Has an OSU peaked?

[BlindRef]

I like the suckeye fans on this board for the most part. But I do have an honest question. Is this is as good as OSU can be? They have had great success in the conference, and I have no room to talk shit, but I've been where OSU fan is. After the USC game a couple years ago it occurred to me that under the current structure and the current administration Michigan won't be able to compete with the likes of USC, Florida and LSU.

Right now, after both teams suffered humiliating loses, I like where Michigan is right now more than OSU. Maybe OSU will beat us, they probably will and should, but we have nothing but potential, I don't know if OSU can get any better.

[PSUFAN]

Last year at this time, one wondered if UM would finish over .500, right? I mean basically, Oregon came in and walloped them - in Ann Arbor.

OSU lost to a really good USC team in LA. In my view, OSU is still the team to beat in the conference, as little as it might seem that way today.

[Goober McTuber]

tOSU can definitely be better. They will be better next year, assuming they get Pryor some experience this year. Their QB is the suck.

[Mr T]

OSU lost to a really good USC team in LA. In my view, OSU is still the team to beat in the conference, as little as it might seem that way today.

I agree. Everyone outside of Big 10/Buckeye homers saw USC taking this one by two touchdowns or more.

The game this Saturday could define the rest of the season for OSU. Troy has the ability to scare and possibly beat the buckeyes. If OSU doesnt take care of business, this could turn into a nightmare of a season.

[TheJON]

The question I have is....

Is Tressel just an overrated coach?

Think about it....

Yeah, he's had success against Michigan but outside the conference he's gotten it handed to him quite a bit.

Take away that bullshit pass interference call that only a Buckeye fan would agree was a good call and Tressel's big game performances have been mediocre.

Maybe his success over Michigan has had more to do with Lloyd Carr not being a great big game coach than Tressel being one. Possible. Who knows.

I think him and Mack Brown are both similar coaches. They've both been blessed with incredible talent, but neither has overperformed. I think they're quality coaches. Just not great ones. Put them at a program like Wisconsin or Iowa and I bet they don't do any better than 7-5 or 8-4 in most years. I think there are at least a dozen coaches out there I'd rather have coaching my team than Mack or Tress. Fact of the matter is, you give just about anyone the talent these guys have had and they'll consistently win 10-11 games, especially in the Big-10.

[M Club]

i agree with quite a bit with jon here. i mentioned in another thread that osu's recent run has coincided with hardly any competition in the big ten and the worst stretch of michigan football in the last 50 years. tressel's bcs victories consist of a very impressive win against miami as well as a couple against teams who weren't exactly elite competition [ksu and notre dame]. he's taken very good care of that program, but the astronomical winning percentage owes a lot to the stars aligning perfectly. take 2003: michigan beats osu to win the big ten. their reward is to get bum-raped by usc while osu plays a weak kstate team in the fiesta just so tressel gets another bcs victory.

i don't know how much pryor's going to help the cause, either. assuming he turns into vince young, they're still going to be using the same fruitless schemes against teams that don't mistake football for rugby. boeckman's obviously no good, but troy smith is about as good as it gets, and we saw how that went.

[L45B]

Take away that bullshit pass interference call that only a Buckeye fan would agree was a good call...

You mean the one that wasn't called on Miami right before regulation that would have sealed the game for tOSU? Nice try though.

Great coaches adapt and change when the things that worked before don't work anymore. Most reasonable Buckeye fans would agree that Tressel has evolved the program since the Cooper days and is overall a good fit to be head coach. But if Saturday wasn't a freaking wake-up call for him to re-evaluate his coaching staff, then I don't know if he'll ever change.

Mclub, you bring up some good comparisons and the scary thing for me is that Tressel appears to be just too stubborn and set in his ways to make the necessary changes to take this program back to elite status. Part of me understands the lofty and somewhat unreasonable expectations that many Buckeye fans have for him every season, because in a way he may have set the bar too high for himself (by Columbus standards) by winning the NC in just his second season. On the other hand, I also sense that he is growing satisfied with winning conference championships. In a way, it's almost as if he's saying: "Hey, what do you guys want from me? Before I came here, you weren't winning the Big Ten, you weren't beating Michigan. Now we are. So it's gonna be my way." I just don't feel the drive from him to win the marquee games and it obviously has shown in the past three seasons.

At least one bright spot is that our recruiting hasn't taken any hits from the results on the field, in fact it's been pretty stellar . Which would be my argument that tOSU is still in a better position compared to Michigan for the near future. The cupboard is pretty bare in Ann Arbor (more than I thought at the beginning of the season), and no matter how great RichRod's offensive schemes are, he may not have enough time to get things right. Top tier talent like a Terrelle Pryor can always make up for the shortcomings of an average gameday playcaller (which Tressel seems to be)-- Exhibit A being Mack Brown with Vince Young. And we have more guys like him coming in. But in my opinion, for tOSU to be able to compete with the big boys, Tressel needs to bring in some innovative minds on both sides of the ball. And I don't see that happening any time soon unfortunately.

[M Club]

the thing with ohio state's recruiting is that they're pulling in the same four- and five-star prospects he's had the past few years. look at all the press his o line recruits have gotten. everyone ohhs and ahhs because they all weigh 450 lbs and could use an opponent's entire defensive line for a chair, but those are the same slow fuckers the entire sec keeps running past on their way to smith/boeckman/pryor/herbstreit/whoever tressel throws out there.

as far as michigan is concerned, tressel will probably get the "better" recruits, but dickrod's system of evaluation doesn't seem to align with that of rivals or scouts. i think the rivalry will be back to where it should within the next few years [splitting wins rather than taking turns dominating entire eras].

[PSUFAN]

From where I'm sitting Tressel is a good coach. I completely disagree with this:

Take away that bullshit pass interference call that only a Buckeye fan would agree was a good call and Tressel's big game performances have been mediocre.

I think the call was a good one, and the Buckeye staff put on a coaching clinic in that game overall.

The Buckeyes perform well against Michigan under Tressel, and even when the teams seem a bit reduced, that's always a big game.

I think OSU gets a lot of attention, and when they don't sail to MNCs people think they have failed...but (thank goodness from a fan's perspective) it's just not that easy to win a championship.

The Bucks lost to Texas in 2005, Florida in 2006, and LSU in 2007 - all three of those opponents won championships in those seasons. They were all three excellent teams.

OSU is continuing to kick ass on the recruiting trail. I think Pryor is really going to be something special...and when the Buckeyes have an offense rolling with him, watch out, because the other aspects of the team seem pretty solid to me, with a lot of talent and depth ready to slide in.

[TheJON]

Part of the reason I question just how good Tressel is is because of that 2006 loss to Florida. He didn't do a good enough job of keeping his players focused on the task at hand as opposed to celebrating individual awards. I truly believe that is what lost them the game.

I saw Florida in the Outback Bowl the year before and Ohio State in person in 2006 and there is no way in fuck that Florida team was faster or more physical but it sure didn't look like it in the BCS Championship game. I know there were a few new players on UF (ie Tebow, Harvin), but the majority of the team were players I have seen in person (some twice, as I saw Florida in the 2004 Outback Bowl as well against Iowa).

Play that game a week after the season and Ohio State would have killed them. They had better talent. Watching both teams in person, there is no doubt in my mind about that.

[PSUFAN]

I also sense that he is growing satisfied with winning conference championships. In a way, it's almost as if he's saying: "Hey, what do you guys want from me? Before I came here, you weren't winning the Big Ten, you weren't beating Michigan. Now we are. So it's gonna be my way." I just don't feel the drive from him to win the marquee games and it obviously has shown in the past three seasons.

I think that winning the Big 10 is an honorable thing to be focused on. It's still rare to go through conference unblemished. If OSU wasn't winning the conference, then by and large they wouldn't be in the MNC picture anyway.

I think JT's calm demeanor is an asset for the team...it certainly was in the MNC they won on '02. I can definitely see the case you're making for OC and DC upgrades.

OSU has indeed lost the past few "big" games they've played OOC...those are not easy games to win.

[L45B]

I agree with your entire post, PSU. And winning those last three *big* games-- any one of them-- is a difficult task, especially given that two of them were played on the other team's home turf. But tOSU didn't compete in any of the three. That's my main concern.

[peter dragon]

i dont mind losing games, hell every week 50% of the teams lose, it happens and when you play teams on their home turf the chances of losing goes up.. its simple logic.. however, i dont see Ohio State as getting better, and learning from these losses. we still can defend the spread, and the defense seems to make little adjustments coming out of the locker room at the half. if you remember that was a main criticism of the cooper error.. sometimes you have to make those adjustments, as the punt might be the most important play in football, the TD wins games and 3 points against USC will never win the game.. no matter where that game is played..

[Bobby42]

Beanie won't play for Saturday's game with Troy.

[M Club]

however, i dont see Ohio State as getting better, and learning from these losses. we still can defend the spread, and the defense seems to make little adjustments coming out of the locker room at the half. if you remember that was a main criticism of the cooper error.. sometimes you have to make those adjustments....

osu lost to three different teams running three different offenses. just saying.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Tressel needs to hire an offensive coordinator (Jim Bollman is not very good) and perhaps a defensive coordinator (Heacock is OK, but the loss of Mark Dantonio was huge). Look for changes after this season.

From an unbiased outsider's viewpoint, I agree. They always have the athletes to compete with anybody in the country, they're just not being used to their full potential it seems.

By the way, "an OSU." That's an, uh, interesting.

[SoCalTrjn]

As bad as Michigan was last year, they still beat CUMs Gaytors and they heisman winner Tebow in a game in Florida at the end of the year.

OSU can and will get better, a team with a lot of great players cant play better than their QB and OSUs QB was rattled last week, he had the same look that Rudy Carpenter had vs USC the year before, he was hit a bunch and was looking for where the next hit was coming from instead of down field at the DBs. Last year Booty breaks his finger, tries to stay in the game and throws something like 6 interceptions that lead USC to losing a game where they only gave up 4 or 5 first downs and just one drive of more than 6 plays.
Tressell is a good coach, they still get elite athletes they just ran in to a program that gets up big for big games.

[peter dragon]

however, i dont see Ohio State as getting better, and learning from these losses. we still can defend the spread, and the defense seems to make little adjustments coming out of the locker room at the half. if you remember that was a main criticism of the cooper error.. sometimes you have to make those adjustments....

osu lost to three different teams running three different offenses. just saying.

i understand that.. thats why i said we make poor half time decisons.. i didnt want to quantify it by saying only against the spread.. but against everyone.. very poor halftime adjustments.

oh and

[BlindRef]

Tressel needs to hire an offensive coordinator (Jim Bollman is not very good) and perhaps a defensive coordinator (Heacock is OK, but the loss of Mark Dantonio was huge). Look for changes after this season.

From an unbiased outsider's viewpoint, I agree. They always have the athletes to compete with anybody in the country, they're just not being used to their full potential it seems.

By the way, "an OSU." That's an, uh, interesting.

Yep...there are 13 State Universities in Ohio

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

yeah, so?