As always, watching the replay, especially these full games in 60 minutes without the mindless (*^ks babbling announcers, tells a very pointed story so that we can lose any illusions we may come into prior to posting. It pains me to see the fighting on the board.
Some of my observations, some of which you will disagree with, some of which you will agree with.
1. playcalling- Often the villain, honestly, the team had the right calls for the most part. One can complain about running too much when down 3 scores, but they did pass enough. Big complaint by me, running out of the pistol with TE's rather than Bench Mason is a joke. Too many losses or short gains, plus too often they asked Onwenu to get out there and he was very often the one that failed on the block. Lose that play or make it an RPO 90% of the time, same as a triple option is 90% of the time. Higdon did have gains at times from it going across the field, but it's so iffy (pistol runs to me honestly changed alot of our O, we spend time on gaining low amounts- at times- and put us in predictable pass mode on 3rd). Oh, on 3rd and X, it really, really helps to not have WR's and TE's constantly run X yards minus 3. A fast secondary stops you 2 yards short most times. I know we take what the D gives, but when you send out 3 or 4, ensure that a couple are flat out flying and the D will go with them, or you may have a wide open flyer too as a bonus. Otherwise, flooding it short ensures traffic jams.
2. Bitch about our supposed lack of athletes all you want, but Parris Campbell is a man among boys out there. Of course match-ups are everything. They exploited our weaknesses, which I'd add was being gassed. Way more plays then the D was used to, and we don't rotate beyond the front 4 and Gil/Ross. Watson was gassed half the game, and Metellus by game end certainly was. When scouts do the plus minus, those 2 guys are going to have this game as a red flag, sad to say. I think Watson can play next level, not start, and Metellus will be fine, just was asked to do a ton and by game end he was dead. Substitute with the back 7 too. Bush may be superman, but you can't count on the next guy to be that. Secondary wise only guy that is quite slow to me is Kinnel. Others were simply gassed.
3. I'd add there were big play drops by OSU that could have cost us more secondary wise.
4. We had plenty of 3 WR sets out there and threw to it. If I had to bitch, on long yardage needed plays, lining up 2 TE's to go with multiple WR's let OSU cover the two TE's with non-LB's. McKeon is not a WR, don't use him like one.
5. Gentry can work on his catching in the NFL, not sure staying here will help him another year, but boy, 3 of those were must have catches and not impossible ones either. Execution, execution, execution (the play, not him).
6. Don Brown and being stubborn. By god I wish he was! The damn zone accounted for at least 2 of those TD's where the guys tried passing off someone to someone else whom failed to realize till too late they needed to cover. The one near half's end was glaring, safety just watched him. STICK TO THE MAN, USE A NICKELBACK MORE OFTEN. And blitzing. We were great at it, loved Furbush last year doing it, and this year would have been nice to see Uche do it more on top of the down 4. Instead we stuck to 4 guys, whom OSU handled quite nicely. Wino would go wide most times and frankly was not himself, Gary was double/triple teamed, and freaking held, but the middle of the DT set did nothing at all. Again, why did we go against what we are? The LB covering the rb's failed, I'd rather see Haskins run for his life and find the open guy under duress rather than pick apart weakness. That was a gift for OSU.
7. Shea- Needs another year. I know he has great #s against the blitz, but he did get happy feet and often made the wrong decision. Throw the ball away, save the yardage and the hits on you. He was productive enough that they could have scored more no doubt, but he needs to embrace the pocket more than automatically look to run from it. OSU did well with delayed blitzes. Why did it work for them and not other teams? Cause their front 4, similar to one with at least 3 Nfl guys on it, Notre Dame, more than occupied our front 5 and we did less pass protection with backs/TE's in this one.
8. Milton has an arm. Not sure he can remotely read a D yet, but he's young. And to me, Nico is our best WR, much as DPJ is darn good, Nico is the beast there.
9. I want a nun, about 300 pounds, with a bat as her ruler, to hit every db's hand in practice that grabs an opposing jersey more than 5 yards down the field. On several occasions the db had the position, but was too busy grabbing to look back at a ball they may have been able to steal. That's all of them too. That's on the coaches, run it out of them. The one was a horsecrap call too, think it against Long or Hill, but they hardly touched the guy. OSU was grabbing too no doubt and got caught.
So, sorry if long, but summing up. We can beat OSU, the talent gap is not as bad as I feared, but we need to change policies with the secondary in substitution and using more real cb's, quit outsmarting ourselves, which I'm sure Brown is going to not sleep over for the next year .Be more aggressive on pass calls to ensure bigger yardage chunks. Recruiting big DT's would be nice, even more secondary speed. More hammer/anvil on running plays, less cute pistol with TE's at point of attack (JH over-rule Pep is my guess, or Mac, whomever). The game didn't go into true "bad" mode till punt block and realizing the D was gassed, and OSU was going to exploit it. Short of adding 4 top, top CB's though, we may have to realize winning 21-17 is less likely more than say 35-31. So do yourself the favor, watch the replay, you'll find good and bad.
Some of my observations, some of which you will disagree with, some of which you will agree with.
1. playcalling- Often the villain, honestly, the team had the right calls for the most part. One can complain about running too much when down 3 scores, but they did pass enough. Big complaint by me, running out of the pistol with TE's rather than Bench Mason is a joke. Too many losses or short gains, plus too often they asked Onwenu to get out there and he was very often the one that failed on the block. Lose that play or make it an RPO 90% of the time, same as a triple option is 90% of the time. Higdon did have gains at times from it going across the field, but it's so iffy (pistol runs to me honestly changed alot of our O, we spend time on gaining low amounts- at times- and put us in predictable pass mode on 3rd). Oh, on 3rd and X, it really, really helps to not have WR's and TE's constantly run X yards minus 3. A fast secondary stops you 2 yards short most times. I know we take what the D gives, but when you send out 3 or 4, ensure that a couple are flat out flying and the D will go with them, or you may have a wide open flyer too as a bonus. Otherwise, flooding it short ensures traffic jams.
2. Bitch about our supposed lack of athletes all you want, but Parris Campbell is a man among boys out there. Of course match-ups are everything. They exploited our weaknesses, which I'd add was being gassed. Way more plays then the D was used to, and we don't rotate beyond the front 4 and Gil/Ross. Watson was gassed half the game, and Metellus by game end certainly was. When scouts do the plus minus, those 2 guys are going to have this game as a red flag, sad to say. I think Watson can play next level, not start, and Metellus will be fine, just was asked to do a ton and by game end he was dead. Substitute with the back 7 too. Bush may be superman, but you can't count on the next guy to be that. Secondary wise only guy that is quite slow to me is Kinnel. Others were simply gassed.
3. I'd add there were big play drops by OSU that could have cost us more secondary wise.
4. We had plenty of 3 WR sets out there and threw to it. If I had to bitch, on long yardage needed plays, lining up 2 TE's to go with multiple WR's let OSU cover the two TE's with non-LB's. McKeon is not a WR, don't use him like one.
5. Gentry can work on his catching in the NFL, not sure staying here will help him another year, but boy, 3 of those were must have catches and not impossible ones either. Execution, execution, execution (the play, not him).
6. Don Brown and being stubborn. By god I wish he was! The damn zone accounted for at least 2 of those TD's where the guys tried passing off someone to someone else whom failed to realize till too late they needed to cover. The one near half's end was glaring, safety just watched him. STICK TO THE MAN, USE A NICKELBACK MORE OFTEN. And blitzing. We were great at it, loved Furbush last year doing it, and this year would have been nice to see Uche do it more on top of the down 4. Instead we stuck to 4 guys, whom OSU handled quite nicely. Wino would go wide most times and frankly was not himself, Gary was double/triple teamed, and freaking held, but the middle of the DT set did nothing at all. Again, why did we go against what we are? The LB covering the rb's failed, I'd rather see Haskins run for his life and find the open guy under duress rather than pick apart weakness. That was a gift for OSU.
7. Shea- Needs another year. I know he has great #s against the blitz, but he did get happy feet and often made the wrong decision. Throw the ball away, save the yardage and the hits on you. He was productive enough that they could have scored more no doubt, but he needs to embrace the pocket more than automatically look to run from it. OSU did well with delayed blitzes. Why did it work for them and not other teams? Cause their front 4, similar to one with at least 3 Nfl guys on it, Notre Dame, more than occupied our front 5 and we did less pass protection with backs/TE's in this one.
8. Milton has an arm. Not sure he can remotely read a D yet, but he's young. And to me, Nico is our best WR, much as DPJ is darn good, Nico is the beast there.
9. I want a nun, about 300 pounds, with a bat as her ruler, to hit every db's hand in practice that grabs an opposing jersey more than 5 yards down the field. On several occasions the db had the position, but was too busy grabbing to look back at a ball they may have been able to steal. That's all of them too. That's on the coaches, run it out of them. The one was a horsecrap call too, think it against Long or Hill, but they hardly touched the guy. OSU was grabbing too no doubt and got caught.
So, sorry if long, but summing up. We can beat OSU, the talent gap is not as bad as I feared, but we need to change policies with the secondary in substitution and using more real cb's, quit outsmarting ourselves, which I'm sure Brown is going to not sleep over for the next year .Be more aggressive on pass calls to ensure bigger yardage chunks. Recruiting big DT's would be nice, even more secondary speed. More hammer/anvil on running plays, less cute pistol with TE's at point of attack (JH over-rule Pep is my guess, or Mac, whomever). The game didn't go into true "bad" mode till punt block and realizing the D was gassed, and OSU was going to exploit it. Short of adding 4 top, top CB's though, we may have to realize winning 21-17 is less likely more than say 35-31. So do yourself the favor, watch the replay, you'll find good and bad.
