Are We Too Fickle Yet?
Well, what an off season this has been! The scandal which rocked OSU is almost in the rear view mirror. Lost is our Hall of Fame Coach and now many questions need answers. I think for all of us, Saturday's game was a welcome relief. Now football is back and a new era has begun!
That said, there was some good and bad in Saturday's victory. Unfortunately for us, the worse case scenario has occurred on offense. Jim Bollman appears to be calling the offensive plays. The same knucklehead that has been responsible for our underachieving offense lines during the Tressel era is till here! We thought that Tress was conservative in his play calling. This guy makes Tress looks very aggressive. Numerous times during the game both Urban Meyer and Chris Spielman would say "This is the time to take a shot downfield". Each and everytime they would say this, Bollman would run it up the middle. I know he was trying to establish a run game, but none of our backs even reached 100 yards. This is against probably the worse team in all of Division I last year. None of our backs appeared to be able to break a large gainer. Let me be the first to say, we will go nowhere on offense with Bollman at the helm.
The other disappointing aspect of the offense on Saturday was the lack of speed at wide receiver. Until we get Posey back, we are going to be in trouble at receiver for these remaining 4 games. I think Miami will be able to show us how lacking we are on speed.
The QB situation appears to me to be a juxtaposition of where Fickle is wrt to his coaching situation. He has to win and win big this year to save his job. He can't afford a subpar rebuilding season. This is the only reason I think Bauserman is even in the picture at QB. He appears to herky jerky to me at the QB position. It looks forced and I think it's gonna kill us early. We need to go with the very bright future of Braxton Miller. He impresses me with his poise, quickness and canon of an arm. we need to invest in the future of the program, for the good of the program.
Stoneburner appears to be the lynchpin on offense. Hopefully, we will continue to ride this horse much like wisconsin did I few years back. He will open things up for the rest of the offense.
I did see something in Roddy Smith at RB. He reminds me of a trimmed down Eddie George. He even fumbled within the 5 yard line like George did when he was a Freshman.
The defense looks quite impressive to me. I love how Fickle is putting his stamp on the team by calling the defensive plays. (I just wish he had a competent offensive coordinator to counter him!) I saw aggression in the defense which seemed to be lacking last year. My only real worry is whether our secondary can cover dominant receivers when all this blitzing is occuring.
I was worried whether Fickle would try and be more like Tressel and not have his own stamp on the team. I don't have that worry yet. He does appear to have his own style. I just wish he would get a new offensive coordinator!
Mail this post
