OSU at Illinois Game Thread

[furls]

JCoz,

You completely contradicted yourself:

Reading about what the Offense is trying to do in the preseason and all season long, I don't see how anyone should be surprised at what happened when we lost pryor's legs. That is the outside run game, pryor. This offense is deadly with a healthy Pryor, and lost without him because it is SOOOOOOOO Pryor centric. This offense is truly tailored to what he brings to the offense, just like the Beokman/Beanie years offenses were centered around Beanie.

Pryor is not the primary ball carrier in the rushing game, not in terms of carries.

The point you are dancing around here by qualifying your statement: Terrelle Pryor is the leading rusher on this team (by about 25%). Sure, Boom Herron gets more carries, that just screams to the underlying inefficiency of the offense and the critical fault that I have been screaming about for three weeks, they need a running back to take this load off.

I agree that TP is probably going to be more resilient the Robinson, simply because F=ma, but if he is "the outside run game" in order for us to have an outside run game we are risking the most important part of our team. Teams hit QBs different, they just do. As we saw with EMU we are one cheap shot away from losing our entire offense as it is currently constructed. How does this team win on the road in Iowa when it is 13 degrees and windy, or 42deg and rainy? We need to be able to run the ball, between the tackles with someone that is NOT Terrelle Pryor.

As for the game margin, I was never concerned about Illinois offense scoring later in the game, but that game was 17-13 until the Buckeyes scored a TD at the 2:47 mark in the 4th qtr. The Buckeyes were a fumble return away from potentially losing this game. Hell they got the ball back with 4:36 and scored the TD with a lot of help from penalties. Dude, that game was a lot closer than 11pts implies.

Again, I am not chicken little here, but if you watched that Illinois game and you still feel that the current OSU status quo is good enough right now, then I would like to live in that world where raindrops turn into gum drops and lollipops. The defense is great, the secondary is still a bit untested, but the line has played very well.

Dan,

As for Nate Williams, he has been good, not great. I didn't realize he was in as many plays this week (I do remember the big sack for loss of 11), but if you say 9 tackles I am not going to argue. I just haven't seen him really do it as a pass rusher this year, not at the level that I convinced myself he would perform at. I legitimately thought he could be a 1st/2nd round pick this year, I would say no chance this year. The Bucks have not gotten consistent PR from the edge this year from the front 4. Most of the pressure has been Larimore, Heyward, and Simon inside.

[JCoz]

JCoz,

You completely contradicted yourself:

Reading about what the Offense is trying to do in the preseason and all season long, I don't see how anyone should be surprised at what happened when we lost pryor's legs. That is the outside run game, pryor. This offense is deadly with a healthy Pryor, and lost without him because it is SOOOOOOOO Pryor centric. This offense is truly tailored to what he brings to the offense, just like the Beokman/Beanie years offenses were centered around Beanie.

Pryor is not the primary ball carrier in the rushing game, not in terms of carries.

The point you are dancing around here by qualifying your statement: Terrelle Pryor is the leading rusher on this team (by about 25%). Sure, Boom Herron gets more carries, that just screams to the underlying inefficiency of the offense and the critical fault that I have been screaming about for three weeks, they need a running back to take this load off.

I agree that TP is probably going to be more resilient the Robinson, simply because F=ma, but if he is "the outside run game" in order for us to have an outside run game we are risking the most important part of our team. Teams hit QBs different, they just do. As we saw with EMU we are one cheap shot away from losing our entire offense as it is currently constructed. How does this team win on the road in Iowa when it is 13 degrees and windy, or 42deg and rainy? We need to be able to run the ball, between the tackles with someone that is NOT Terrelle Pryor.

As for the game margin, I was never concerned about Illinois offense scoring later in the game, but that game was 17-13 until the Buckeyes scored a TD at the 2:47 mark in the 4th qtr. The Buckeyes were a fumble return away from potentially losing this game. Hell they got the ball back with 4:36 and scored the TD with a lot of help from penalties. Dude, that game was a lot closer than 11pts implies.

Again, I am not chicken little here, but if you watched that Illinois game and you still feel that the current OSU status quo is good enough right now, then I would like to live in that world where raindrops turn into gum drops and lollipops. The defense is great, the secondary is still a bit untested, but the line has played very well.

Dan,

As for Nate Williams, he has been good, not great. I didn't realize he was in as many plays this week (I do remember the big sack for loss of 11), but if you say 9 tackles I am not going to argue. I just haven't seen him really do it as a pass rusher this year, not at the level that I convinced myself he would perform at. I legitimately thought he could be a 1st/2nd round pick this year, I would say no chance this year. The Bucks have not gotten consistent PR from the edge this year from the front 4. Most of the pressure has been Larimore, Heyward, and Simon inside.

I don't think that I've contradicted myself at all there Furls.

The Offense is pryor-centric, I'm talking strictly about # of hits the coaching staff asks him to take.

You and I are talking about two different things 1. OSU fans ragging on UM because of the eventual injuries Denard may sustain and 2. The lack of a playmaker in OSU's RB stable.

[danwismar]

As for Nate Williams, he has been good, not great. I didn't realize he was in as many plays this week (I do remember the big sack for loss of 11), but if you say 9 tackles I am not going to argue. I just haven't seen him really do it as a pass rusher this year, not at the level that I convinced myself he would perform at. I legitimately thought he could be a 1st/2nd round pick this year, I would say no chance this year. The Bucks have not gotten consistent PR from the edge this year from the front 4. Most of the pressure has been Larimore, Heyward, and Simon inside.

I think it's partly scheme too, Furls...both OSU's and the opponents' schemes. As Leo, Nate is dropped into coverage quite a bit, (where he has a pick and a couple of PBU), and we have also been playing mostly spread, 3-step drop, quick-passing teams, with Jacory Harris being the only pro-style, 7-step drop guy on the schedule so far...(and Nate put some serious punishment on Harris that day, mostly after the ball was gone)

Heyward didn't have a sack through four games, but you can't say he hasn't been playing well, for another example. Plus, both guys have been held an awful lot, without getting calls. Not sure if you noticed Cam getting blatantly held on the first Illinois TD, the run by Scheelhaase. He did get a call later when it was too obvious to ignore. I think the sacks will come, though as usual, reality never quite lives up to our expectations for how it should be.

I thought Larimore was dominant Saturday...especially the first half. He's having a great year so far.

[JCoz]

JCoz,

You completely contradicted yourself:

Reading about what the Offense is trying to do in the preseason and all season long, I don't see how anyone should be surprised at what happened when we lost pryor's legs. That is the outside run game, pryor. This offense is deadly with a healthy Pryor, and lost without him because it is SOOOOOOOO Pryor centric. This offense is truly tailored to what he brings to the offense, just like the Beokman/Beanie years offenses were centered around Beanie.

Pryor is not the primary ball carrier in the rushing game, not in terms of carries.

The point you are dancing around here by qualifying your statement: Terrelle Pryor is the leading rusher on this team (by about 25%). Sure, Boom Herron gets more carries, that just screams to the underlying inefficiency of the offense and the critical fault that I have been screaming about for three weeks, they need a running back to take this load off.

I agree that TP is probably going to be more resilient the Robinson, simply because F=ma, but if he is "the outside run game" in order for us to have an outside run game we are risking the most important part of our team. Teams hit QBs different, they just do. As we saw with EMU we are one cheap shot away from losing our entire offense as it is currently constructed. How does this team win on the road in Iowa when it is 13 degrees and windy, or 42deg and rainy? We need to be able to run the ball, between the tackles with someone that is NOT Terrelle Pryor.

Terrelle is the most effective rushing threat on the team not the "Primary" The primary isn't the guy getting 25% of the rushes.

It is not a bad thing that we are exploiting TP's ability to take the ball outside, it is by design of the offense. To have a RB take his carries on the outside changes the concepts of what we are trying to do. I mean all these offensive concepts we've worked into the offense this year are all about forcing teams to pick your poison with Pryor. Its completely counter productive to limit him to the pocket

I do agree that we need to be able to run it between the tackles with our RB's, which were able to do with Boom in the 2nd half. We will get better at that as the year progresses, but Herron is avg 4.4 per and has 5 TD's, its not like he's been unproductive between the tackles. You can't point to Terrelle's 6-7 per carry and hold the RB's as unproductive because they can't match that.

We just need Saine to get less carries, the rest will take care of itself IMO.

[furls]

Dude, it is semantics. If he leads the team in rushing (by a sizeable margin) and has nearly as many carries as the guy who has the most carries, then he is the primary. I am not making the case that it is inevitable that he will get injured, I am making the case that if he is the only offensive threat that we have (and right now he pretty much is) then we are going to get beat by a talented defense that is able to "contain" him.

I am not running around like chicken little here, these are just my observations. A lot of guys that we thought would make plays are not and we have been slow to get new guys a shot (Jordan Hall, Berry, any WR etc.). We'll see as the year goes on.