PURDUE 3-3   OHIO STATE 7-0

Purdue actually has some football tradition. Like most of the Big 10, they’re history traces back to the 19th centrury and they have had their share of successful seasons. Ok.. not the success of the Basketball team… ok, neither the Men’s or Women’s basketball teams. But they were good in the 60s! And since the late 90s with a resurgence under Joe Tiller they have had some of the best offenses around.  In fact, Joe is really the father of spread football in the Big 10 – albeit the passing, not power spread. But late in his run at Purdue, he was running a lot more out of the spread set, catching on to the new PS phenomena taking hold in college football. Tiller’s teams struggled with defense during much of his time, but improved some during the time he was introducing more running from the Spread schemes. Danny Hope is a former Olineman and Oline coach so you know he wants to run. But he learned all about the spread passing scheme from Tiller at Wyoming and then again at Purdue. Therefore, Purdue continues to spread it, pass it and score points. My only issue with Hope and his staff is they seem to lack a firm grasp on all the possiblities of the Power Spread. This is not uncommon as its still a developing concept. In addition, Purdue defenses continue to struggle.

And so we come to this week, where the talk is all about bad defenses – on both sides. I will eventually breakdown some of the OSU games to illuminate the errors in thinking by the general public that Fickell and the defensive staff are doing such a horrible job so far in 2012. The youth and transition of the team didn’t enable Fickell to employ his full plethora of strategy early in the year. He has been adding to his overall Passive Aggressive defensive concept as soon as the Big 10 season started.

Where are the results you say?! If you study the last two games more closely there are 2 things that immediately jump out. 1 – GOOD OFFENSES AND SCHEMES  2- BIG PLAYS. And if you look closer you will see a big mix of blitzes and coverages starting with the Michigan State game. We do a good job for long stretches, then start giving up big plays.

Fickell is doing his job, but the youth and talent, followed by injuries and very good offenses (on both sides!) have not made it easy. We score so quick and so much. Nebraska has a great 1-2 punch and good schemes on occasion. Kevin Wilson at Indiana is a master of offense. This week should be better and believe it or not OSU may have a breakout on defense against Penn State’s inhibited offensive package.   

What I Would Like to See

Continued improvement by BOTH the offense and defense. Believe it or not, our offense has screwed up almost as much as our D. But Herman/Meyer are showing off great skills in schematics/play calling and the overall concept on offense. The player’s are running, catching and having a blast. Now, they need to start cutting down on all the mistakes.

Mistakes are always a part of an Aggressive Concept – its ok. But the youth and transition this year at OSU has brought on wayy too many. I want to see the big plays slow down on the D. I can accept around 5 big plays on us this game. More than that does not equate to sufficient improvement this week. On Offense I’d like to see 5 less mistakes on big plays – be it a missed block or missed catch.

So 5 less big plays on D and 5 more on O. That’s what I would like to see.

PREDICTION

OSU and it won’t be close after the 1st half. None of the ridiculousness at the end of last week’s games. Improvement on big plays on both sides of the ball.