I honestly thought total annihilation was in store for us last week and was very surprised by how close the game was. That said, we had ample opportunity to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and were unable to capitalize on them! Originally, I wanted to cite both Pryor and Tressel as the main culprits in this loss, and now believe it was a team loss.
No matter how much you hate Tress' conservative ball control and field position chess match, it's the pill we will have to swallow as long as he is our coach. We can second guess him all we want, but the bottom line is that the offense didn't execute as he intended. Ohio State football has been about 3 yards and a cloud of dust for as long as I can remember. When we failed to even get a 4th and 2 against Navy a few weeks ago that should have been a sign that we have major issues again with the running game. All the juggling of O'line is an indication that we really don't have strong O'linemen and we have to make do with what we have. In all honesty, the O'line (revamped or not) isn't any better than what we've been forced to swallow the last 3 years. In neither of these games did we create holes for our RB's or move opposing D'lines. Bollman has to take a lot of the blame for this and really needs to go, but again our players are not executing either. Something desperately needs to change here or we will never get back to our winning ways. The only Tressel call I don't get, is why we don't use Pryor on a 4th and short situation, he's 6'6" and weighs 260 lbs, he should be able to get us a short yardage situation easily.
Pryor looked to me like he was thinking way too much. His hesitation to act really cost us the game. Last year I was complaining about him looking to run first before checking down and this year it's just the opposite. If he has improved in the passing game, it hasn't shown because his decision making is horrible at this stage. This is the second week in a row that Pryor has been outplayed by the opposing teams supposedly inferior QB. Oh and don't be fooled by UM's Forcier, he didn't play a real defense yet and I expect him to look worse in the near future. I also feel Pryor doesn't forget his mistakes, he dwells on them during the game and it effects the rest of his play. He is unfortunately a work in progress.
The defense was the biggest surprise of the night. The line held up for most of the game and really gave it to the vaunted USC O'line. The corner coverage was outstanding and LB play was decent. Yet again, though, we found someway to give up 2 big drives at the end of each half. This is a disturbing trend which has continued in every big game. In the Tressel ball control system, the defense has to be able to make stops when it counts. That is critical to the success of the system. Somehow, the defense can't put an end to the game when we really need to do it. The defense is as much to blame for the loss as the offense.
Tressel ain't going anywhere and his system will work against a lot of teams. He plays not to lose. He plays the percentages and tries not to take risks. This only works when the team executes his plays that he calls and minimizes mistakes. When we play a team like USC with offensive firepower and the "play to win" attitude it will give his system some fits. Pryor's poor decision making, the lack of any offensive line push and a "let us down" when it counts defense has created this problem for us. The problem really is that we've been talking about the same issues for the most part the last 5 years and it hasn't changed.
Toledo will give us fits on offense this week, but their defense is horrid. Now is a good time to change our losing ways. Pryor gets some exciting plays on offense, the line actually creates a big hole that a mack truck could drive through and the defense makes a stop when it counts against a potent offense. That would be the makings of the perfect storm for the buckeyes. Hopefully, we'll see it for a change.
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