Drew Thurman (12:58 pm)

After the Buckeyes less than stellar performance on Saturday, there has been a lot said on the forums and message boards. Honestly, most of it is incredibly negative! So I am going to take some of the trends in opinion I see, and insert some of my own opinion. It's time for some fact or fiction...

Trend in Opinion #1: The Buckeyes performance against Ohio on Saturday was a true showing of what is to come this season.

My Opinion: I have to say fiction here. First of all, the team was obviously missing Beanie. Not only does this hurt in leadership, but also for the fact that he is counted on to "overpower" weaker defenses. On top of that the team came out super flat. I attribute this to two different reasons. First of all, they were looking ahead to USC and overlooking the Bobcats. Second, Tressel's play calling was very vanilla, and I think that had an influence on the team. It's easy to go through the motions when you are running a lot of the same basic plays. Anyways, I say all of this because I do not think you will see a performance like this the rest of the year. After giving a touchdown to Ohio with the high snap, the Buckeyes woke up and scored three times rather quickly. So, this was not a true showing. Just like USC vs. Stanford last year was not a true showing of the Trojans.

Trend in Opinion #2: The lack of seperation between our wideouts and Ohio's secondary should have us worried.

My Opinion: Fact. This is something that has been a concern for the Buckeyes last season and this season. Brian Robiskie and Brian Hartline get open on their route running skills alone, but they struggle to get seperation and stretch the field. The two guys that appear to be the quickest at wideout to the eye (Small and Sanzenbacher), both play more slot than they do anything else. This does not make any sense to me! We need Small especially to be stretching the defense, and thanks to his punt return on Saturday we know he has the speed to do so.

Trend in Opinion #3: The Buckeyes defense is playing too much zone, and needs to attack more.

My Opinion: Once again I say fact. For whatever reason Heacock has employed a "bend but don't break" philosophy in our defense. The problem is that we sit back on heals and wait for things to happen rather than attacking. Sure it resulted in a few interceptions this last week against Ohio, but against better quarterbacks it looks less than impressive. I dare you to go back and watch the National Championship game again. LSU blitzed us almost every down because things happen when you have this mentality. I want our defense to have some swagger again, rather than waiting for a mistake from the offense!

Trend in Opinion #4: Todd Boeckman is not a good quarterback, and he is to blame for the stagnant offense.

My Opinion: Fiction. Let's first be honest with ourselves a say that Boeckman is not a superstar. He has never been marketed that way nor will he ever. With that said, Boeckman runs the offense well and makes very few mistakes. Think back to 2002 National Championship team. Did that team win because of a star quarterback? No! That team won because it had an incredible running attack, an aggressive defense, and made very few mistakes. The formula should pretty much be the same this year if Beanie can stay healthy.

In regards to the game against Ohio, I will still defend Boeckman. Sure Boeckman didn't have the best game of his career, but he is not the one to point the finger at. The offensive line was terrible, and would have made Tim Tebow look bad. On top of that, the wideouts were awful. Robiskie and Hartline (leaders of the unit) dropped balls all day, and looked terrible blocking as well. Todd didn't have any interceptions, and without drops should have had at least one touchdown. I realize he is not great throwing on the run, but like I said he has never been hyped as a superstar.

Those of you who think the "Terrelle Pryor Era" should begin, probably need to watch him throw a few more passes. Don't get wrong, I am as pumped as anybody to have a dual threat quaterback in the future, but he still needs time. In his first series against Ohio, he threw a ball two steps ahead of the wideout on a simple slant route. So, I can promise you that the best throwing quarterback we have is on the field.

Trend in Opinion #5: (My personal favorite) Bring back the John Copper era when we beat teams like Ohio by 40 points.

My Opinion: Fiction. Fiction. Fiction. Are you kidding me? How easy it is to forget that Copper blew weaker teams out, but never could win the big game. His teams were as good in week one as they were ever going to get. Tressel on the other hand improves his teams throughout the season every year (6-1 against UM and 1 National Championship). I mean seriously, what benefit is it to win by 40 points over a weaker opponent? Tressel has never believe in embarrassing these teams, and we should always expect him to limit the play calling in these games. That is what the Sweater Vest does, and that has been the same since he became head coach. 

Drew Thurman (11:21 pm)

It's funny to me that so many Buckeye fans are so doom and gloom after the Ohio game. Don't get me wrong, it was an awful game to watch, but the sky is not falling. Actually, as Buckeye fans we should have expected something like this to happen knowing Tressel's background. In games against so called "weaker opponents," we should always realize three things about Tressel:

1) He does not like to open the playbook and show his hand.

2) He does not like to run up the score.

3) To him, we should be able to over power these teams with a very vanilla offense.

Like it or hate it, this is a trend we continually see out of Tressel. Honestly is should work, but when your team comes out flat it fails miserably. So with that said, let's take a look at some positives from this game. I always believe in looking at the glass half full, and I want to spend some time focusing on that! The negatives were easy to spot, and it would be easy to spend all day talking about those. Instead, here were some good things I noticed...

Positives:

1) We finally forced turnovers! Our defense struggled mightily in this area last season, and it was refreshing to see us force so many turnovers. There were actually five turnovers, four of which were interceptions. I was especially excited for Anderson Russell. He has been criticized for having terrible hands, and it was nice to see him get the monkey off his back with this pick.

2) The running backs did their job. Some might disagree with me, but I thought all three running backs looked good throughout the game. The only time they struggled was when the offensive line did not do their job. They all ran very hard, and looked very quick going outside.

3) Ray Small finally got a return touchdown. Early in the game he looked like he was taking a page out of Chris Gamble's book (refusing to fair catch), but he made up for it with a great return. He keeps getting better and better, and that return was very impressive.

4) Ross Homan looks very sharp as a replacement for Larry Grant. He had the second most tackles on the team against Ohio, and always seemed to be around the ball. I like his instincts, and I look forward to seeing him more the rest of this season.

So, I am not sure what will happen this Saturday, but I promise that the sky is not falling. There were some positives that came out of this last game, and I can promise you will see a motivated team against USC. Let's not let this one game shape our whole opinion of this team!

Drew Thurman (2:37 pm)

Who needs to step up in Beanie's absence? Let's take a look...

5) Rory Nicol:

Rory Nicol??? Yes, I have Rory Nicol on this list. The Buckeyes offense needs to become more diverse, and the tight ends can cause headaches for the defense. Especially Nicol, who has a great set of hands the potential to make a big play at any moment. Of course Boeckman has to throw the ball Nicol's way, but I think we are going to see this a lot more!

4) Ray Small:

Ray Small probably needs to step up as much as anyone regardless of Beanie's condition. Small is a threat for the long ball at wideout and as a returner on the special teams unit, and needs to act more like it. We know what Robiskie and Hartline can do, but the long threat needs to be a more active part of the Buckeyes offense. With his number taken away he seems to have more of a chip on his shoulder, and let's hope that continues!

3) Terrelle Pryor:

It is hard to put too much pressure on a true freshman, but Pryor is capable of handling it. He offers an aspect to the rushing attack the Buckeyes have not had in years past, and that needs to continue. Beanie's absense made the ground game much more inept last season than it should this year with Pryor as part of the equation.

2) Maurice Wells, Boom Herron, and Brandon Saine:

This is a pretty obvious one on this list. All three of the running backs need to step up their games. Maurice seems to be running harder this season (probably because he was buried on the depth chart), and that is very encouraging. Boom Herron I think is the best option between the tackles, which is funny because he is the smallest of the three. He hits the  the middle fast, which works very well in the Buckeyes attack. Finally Saine probably needs to step up the most of the three. He has been pretty disappointing since becoming injured last season. I understand he still has nagging injuries, but we need him to start hitting the hole faster.

1) Todd Boeckman:

Boeckman is the leader the of our offense. With Beanie missing, his performance will make the difference in how the offense grades out. Boeckman once again looked confident in the pocket in the opening game, and that is something this offense needs. He has tons of weapons at wideout and in the backfield, and he has to trust the line. His performance last season started going down hill as he got "happy feet" in the pocket, and he cannot go back that. If Boeckman gets in rhythm it could totally smooth Beanie's absense over!

Drew Thurman (8:59 pm)

Nickname: Bobcats

Stadium: Peden Stadium (24,000)

Coach: Frank Solich - 4th year at Ohio, 19-18 (Overall 77-37)

Last Bowl Game: 2006 GMAC Bowl (L 28-7 to Southern Miss)

Basic Offense: Run out of the "I", sometimes employ 2 tight ends

Basic Defense: 4-3

Returning Starters: Offense - 6; Defense- 7; Specialists - 1

Returning Lettermen: 68 (Lost 23)

Returning Stars: TE Andrew Mooney & CB Mark Parson

Overview:

The Bobcats are coming off a heartbreaking loss to Wyoming 21-20. In the game the Bobcats only had 287 yards of total offense, and shot themselves in the foot with 2 turnovers and 115 yards in penalties.

They did lose a lot of position players from the last season. Theo Scott is a first year starter at quarterback, but Brad Brower who he replaced was no superstar. The biggest loss was Kalvin McRae (Kansas City Chiefs) at running back. He graduated after 3 straight 1,000 yards seasons. Last season in fact he had 1434 yards and 19 touchdowns. No doubt the Bobcats missed McRae last week with only 39 yards on the ground against Wyoming.

Wideout Taylor Price had a big game against Wyoming to help make up for the non-existent running attack. He had 139 yards receiving and a long 26 yards. Overall though, the the Bobcats defense outshined its offense against Wyoming. They held the Cowboys to 271 yards of total offense, but did give up 6 of 12 third down conversions.

Cheerleaders:

Notable Alumni:

Arsenio Hall - Actor and comedian
Matt Lauer - Co-host of The Today Show
Ed O'Neill - Actor (Al Bundy)
Jay Mariotti - Sports columnist and TV personality
Roger Ailes - President and CEO of Fox News Channel
Bob Brenley - Catcher and Manager of Arizona Diamondbacks (WS 2001)

Prediction:

Beanie or no Beanie this game should not be a close one. I expect to see a similar game from our defense as we did this last week against Youngstown State. If Ohio struggled to run the ball against Wyoming, they really should have even less success against us. That means we will be able to pin our ears back and blitz the quaterback all day long. I expect to see a lot sacks and throws on the run coming from quarterback Theo Scott.

On the other side of the ball I expect to see us try to pound the ball with all three running backs (Saine, M. Wells, and Herron). I also think you will see a lot of wideouts very involved. Look for Sanzenbacher, Posey, and Small to all have big games; they will have a chance to shine. We will have two touchdowns from others on the offensive unit as well. I predict these come from Nicol and Pryor. All together I think you a lot of the same from last week (hopefully a few less field goals)...

Score: Ohio State 45 Ohio U. 7

Drew Thurman (11:02 am)

I was watching the halftime show of the Rutgers versus Fresno State game, and thought it was interesting what Todd McShay had to say. I loosely quote him as saying this about Beanie Wells in regards to his status in the NFL, "This injury has many pro scouts questioning Beanie's toughness, and his ability to play through pain. Adrian Peterson for instance was someone that was injured a lot, but was able to fight through that."

Like I said this is not a exact quote word for word, but the basic idea of his comments are pretty inaccurate. For one, Beanie's toughness is not the question at all. Is he injury prone? Yes, but that does not mean he is not tough. In regards to the ability to play through pain, I am not sure what Todd McShay was referencing. Did he not watch Beanie Wells last season? Beanie battled his way to 1600 yards on a bum ankle and then a broken bone in his hand. 

Beanie has been and always will be a tough running back. You do not rush 1600 yards in the Big Ten unless you are a tough runner. Everyone knows how bad he stills wants to play, so I feel McShay's comments just didn't make sense. Question how injury prone he is, question he list of previous injuries, but don't question his toughness. Beanie is a warrior, so these criticisms just don't make sense!