Bucks Vs Sparty

[Cerebral_DownTime]

Who you got.

OSU- 27

MSU- 23

[peeker643]

Who you got.

OSU- 27

MSU- 23

God, you're such a homer.

OSU- 23
MSU- 14

[furls]

Been thinking about this game all week and still have no idea what will happen.

I think we can all agree that this tOSU team is nowhere near as good as most of us though it would be. Who saw them struggling with UAB? The 29-15 score is a bit deceiving. The good thing for the Bucks is that MSU is not very good either, so I guess we've got that going for us and that's a plus.

Sparty's O plays right into OSU's D, but if you can't tackle that doesn't matter. Additionally, tOSU's LB play has been about as bad as I could have ever imagined and the scheme and poor read/react skills gives about 4 yards on every play that is not delayed in the backfield by the DL. I think that Sparty is going to move the ball, but I think the poor MSU passing game will ultimately stall them out.

On O, the offense has been as up and down as I have ever seen. They look completely unstoppable and crips on one series and then on the next series they look like a Bollman concoction. Will they play up this week? I don't know. I am not that scared of MSU's DL, not like the pundits tell me I should be at least, and I think Miller will severely impair MSU's LB play (or he will crush them if they don't sell out).

In the end, I think it is an ugly game with more points than you would expect. Ill take the Bucks 31-17.

[e0y2e3]

Alcohol - 1
CDT's liver - 0

[furls]

Alcohol - 1
CDT's liver - 0

That was an easy one.

I think that OSU vs. MSU game could end 31-17 the other way too.

[FUDU]

I like OSU straight up.

30-24.

Barring of course any unusual weather, significant injury or injuries, and any crazy and down right unforeseen big plays or bad calls.

[fairvis]

Nice march down... hopefully Brax is OK.

[fairvis]

So, apparently, hitting someone with a forearm to the chest is now unnecessary roughness.

[dmiles]

What exactly was the call there? Not giving enough room? Does that even come into play with no fair catch?

[e0y2e3]

Marcus Hartman ‏@marcushartman
Upon further review,contact to head or neck of a defenseless opponent with head, forearm, elbow or shoulder is illegal. Good call. Bad rule

[fairvis]

Gholston knocked out by friendly fire. I'd say he's out for the game now, with the head injury emphasis now.

[FUDU]

Yeah IMO no brainer on the call, just not easy to get past the fact it wasn't for hitting player during fair catch.

Man, if/when Braxton starts to make good reads on the option watch the fuck out. Until then Braxton is going to take a lot of hits.

[fairvis]

Roby with the extension. Well done.

[FUDU]

Sparty starting to soften up our secondary.

[fairvis]

Turnover doesn't hurt us. But could've gone up more before Sparty gets the ball to start the next half.

[FUDU]

Turnover doesn't hurt us. But could've gone up more before Sparty gets the ball to start the next half.

Miller's fumble hurt, regardless of how it ended up just b/c Sparty should have ended up with points. Their plays were there, their WR's hands were not.

[furls]

Hopefully the Buckeyes make some adjustments at halftime. The last couple of weeks the Buckeyes have been "out-adjusted" at the half.

7-3, both teams left points on the board. Brax's TOs cost the Bucks at least 6 points so far. Like what the Bucks are doing defensively for the most part, and it looks like they were ready for the Bell screen pass this week.

[fairvis]

The D seems to be there where the ball's been thrown. MSU's receivers have bailed us out a few times, but they've also been nailed after the drops.

[FUDU]

If Sparty runs more than 3 more times today they are stupid.

We simply cannot stop their middle of the field passing game.

[fairvis]

Pitts Brown keeps getting beat. Need to see more Grant.

[furls]

Buckeyes safeties playing the Jack Tatum D. That's good because I am wearing my Tatum jersey. They are lighting guys up on contact and these WRs that already have the dropsies are getting alligator arms too. Not my perferred way of defending the pass, but you can tell the WRs are looking over the shoulders.

Has the Philly Brown hitch ever gained 10 yards? Why would we run it in the RZ where there is no room? The dink and dunk in the offense is infuriating. I would rather see BM run to the field side of the field, or any other play. I guess we were playing for the FG?

[fairvis]

Tackle. Jeez.

[municipalmutt]

Can someone enlighten me on the rules since I don't follow college football that much.
On the Buckeye's last drive for the field goal there was a personal foul penalty against the Spartans for a facemask/hands to the face and it was declined by tOSU. On the last drive by the Spartans, there was a similar personal foul/facemask hands to the face call that resulted in fifteen yards added to the end of the play. Aren't all personal fouls supposed to be added to the end of the play? Why would we have declined the call in our situation? Like I said I don't know the rules but it doesn't seem quite right.

[fairvis]

Awesome toss to Devin Smith. That's been there all game.

[fairvis]

Lost control of the ball as soon as the knee went. Damn it. Could be huge.

[furls]

After watching the replay of Braxton's fumble (not reversed yet), I will just be happy if he is back this season, looks like there was some hyperextension on that knee. Wouldn't be surprised if it is an ACL/MCL.

[fairvis]

Held on to the ball too long there.

[fairvis]

Good game. We win this going away without the 3 turnovers.

[furls]

Wow, impressive win. I tell you what, if I am an NFL GM, I am seriously watching Reid Fragel. The guy has been a college OL for about 6 months and he was impressive today against Gholston and everyone else. He is 6'8 315 and very thin and athletic, he could realistically get to 330-340 and still have great feet. His frame is nowhere near maxed.

Hankins basically put tOSU on notice that he will not be back next year. He would be dumb to come back. He played like a top 10 pick today. LB play was still rough, but better (except for a couple of huge breakdowns). I saw legitimate improvement this week, and that is what I was primarily concerned about. Now I would love to see tOSU throw more vertical routes, and if I see that dump to Philly on the outside one more time I am going to lose my mind. He is NOT Tedd Ginn. He is not going to beat his man and get up the field fast enough for more than 5 yards. Brown had the least impressive 12 catch game I have ever seen!

[Cerebral_DownTime]

Wow, impressive win. I tell you what, if I am an NFL GM, I am seriously watching Reid Fragel. The guy has been a college OL for about 6 months and he was impressive today against Gholston and everyone else. He is 6'8 315 and very thin and athletic, he could realistically get to 330-340 and still have great feet. His frame is nowhere near maxed.

Hankins basically put tOSU on notice that he will not be back next year. He would be dumb to come back. He played like a top 10 pick today. LB play was still rough, but better (except for a couple of huge breakdowns). I saw legitimate improvement this week, and that is what I was primarily concerned about. Now I would love to see tOSU throw more vertical routes, and if I see that dump to Philly on the outside one more time I am going to lose my mind. He is NOT Tedd Ginn. He is not going to beat his man and get up the field fast enough for more than 5 yards. Brown had the least impressive 12 catch game I have ever seen!

Al and I were just bitching about the flanker screen to Philly on Twitter. The play doesn't work. Please stop.

Roby, despite some penalties, is the best all around DB i've seen since Malcolm Jenkins. Guy can play the pass, guy can play the run, and the guy can hit. Blocked a punt too.

[e0y2e3]

You guys do understand the point of that Philly Brown screen, right?

It has NOTHING to do with gaining yards on the play itself. This offense is set up to run from three pivot points. First you have the inside zone, second you have the option game and third you have the outside screen threat. Against a defense like MSU you keep throwing that outside screen in order to keep the room you are using to gain 200 yard on the ground.

This offense is a numbers game, not some ingenious motion one guy to point A and he is wide open game. It's about the number of players in the box, the number of players playing contain and the spacing between all of them. This is exactly why the offense is struggling at times right now. Braxton is a far better football player than Tim Tebow, yet he regularly looks completely lost because he is struggling with his reads in both the option and passing game. That screen is about giving Braxton enough room to only have to worry about his A and B reads, not C defender coming in and killing him.

That play is here forever, get used to it. Especially against and elite front 7 like MSU has.

Turnovers and Braxton's learning process regarding option and passing progressions are the only reason this game was close. And all of the struggles fall on the head of one kid, who is still learning.

It also didn't help to have Hall get hurt, because that Braxton to Hall lateral option was a thing of beauty and without him we have no-one on the offense capable of running those unique sorts of looks.

[furls]

I understand the point of the flanker screen, but it is not keeping the opposing defense honest at all, they are defending it with 2 players because in order for it to be successful the WR on his side has to make the block (and they do about 75% of the time) and Philly has to beat his man which he does ~0% of the time. The play is about the threat of using the entire field, sideline to sideline in order to keep men out of the box, but in order for the play to be successful you need MSU to need a 3rd defender there.

That said, I have no issues with Braxton Miller making mistakes, even if it costs us games this year because it is an investment in next year. I did not swear once when Braxton turned the ball over. It would be like getting pissed off at Hafner for striking out in a game that he has already homered in 3X.

[fairvis]

That said, I have no issues with Braxton Miller making mistakes, even if it costs us games this year because it is an investment in next year. I did not swear once when Braxton turned the ball over. It would be like getting pissed off at Hafner for striking out in a game that he has already homered in 3X.

Right there with ya, buddy. Braxton turns it over, and I'll say, "Well, take the good with the bad..." and wait for the next drive. The last fumble you could see he was in pain. The pick he got well played. Can't remember what happened the first fumble, drank too much since then.

[e0y2e3]

The first fumble was part of the 45 minute stretch where he ran around like a gnat without a head and tried to make to much out of nothing while effing up option reads.

I love the kid and think he will win a heisman, but when he gets scatterbrained like he does from time to time, it is hard to watch.

[furls]

The first fumble was part of the 45 minute stretch where he ran around like a gnat without a head and tried to make to much out of nothing while effing up option reads.

I love the kid and think he will win a heisman, but when he gets scatterbrained like he does from time to time, it is hard to watch.

Yep.

I will not get frustrated with the mistakes. Now I may get frustrated by a lack of development, but I think he is developing. I think he is a head of the Troy Smith trajectory. He is significantly better than Smith was during his RS sophomore year. I am not counting next year for anything more than getting him used to playing in front of big crowds.

[Cerebral_DownTime]

That pass to Smith was a dime.

[e0y2e3]

The entire O-Line was named player of the week on offense.

Sabino on defense (Shazier was also called out for having his best game). Of note, it appears that Curtis Grant has been moved to SAM behind Shazier. Hopefully not having to play MIKE let's him show some of his promise like Sabino is finally starting to after the ridiculous multiple year attempts to make him into a MIKE that kept failing.

Roby on special teams.

Champions: O-Line, Zach Boren, Jeff Heuerman, Etienne Sabino, Johnathan Hankins, Bradley Roby, Travis Howard, Ryan Shazier and John Simon.

[motherscratcher]

So, if I'm not mistaken, that leaves Storm Klein as MIKE. Is there even a natural backup at that position?

[e0y2e3]

Cam Williams, the true freshman from Boston is allegedly the back-up Mike. Urban hasn't confirmed this move for Grant but it is where they were during warm-ups for the Sparty game.

[furls]

The move for Grant is a good one, but we seem to be full LBs that can't figure out the defense (Marcus,Grant and Perkins) which means we have a lot of OLBs. I am guessing we start hearing about Luke Roberts again very soon.

[e0y2e3]

I'm really not concerned about Marcus or Perkins, two kids are have literally zero experience running MLB struggling to learn the D in year one.

Grant/Sabino are different cases, as both were spoon fed the MLB position by the coaches for prolonged periods of time and didn't figure anything out.

That said, I've always figured Perkins and Marcus as OLB's. Cam Williams and Luke Roberts were always the only true MLB in last years class and Cam has done nothing but impress the coaches.

[furls]

It always works where you got 2 guys that are physically ready to play (Perkins and Marcus) and two guys that are mentally ready to play (Williams and Roberts), but they are generally not the same guys. Fortunately, I am a big fan of both Perkins and Marcus for next year and then we should have the LB class from the 70s Steelers coming in 2014 with Raekwon McMillan and Dante Booker (possible Garrett too). We just have to survive this year, endure the growing pains next year and then we should be OK.

Perry has supposedly done a nice job too. He was supposed to get PT against UAB, but then we couldn't close them out.

[e0y2e3]

Perry had done a nice job, until he gave up that blocked punt and got his ass benched from punt team in favor of Sabino.