Saturday, September 27, 2008

Buckeyes 34, Golden Gophers 21

Now that looked like a team that showed up to play...for the most part.

The Good
Offense
When your starting quarterback only throws 13 passes, you must be doing something right. Terrelle Pryor showed why he was the top recruit in the country, running for 97 yards on just 8 carries. Beanie needed only 14 carries to get 105 yards. Dan Herron chipped in for another 51 yards. It was nice to see Brian Robiskie again. Someone must have gotten him the message that he needed to make himself noticeable if he plans on getting drafted. (Or maybe he saw my question of the week.) The offense also had some bona fide highlights. Beanie hurdling that defender was pretty sweet. I absolutely loved when Pryor got to the sideline and lowered his shoulder to knock a defender to the ground before he went out of bounds. Robiskie's second TD grab was pretty impressive.

Defense
Speaking of players showing up again...it was nice to see Laurinaitis have a big game. The defense was actually able to get some pressure on Weber, and come up with some tackles for a loss. We haven't seen enough of that from the defense yet. I don't care who the opponent is, if you allow only 80 rushing yards, you've done pretty well. Malcolm Jenkins had a pretty solid game, as did Ross Homan and Curtis Terry. Nathan Williams didn't show up with a lot of big numbers in the stats, but I liked what I saw from him.

The Bad
I've found this year that it's easier to group all of the bad together instead of dividing it between the offense and defense. This wasn't a horrible thing, but I wouldn't have minded a little more variety on first down. The Buckeyes threw (to the tight end!) on the first play of the game. After that, on nearly every first down for at least the rest of the first half, the Buckeyes ran the ball right behind the center. There were a few times when the defense could have done a much better job of containing the runner or receiver. In the first half, the Buckeyes once again settled for field goals. Granted, they got away with it, but it would be nice to see them put an opponent away more definitively.

The Ugly
Penalties. Frankly, that's all I need to say about that. Sure, some of the penalties were questionable, but 10 penalties for 90 yards is unacceptable. As far as I'm concerned, only one other thing goes here: Beanie's fumble. It was a good play by the defender, no question about it, particularly since Beanie was more or less tied up. Still, that's the kind of thing that can swing momentum.

Under the Radar Player of the Game
In a game like this, it's not easy to pick an Under the Radar player of the game, simply because there was no play that turned the tide. But, in this case, it is relatively easy. When the offense can rack up nearly 300 yards rushing, that means the offensive line did its job. I've been critical of the offensive line so far this year, so I feel I should recognize the guys up front for a job well done in this game.

I will not be able to catch the next two games, so I would like to enlist your help. For the Wisconsin and Purdue games, perhaps you could e-mail your comments about the game to me, and I can compile and post them here. If you want, send me your thoughts and let me know who you think is the UtR player of the game.

4 comments:

neslagle said...

Great write up - following are stats I will post to my web site:
OHIO STATE 34
MINNESOTA 23

Pryor runs for 97 yards and 2 TD's on 8 carries. Breaks Freshman QB record by Art Schlichter of 70 yards in 1978 and season record of 4 TD passes with his 5th.
Pryor is 8-13 passing for 70 yards and one TD
Pryor has only one turnover this season - a Hail Mary pass at end of 1st half vs Troy.
Beanie Wells returns and gains 106 yards on 14 carries and Daniel Herron adds 50 yards on 10 carries.
Robinski catches 8 passes for 90 yards and 2 TD's
Minnesota scored last 14 points of game against OSU 2nd string defense in last 8 minutes of game after OSU led 34-6.
3 of top 10 and 6 of top 25 teams were defeated this weekend by unranked opponents. 1st time #1 team (USC) was beat by an unranked team since 1990.

DIV 1 QB RANKINGS - Pryor is 148.62 for 30th if enough attempts one spot ahead of Tebow. Clarke, Penn St 11th at 168.33, Sanchez, USC 15th at 162.94 and Boeckman 75h at 121.53. Pryor's 292 yards rushing good for 75th best for all backs. Ringer, Mich St is 2nd with 857 yards.

Sean Filmore said...

Pryor is mesmerizing - I really believe he will modernize the program and take us to the 21st century. He is smooth I can't even fathom how could he will be in 2009 and 2010 with mroe experience. I truly believe he could be the best player to come to OSU since Archie. Plus Beanie just makes all the difference. I don't think we would have beat USC with him, but he's just amazing. He'll leave this year so it'll be hard to measure hima gainst Archie or Eddie or Byars, but he might be the most talented from a skills perspective. He will be a horse in the NFL for a decade or so.

Sean Filmore said...

Obviously, it's early Monday - I meant to say Terrelle is so smooth, I can't even fathom how good he is going to be in 09 or 10 with more experience.

Gone with the Schwind said...

Good stats, Nelson.

The Buckeyes may not have beaten USC with Beanie, but he sure would have made play-action passes more possible and kept some heat off of Boeckman. Pryor has already shown improvement in two games as a starter, and he is as impressive as any Buckeye I've seen recently.