The Former OHIO STATE University 17 ILLINOIS 7
I know that we won, but this is still not the real Ohio State University, though the Heart and Will is there and it wont be too long before we are once again THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY.
Good Stuff:
-Luke Fickell is a stand up guy, smart – already a top notch Defensive Coordinator with big potential as a Head Coach, but its not his time yet. Lets just hope we can somehow keep him in the program no matter what happens this year!
-OSU Defense shined – mainly due to 3 reasons: First and foremost, Jim Tressel’s incredible recruiting reign. The young talent has been peeking thru all year and really shined yesterday! The 2 other reasons below…
-25 mph winds really helped us – lets be honest!
-Illinois is very overrated – as is most of the Big 10 and this year a lot of teams in College Football. Dose of honesty again. It may be one of those average years where there is a lot of change (though this unfortunately seems like every year now) and not too many legitimate top teams. Should help OSU’s record in its most tumultuous year in some time.
Bad Stuff:
– Fickel admittedly is not an offensive coordinator and Bollman, non-admittedly, is not either. This leaves us with Stan Drayton, the 1st year WRs coach, who is from the Urban Meyer, Power Spread vein. In @powerspread, I called this game as a battle not between Illinois and OSU, but between Fickell and Bollman or more appropriately Fickell’s courage to give more reign to Drayton over Bollman. But, understandably so, it aint happenin’ folks! Yesterday was ALL BOLLMAN. There’s so much transition going on already, that its hard to expect Fickell to pull the reigns from a long time Tressel assistant and hand them over to a 1st year WRs coach – but we may have a hidden gem in Drayton and need to use him.
-So we only passed the ball 2 times in the first half and completed one all game. But passing vs running is not the point. It was windy on the road with a young and banged up QB. Running the ball with all our speed was smart – but NOT OUT OF THE SAME I AND PRO SETS PLAY AFTER PLAY! The first play we were in the PS and ran a Read Option in which Miller gained an easy 5 yards. WE HARDLY SAW THE PS AGAIN! When we did for a play in the 2nd half we had our best play of the game except for the TD. The Power Spread is perfect for weather like this – we need to keep the field spread and give our speedy QB and RBs room to roam. Injuries and turnovers are NO EXCUSE! Putting our guys in 3rd and 10 or basically tipping the Defense off the whole game as to all runs on “1st down” and all passes on “3rd and long” can create more in the way of injuries and turnovers than any Spread offense EVER WILL.
-I probably should put this in the “Good Stuff” category, but its so ludicrous it belongs here. Besides almost all running plays in the first half, with most of them coming out of the same stagnant sets and not utilizing Miller as a threat, we ran a plethora of draw plays that actually FAKED OUT ILLINOIS! How is that, you ask?? No modern day team in their right mind would expect continual draw plays without being set up by any passses – it borders on insanity – yet, maybe Bollman is a genius afterall. Maybe he knew that there’s no way Illinois would expect him to keep running the Draw, over and over, without a pass – pretty much negating the reason for the play at all! Illinois kept EXPECTING PASS and kept GETTING RUN! LOL! By god it worked – for a while anyway. But I get the feeling we wont be able to do this week after week – just a hunch. 🙂
-I guess the BIG QUESTION (besides “who is this team with the Ohio State uniforms on the field”) is “WILL WE WASTE ANOTHER TOP NOTCH PS TALENT QB LIKE WE WASTED THE LAST ONE?” If Urban Meyer shows up here in the near future, then the answer is no. If not, then Fickell or whoever the coach may be needs to get a good OC who understands – really understands – the Power Spread and how special the PS can be when you have a running talent at QB the likes of Braxton Miller.
~Drew
POWERSPREAD 