-line wanted it (read some of their post-game comments). Beanie wanted it and was having a lot of success. It was bad weather. And TB was not looking his normal self.

agreed 100%

So, in short, I expect him to be back in shape after a couple good completions against our bowl opponent and Tressel to call on him as he has all year.

actually, i don't think tressell has lost any confidence in tb. in fact, in the beginning of the game it looked to me like jt was very interested in testing scum's cb's. we went deep 2 times in the first 3 drives. it wasn't until the slips, drops, the int, us taking the lead, and the d utterly dominating that we went to the running game.

i think tb has grown every week until his rough outing against illi. i can't and won't hold the scum game against him. i have every confidence we will come out attacking in the bowl game and should.

 

[bukIpower]

just watched the USC/ASU game and I'll say this...

If we play USC we're going to need Todd more than ever because I really thought USC's run defense was really something else. If Beanie can't find some room to run on USC then Todd will have to somehow find the Penn State game form in order for us to beat them. USC has tons of weapons and a good defense.. IMO USC would probably be our toughest challenge out of any team. Including LSU, and if you read up I'm pretty high on LSU.

 

[rocketman]

just watched the USC/ASU game and I'll say this...

If we play USC we're going to need Todd more than ever because I really thought USC's run defense was really something else. If Beanie can't find some room to run on USC then Todd will have to somehow find the Penn State game form in order for us to beat them. USC has tons of weapons and a good defense.. IMO USC would probably be our toughest challenge out of any team. Including LSU, and if you read up I'm pretty high on LSU.

Just to put things into perspective, ASU is 116th in sacks allowed this season. USC's run defense and pass rush, are still very good though. Glenn Dorsey, Cedric Ellis... whoever we play, our O-line will have to play the best game they've ever played in our bowl game or we won't stand much of a chance on offense.

 

[Taosman]

ASU sucks! And were the product of their schedule. It caught up to them and USC played their "A" game last night. You can bet they will bring their best game for anyone in the Rose Bowl.
But, where ever we play this team will be ready!