Some Things Old, Some Things New, and the Cavs Lose
October 29, 2008Rumor Mill: Joe Jurevicius, Done For Year
October 29, 2008This past Monday, Rick wrote a Buckeye recap that threw in the inquiry of whether Todd Boeckman should have been a part of this past Saturday’s loss to Penn State. In it, he questioned whether or not Boeckman would have given the Buckeyes a better shot at moving the ball down the field, when Terrell Pryor’s arm was obviously not getting the done. Granted, no one really saw Pryor’s first fumble occurring in the biggest game of his young career, but that is a different discussion for a different day.
On Tuesday, Coach Jim Tressell had a few updated thoughts on the loss. While he was brief, he mentioned that he was still perturbed with Terrell Pryor’s decision-making on the play, and that the young Pryor was still pretty down on himself. When asked if he had spent much off-field time with the freshman quarterback, Tressell cited that school work has kept him busy, not allowing for much one-on-one time.
With all of that said, the Buckeyes have four weeks remaining in the regular season. This week, they are off – which is probably a good thing given the recent string of games coupled with the much-needed mental downtime. Following this weekend, we have back-to-back road games in the state of Illinois; Northwestern on November 8th, Illinois on November 15th. Then finally, the Scarlet and Gray wrap up the regular season at home against the school up north. The 2-6 school up north.
At the beginning of the season, not many pundits would have forecasted Northwestern being the best of the three teams just named. But with a record of 6-2, and a game with Minnesota coming up, the Wildcats could actually be tied with the Buckeyes come this time next week. Also a surprise is the fact that Minnesota’s only loss of the season has come at the hands of Ohio State, and they too are looking to be in the Big Ten picture if something catastrophic would happen to Penn State.
Alas, the Ohio State Buckeyes are currently ranked 12th in the BCS standings. Two losses are two more than most fans expected to see. However, if Tressel’s team can manage to take care of business for the duration of the season, they should wind up in the top 10 by year’s end. Continuing with the game of “ifs,” if Texas Tech can top the Longhorns this weekend, or Alabama fails to win out (with games at LSU and against Auburn still on the docket), the Buckeyes could in fact be apart of this year’s Rose Bowl.
Two questions then remain…
For the non-Buckeye fans: Who would Ohio State play? Would the BCS actually pit the Buckeyes against the Trojans of Southern California for the second time this season? Two seasons ago, the world was ablaze at the thought of Ohio State and Michigan squaring off for the BCS Championship. I could only imagine the sentiments for a rematch of a game that had an initial margin of victory over 30.
And for Buckeye fans: Would the Rose Bowl be enough for you to consider the season successful? The two years that Ohio State was not supposed to succeed, they wound up playing on the National Championship stage. This year, we were supposed to get there a third time, but find ourselves falling just a bit short after losing to two very solid teams.
You have to assume that Jim Tressell is planning on winning out, and then taking the BCS Bowl that is handed his way. Going back to Rick’s discussion on Monday, which quarterback gives Ohio State the best chance to do just that? Is it Pryor? Boeckman? A combination of both, albeit executed a lot better than it was during the first three weeks of the season?
I never thought that even with Ohio State clearly out of the picture, that there would still be a bevy of questions remaining. Thankfully, for us all, we’ll get about 10 more days to decide the plan of attack. But one thing is for certain, one more loss between now and then end of the season will have Ohio State playing in a bowl that would not have a “BCS” in front of it.
And for those wondering, the Capital One Bowl and the Outback Bowl would be the remaining options depending on where the Buckeyes finish in the Big Ten. Both games would pit us against an SEC team. Yay.
11 Comments
A Rose Bowl appearance would not make the season “successful,” but a win, especially one over USC, would be a soothing balm on an infectious season of underachieving by many of OSU’s players (O-Line anyone?). If OSU wins out and PSU ends up in the BCS title game, I full expect the Rose Bowl to do what it did last year when it picked Illinois as a 10-2 team to face USC, even though it would set up a rematch. You could argue that Pryor as a starter and a healthy Beanie makes the matchup more compelling, but I would think OSU would fall again in the rematch (albiet by a closer score).
As for Boeckman, he should stay on the bench. He’s had his time. With the title no longer possible, there’s no reason to do anything but play for the future. Pryor is the real deal, notwithstanding his fumble last Saturday. We’re going to see his number up on the ring of the ‘Shoe someday.
Let’s stop getting Boeckman involved. Why hinder Pryor’s growth when we’re not going to win the Big 10? Let the kid learn how to play so we can be successful next year.
At this point, i’ve got to agree with AMC and Lyon. We’re now playing for next year as far as the National Championship game is concerned. Pryor obviously needs work – and he can get it in the upcoming games. Will they be back in it next year? hopefully!! if not, Prior’s OSU Carreer will have been wasted!
As far as making the Rose Bowl being a success – well, i guess that would be determined by the outcome. If they played USC again, and got crushed again, then the season is a HUGE disappointment….and would prove everyone right – we never belonged in the first place…Beanie or not.
That being said, if we go to the rose bowl and BEAT USC…well, i would consider that a success. Even though they didn’t win the big one, they proved that with a full roster they could hang with the big guys.
Pryor has a lot of growing to do. It seems like he could go through some more reads on any given play. He just stares down his first choice and if they aren’t open he tucks the ball and runs. Every throw over 25 yards is basically a jump ball. I don’t see the rest of this season ending well or next season either.
B – to be fair, he’s pretty much only had enough time for one read. After that the O-line falls apart.
I wouldn’t consider going to the Rose Bowl a way to salvage the season. At this point there’s not a lot that will make up for the fact that the team has grossly underperformed. A Rose Bowl win would be nice, but another loss to USC would be horrendous.
Unless Beanie comes back this team will not win a national title next year, just too many starters they would have to replace, so you can forget about that. Any season where you beat Michigan and win a BCS bowl game is a successful season in my book, even if Michigan is down and we had hoped to win it all. Still though, I think OSU would get beat again by USC, not as bad because we are a different team but still beat. I would much rather OSU play in the Capital One bowl, and beat a pretty good SEC team (Georgia maybe?). That would prove to the country and to themselves that they can beat an SEC team and they would regain a lot of the confidence they have lost the past couple of years
I guess if anything, we’re all now Penn State fans…
All game long against Penn State I kept screaming for them to put Boeckman in and I still think they should. If they want to rebuild the confidence of Pryor that was shattered last Saturday when two plays he made cost them the game (say what you want about the O-Line, but that pick was one of the worst I’ve ever seen especially considering it came with 30 seconds left and on 2nd down and with three PSU defenders down there). So I say bring back the QB that took them to the National Title game last year (how soon we forget) and start a time share back there ala Chris Leak and Tim Tebow or ala Boeckman and Pryor the one drive that was moderately successful against USC. They’ve failed to score a TD on offense in three games now and that just doesn’t cut it for the Buckeyes. Even the title team in 2002 which had an offense that can only be described as anemic thinks this team can’t move the ball.
MadCow – I understand where you’re coming from, but Boeckman would have been eaten alive by Penn State’s defense who was in the backfield nearly every play. While he made a couple of questionable decisions, Pryor’s ability to scramble and avoid pressure kept Ohio State in this game.
Madcow – While Pryor did throw the ball on a terrible decision, the play call was even worse. Why call for a deep pass when the kid hasn’t shown he can throw it? We were moving the ball just fine up until then, so keep going for the 10 yd passes and get us closer. No need to take a shot deep downfield, especially with the way the line was blocking so far.
I disagree that Boeckman would have been eaten alive. The reason Penn State was in the backfield all the time is because they could put 8 guys in the box all day long and feel confident that even if Pryor tried to go deep on them (something that Boeckman did reasonably well with last year), he’d loft it up so much that even Joe Paterno could have come down from the press box and still made it to break up the pass. Boeckman could have eased the pressure a bit and maybe given Beanie a chance to find a hole. I know you’ll point to the USC game and how Boeckman got sacked like 20 times in a row, but that was because for some reason whenever he was in, they refused to run the ball so USC knew they could blitz on every down and never get burned.
As for the play call on the pick, couldn’t agree with you any more. They were moving the ball fine and Pryor looked okay, but they set him up to fail with that last call. Just embarrassing. Which brings me to my main point, Jim Tressel shouldn’t be calling the plays on offense anymore. A Dispatch columnist wrote a piece on this in Thursday’s paper and I think its right on point. They seem so predictable this year and when the O-Line’s playing like its playing right now, predictability is a death knell for the offense. Hence there three games this season with no offensive TDs. For goodness sake’s lets run a draw play just once!