The Downgrade

How much playing time did Bauserman play for OSU? Would Pryor playing the whole game really affected the outcome?

EDITED: I couldn't remember how to spell his name. Now fixed.

I agree that the Tressel is Carr comparison is definitely too hasty considering OSU has had a share of the past 4 Big Ten titles.

As long as you recover a blocked field goal behind the line of scrimmage, it's fair game for the offense. If it's fourth down, they need to advance it past the first down marker. If it's 1st down (as it was for Northern Iowa), it's basically nothing more than a wasted down, which typically ends the half/game.

Brian, it does seem confusing in the post Leon-"Don't touch the dam* ball!"-Lett era, but this is a diff case. It was 1st and 10 when UNI tried their first field goal and UNI recovered it with the ball never going past the line of scrimmage. Thus, it was second down for UNI. If a) the ball went past the line of scrimmage, b) Iowa would have successfully covered it, or c) it was 4th down, the game would have been over.

This is akin to the situation more people are probably familiar with -- when people say you should try your last-minute field goal on 3rd down (as opposed to 4th down), so if there is a bad snap, you can just jump on it and try it again.

Bauserman went 3-for-5 for 36 yards, was sacked once and ran once. He was only in for one drive (4:49 off the clock), which ended with a successful field goal. So, he didn't drastically downgrade the production of the OSU offense by any means.

Illinois has reached their ceiling. Zook has infused that team with talent, but he's a terrible coach. How he could lose to a completely rebuilding Mizzou squad when he has a loaded offense with a senior QB is beyond me. Looks like their new OC hire isn't looking good so far. Considering that we play Illinois on the road, glad to see they're in just as much disarray as Oregon.

After seeing the highlights from their game on Saturday I like our chances a whole lot more than I did earlier.

What an ending. It was really funny, because I was talking with my dad (OSU alum and fan) and we were both worried for the Big 10. At one point during the second half I said to him, imagine if this potential FCS upset of a ranked Big 10 team is dashed the way that a prior one was cemented: a blocked FG. Lo and behold, UNI started to make its last-minute drive. I jumped when I saw that the first attempt was blocked. But then they were reporting that UNI could get a second chance. I said, so much for that, but maybe they'll block it again? My dad was like, no way, a blocked FG is rare as it is, but two in a row? We were both amused by that second block.

Cool story, Hansel!

Shock, I'm not saying that he's going to move the ball as well as Pryor, but rather that you can't blame only scoring 31 against Navy to Pryor sitting out a drive. It cost the Buckeyes a maximum of 4 points.

Compared to Pryor, I think the guy sucks, and if he had to play for an extended period, rather than just a scripted series, the Buckeyes would be doomed.

by all means fire his ass and bring back Coop.

I was about 2-3 hours away from posting a Diary on how the big 10 teams fared with many of the same links and info.

Crap.

Maybe I will see if AAnews.com wants it.

And I'm surprised to not see it discussed here - is that they were completely looking ahead to the USC game this week. It does not by any means *excuse* the extent of their performance against Navy, but it very well may provide an explanation for it.

Brian posted the results of recent Michigan games against MAC-ish teams, and there was a 34-26 victory over a mediocre Ball State team in there, which was a situation where Carr treated the game damn near like a bye week. (In fact, it wasn't that long ago - there's probably a UFR of the game somewhere on the intertubes, with all of Brian's analysis).

While it's *VERY LIKELY* that the Navy game is an indicator that OSU is simply not as good as most of us thought they were, it is possible that they will prove to be as good as we thought; they may have just completely overlooked Navy.

Yeah, OSU played pretty poorly, but Navy isn't a bad team.

The game was a thing of beauty; you even had noise. Don't want to sound like a naysayer, but before we jump on the bandwagon together, I'd like to wait one more week. Next week should tell us tons. The WMU game was a perfect storm of sorts. Hype from the first game of the season, the RichRod issues, new stadium (huge difference from last year). If we win next week, I could easily see at least eight wins, barring injury, with an outside of nine in the W column. Don't see us getting by PSU or OSU no matter, unless they should have their QB's go down. We are thin on D and young on most skill positions.

Without being captain obvious, it was so nice having a QB with accuracy after last year's disaster. Speed kills, and do we ever have some. Go Blue!

IIRC, we got up to a large and comfortable lead, and then Carr pulled the first- and maybe-second stringers in the 4th Q so as not to pile it on his good buddy Hoke, and he had to put the first stringers back in late in the game to preserve the victory. I thought Lloyd was a damn good coach, but one thing that really bugged me was his propensity to take the foot off the pedal too early in the games when we had a lead. If we got behind by more than a touchdown, then his football personality changed completely on offense to one of aggressive, almost reckless abandon, and with the talent we usually had he pulled his ass out of the fire many times.

Seeing OSU struggle against Navy actually wasn't too shocking. Many times over the years, Tressel's teams have barely gotten by horrible teams. Their national championship team in 2002 went through that several times. And who could forget that game where they needed a 99 yard interception returned for a TD to beat a bad SDSU team by 3 points? As much as it pains me to admit it, that game against Navy means nothing. However, I'm very curious to see how they do against USC.

Illinois and Iowa were the most shocking to me. This was the year that the Illini were finally supposed to beat Missouri. But 37-9? Maybe our winning streak in Champaign won't be in as much danger as I thought. Iowa looked awful. They should have lost to UNI.

I saw something similar happen in a high school game last year, except it resulted in a touchdown. Dexter blocked a Chelsea field goal, but all the Dexter players backed away from the ball, just as the Iowa players did; an alert Chelsea player picked up the ball and ran the 20-some yards to the end zone. The refs had to confer to talk about the call, but they got it right: Chelsea got the touchdown.

That's why I know that rule now.

Not sure if anyone has seen the shoes that the tennis chick was wearing, but can you imagine those shoes with blue instead of pink and cleats on the bottom!!! Talk about AMaizing shoes!!! Also, not sure if the link works or not, but thought I would try anyway

http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/blog/busted_racquet/post/Game-Point-Oudin-s-...

I'd say that Notre Dame's stock rose considerably. They could be a great team from what I saw.

Looks like Ohio State's "reload" on offense this year isn't as automatic as is usually the case. With only four starters back on offense, I think they will have trouble scoring against the better teams and may be in for a sub=par year.

Navy will likely go on to win a lot of games this year. They were 8-5 last year and won a bowl game... I could ask how that compares to UM but won't. ;-)

Besides... while I'll grant you that UM looked good, especially your new QB, I would temper the enthusiasm until after the ND game... since, as good as UM looked (and they did look very good), I think ND may have looked even better with an experienced QB.

As I do with all B10 teams playing out of conference I want you to win this Saturday so quit obsessing about us and worry about how to stop that ND offense!

There will be time enough to worry about Mr. Pryor and the Sweater vest... but you are no good to us as a crappy 3 win team... so get focused Michigan people as I can assure you we are getting focused on those super human dudes from Southern California.

Peace.

Too early to truly upgrade or downgrade the Bucks. Tressel kicks the field goal to go up 18 and the game is done IMO.

Don't forget, the Buckeyes never trailed and lead by as many as 15 with 6:00 to go in the 4th. It's not exactly like Navy is N. Iowa or any other FCS team.

I do, however, think, teams that can operate a run-based spread, ala Michigan, will implement some of these wrinkles against the Buckeyes.