My daughter probably added a year or two to my life by making me take her on a ride on the Hiawatha bicycle trail out here in Idaho (google it, a great ride) and possibly a remote or two. Heard the score on the radio and having not taped it, have yet to see a single play from the game. I have decided that I, am and hopefully the staff/fans will move on to the next game.
I was hoping that somehow this season would be different than the past 10 years or so, but alas it looks like unless something changes drastically it will be the same old story with slightly different characters. Somebody out there tell me who the most successful OSU quarterback in the NFL to date, and if your answer like mine is Mike Tomczak that tells you all we need to know. I see plenty of teams in the top 25 that are able to to throw for 200, 300, and sometimes 400 yards semi-consistantly, but we throw for 35. I know this one game is mainly due to 2 QB's with little to no game experience, but 35 yards. This is not a bash on our QB's , but on a system, scheme, general philosophy that outside of a senior TS, does nothing to develop NFL style quarterbacks. QB coach, play calling, recruiting I am not sure what the issue is, but it has been a problem for a very long time. Do I thing Miller has the skill set to take it to the next level, only time will tell but my quick answer would be no unless some or all of the above changes.
Every year for the past 10 or so I have semi-agreed with the comments of we are holding back the play calling, or guys just cannot get up for (fill in the local Ohio team) or something of the same ilk, but outside the Akrons of the world, we are not blowing people up at the line and not dominating inferior competition with our highly touted recruits. Teams do not seems to be intimidated by playing tOSU anymore and in fact the comment from the victorious locker room usually contains the "we knew exactly what was coming, and were able to handle it". Something at the core needs to change and I hope starting next Saturday we see it.
Let Miller do what he does best and design a scheme that fits his skill set and be daring, be innovative, open up the playbook and call anything and everything that we have. Come on 35 yards passing, I bet Miller could call a "everybody go out, and try to get open" call in the huddle and we could get at least 50 yards for the game easy. An open playbook may not win us every game, but it sure as hell would make the other team not guess the exact call before the ball is snapped.
IMHO we are at a dangerous crossroad that I thought we were at before, but somehow managed to avert for a while at least. We are always going to get the born to be a Buckeye recruits, but I see us slipping on the out of state guys who are tired of the vanilla OFFENSIVE offenses we throw out there. Just my humble inflated 0.02 but GOD we need something to shake up our mind numbing schemes, execution, mind set on offense.
and our record against Miami will be 2-0