Buckeye Blogger NetworkI know that is a very loaded title, but I feel it best suits my current thoughts.
It is what it is...
I understand the Mark May’s and Desmond Howard’s of the world taking every chance they get to smear the Ohio State University and our transgressions- they have been waiting for this day for so long. We have been a top program for the last decade and America likes to see the giant fall.
If it was Michigan, Florida, Texas, Oregon, Auburn we would probably jump on that train as well; unless you are of the opinion those that live in glass houses don’t throw stones. Those are the haters that you brush off though, because they always do so out of spite and dislike and they never go away. It hurts sometimes to be the brunt of jokes, but get back to doing what we should be and everything will be fine.
What is hard to fathom is how we handle our own. How many ex-Buckeye players, media, or fans have you heard badmouth Coach Tressel and Terrelle Pryor, for example? Or what about “snitching” or calling for the heads of your own president to be turned over on a silver platter? I completely understand some constructive criticism, but comments like “fake buckeye”, “I hate so and so”, “This player should be kicked off the team”, etc. coming from our own fans hurt.
Ready to Lead, Ready to Follow, Never Quit
Lots of things to catch up on… Some of this has been around for a bit, but we’re not all edgy and trendy and stuff.
The Story Of The Week
Although it’s not really sports related, the capture/death of Osama Bin Laden did have some ripples throughout Buckeye nation and the sports world, particularly on the twitterverse:
Draft Update
Wanna listen to Chinese Democracy?
Stuff from around the webs, some Buckeye, some not. And yeah… I decided to jump in the old wayback machine and get out my highschool albums for this one.
Little Sister, hit the stage. She can’t help it, she’s coming of age: Lots of TCU billboards around Columbus these days, taking a shot at President Gee’s comments regarding their schedule by touting the Frogs’ win over Wisconsin. Three things…
Enjoy the amazing things going on with your program and your BCS win, Frogs. Call us when you’ve got 6 of them.
No position went through more turmoil in 2010 than the defensive backs. They endured injuries- lots and lots of injuries, position changes, schematic changes, bad stretches in games, criticism from fans, and everything in between.
Through it all, however, the secondary continued to play remarkably well. In fact, some fans might be surprised at just how successful they have been.
Led by the senior trio of Jermale Hines, Chimdi Chekwa, and Devon Torrence, Ohio State was able to field the fourth best pass defense in the country which only gave up 156.3 yards per game through the air. On top of that, the Buckeyes recorded 18 interceptions, tied for the 10th most in the country.
Stats, as always, should be taken with a grain of salt, but given the circumstances, those numbers are impressive.
The secondary will need to be impressive against a potent Arkansas passing attack led by Ryan Mallett. In fact, how well Ohio State defends the pass will be one of the top things to watch for in the Sugar Bowl.
Here is a look at how the players in the secondary have done this season, and what to expect in the bowl game. Read More
Scoping it out...
No press conference this week, but we do have Tress’ thoughts from after The Game and so forth
Buckeye 411
Michigan is among the elite programs and will be and their record will reflect that in the course of time but, you know, we all have our ups and downs in a period and so forth and it’s highly competitive. It’s going to become more competitive because we’re adding Nebraska. The world changed when we added Penn State. The world changes even more when we add Nebraska. The world changed when Dano (Dantonio) went over to Michigan State. There’s constantly changes, but Michigan will be back, we don’t have to worry about that.
REPORTER: Jim, obviously you talk all the time about you want to get better over the course of a year. To be 11-1, where do you feel like this team is in achieving this goal and just how good of a team do you think you are at 11-1 at the end of the season?
COACH TRESSEL: Not good enough to be the outright Big Ten champions and automatic bid to the Rose Bowl and all those things that you shoot for, but we’re pretty fair, and I believe we’re a top ten football team and probably going to get to play a top ten football team and see if we’re allowed to stay in the top ten is what I would guess, but I think it goes beyond that.
Sometimes the ball bounces funny and you end up undefeated or you end up losing however many, and our guys just kept working and whatever came their way, they handled it and pressed on and handled adversity and handled success as it came. They need a little break and they need to take a deep breath and then they need to think about playing against one of the top teams in the nation wherever we play, whoever it is. We’ve had — really we’ve had 13 games in 2010. We played a pretty good Oregon team on the first day of the year, so it’s been a lot of fun.
But who cares what I think. See ya
As the days grow shorter, so too do the press conferences. Here’s what we’ve got:
Buckeye 411
They do what they do and they do it so well. They believe in it. Their players believe in it. They’re very, very physical at what they do and the schemes back that. They want to be a balanced offense and they’ve probably, over the past couple years, gotten more balanced, and so they’re not going to change. Now, they may change a little play they run because of what people are doing against them or they — in ’06 they blitzed us a lot more than they ever did. They came after us pretty good, but it was within their system. It wasn’t as if they’d never run those blitzes, they just did their blitzes rather than eight percent of the time they did it 15 percent of the time and it felt like they were blitzing every down, that’s what you admire about them, that’s what you admire about Penn State, that’s why you come out, we got behind Penn State and that wasn’t a shock to me that we were behind Penn State, Penn State plays their defense, they play their offense, they do what they do, they’re very capable as anyone else is, they have good athletes. How we were behind was a little bothersome, but scheme-wise, the good teams, they’re going to do what they do, and Iowa will do that.
REPORTER: Your players talked after the game about the, job if speech is the right word, but the talk you gave them before they went back out for the second half and just did you feel disappointed that you had to make that speech at that point or that you needed something like that and just what were your thoughts there during that? Did you think you were at kind of a junction of the season there a little bit?
COACH TRESSEL: I was disappointed that we weren’t playing like we were capable of playing. We’ve all been in games where you’ve played as well as you could and you lost and that happens, or you played as well as you could but you made those two mistakes and, therefore, you lost. I didn’t think we were playing anywhere near we were capable of playing and we were playing against a team that they knew was good. We play them every year, it’s not like we hadn’t played them in a while, and we were playing in our stadium and all the rest, and at this time of year when you’re supposed to have been improved, so, yeah, I was disappointed in our — and up until that stop, I wasn’t disappointed in that, in fact, I was energized by that, but disappointed up to that point.
REPORTER: How often do you have to go to that big halftime speech to get your guys motivated?
COACH TRESSEL: You only do what’s going on in the course of the moment, so you don’t sit there saying, okay, it’s game seven and I haven’t played that card because you can’t play a card. I mean, you have to react to what’s going on and, you know, typically what’s going on is that we’re playing near to our ability and we’re maybe not doing some little things, it’s atypical that we just weren’t ourselves.
I really can’t repeat that. He got pretty animated. He definitely, you know, spilled his heart out to us and he challenged us, he challenged us to go out there the first play, you know, the kickoff team to make an impression and defense to get a stop and once we got the ball back in the huddle, he was like, you know, we had those — we had that penalty and then we had another penalty, but his attitude didn’t change. His eyebrows didn’t go up. They were still down. And he was like, well, let’s just make the drive a little bit longer.
They’re a little bit thicker on you, a little bit stronger on you…
The quarter's so you can call for help...
Buckeye 411
Like the annual haircut (whether needed or not), a new “look” makes a world of difference, no? Since all of the cool kids were getting new school clothes, we thought in only appropriate to join in on the blog couture arms race.
Big thanks to Chad of Digital:Construct, an OSU alum who was great to work with (even upgraded the old Etch-a-Sketch) throughout the process.
Now, news and notes from the intertubes:
Buckeye 411
REPORTER: You’ve lost 41 times playing other Ohio colleges.
COACH TRESSEL: You said that last year but you used 40.
REPORTER: Can you imagine what it would be like –
COACH TRESSEL: You asked the same question. You’ve got to get new material.
REPORTER: I need a better answer maybe.
COACH TRESSEL: What was my answer last time?
REPORTER: I don’t remember.
COACH TRESSEL: Then how do you know it wasn’t good? You weren’t pleased with it, but you don’t know what it was. Man!
Miami news
No Clue At All: I know I’m a little late on this, but it’s been a busy week…
in various online fantasy football and baseball leagues. In all instances, he paid an entry fee and played for a chance to win prizes, which meets the NCAA definition of sports wagering.
Not only did the former head coach participate in wagering, he also purchased an online fantasy football business and oversaw its operations as part owner and managing partner. In 2008, the former volunteer coach, who was already employed by the university at the time, was hired by the former head coach to work in this business. The former volunteer coach acted as “commissioner” of the fantasy leagues, coordinating the competitions and monitoring the selection of players by those who paid entry fees to participate. In the spring of 2008, he traveled to Las Vegas to oversee a live “draft.”
