2009 Ohio State Offseason Thread

[fisherjr33]

Some interesting articles on OSU Football as Spring Practice opens up.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content...Q.html?sid=101

http://www.cantonrep.com/opinion/col...ls-OSU-offense

Of interest...

-OSU may move to more Pistol and Single-Wing and possibly Wildcat-like formations to utilize Pryor's strengths and abilities.
-Look for less fullback/I-Form from the Buckeyes
-Stonebruner, as just about everyone expected, is moving to TE. The coaches hope to go to the TE more often this season...

[Thundercles]

Originally Posted by CincyBuck32

Like Lydell Ross?

Lydell wasn't necessarily too slow, although I'd loved for him to have better straight forward speed than he did, his issue was timing and vision... he had neither, never seen another running back run into the backs of his O-lineman as much as him.

Too bad he couldn't have had some of Maurice Halls abilities. Too bad Maurice Hall was always hurt too, he was a quick back.

[fisherjr33]

Spring Football Guide (with depth chart!) released...

http://ohiostatebuckeyes.com/fls/173...B_OEM_ID=17300

Offensive line is interesting and a little different from what many have thought of/projected on this board. Interesting that Shugarts doesn't appear at all. I don't see Sanzenbacher being a very effective outside receiver either, and Small continues to be considered the third option.

Offense

QB-Pryor
Bauserman

HB-Herron
Saine

FB-Martin
Georgiades

WR-Posey
Washington
Schwartz

WR-Sanzenbacher
Small
Thomas

TE-Ballard
DiLillo
Stonebruner

LT-Cordle
Kerr

LG-Browning
Blankenship

C-Brewster
Moses

RG-Boren
Smith

RT-Adams
Miller

Defense

DE-Gibson
Williams

DT-Worthington
Goebel

DT-Larimore
Denlinger

DE-Heywood
Rose

WLB-Homan
Rolle

MLB-Spitler
Sabino

SLB-Moeller
Jackson

CB-Chekwa
Torrence

FS-Russell
Gant

SS-Coleman
Hines

CB-Amos
Howard

[buckeyenation]

Originally Posted by shakeyjake448

Just out of curiosity, did any of you Ohio State fans graduate from there?

I would wager that a much higher percentage of Ohio State fans graduated from OSU than Michigan fans who even would get accepted at UM.

I think that makes sense; that is to say, UM has an extremely large base of fans who don't have the right stuff to push a garbage cart around the campus.

[shakeyjake448]

Originally Posted by buckeyenation

I would wager that a much higher percentage of Ohio State fans graduated from OSU than Michigan fans who even would get accepted at UM.

I think that makes sense; that is to say, UM has an extremely large base of fans who don't have the right stuff to push a garbage cart around the campus.

Yeah maybe, but I'm sure both schools have plenty of fans who fit that description though. It's not really a big deal, I just noticed that a lot of the UofM fans on here went there, but wasn't sure who went to OSU. Now I know

[jayday2230]

Originally Posted by fisherjr33

Some interesting articles on OSU Football as Spring Practice opens up.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content...Q.html?sid=101

http://www.cantonrep.com/opinion/col...ls-OSU-offense

Of interest...

-OSU may move to more Pistol and Single-Wing and possibly Wildcat-like formations to utilize Pryor's strengths and abilities.
-Look for less fullback/I-Form from the Buckeyes
-Stonebruner, as just about everyone expected, is moving to TE. The coaches hope to go to the TE more often this season...

In my Ohio State dynasty, I moved him to TE also and he was a beast. Too fast for LB's and too big for DB's... He won the Heisman his junior year. Haha.

[Sportsbuck]

Originally Posted by fisherjr33

Offensive line is interesting and a little different from what many have thought of/projected on this board. Interesting that Shugarts doesn't appear at all. I don't see Sanzenbacher being a very effective outside receiver either, and Small continues to be considered the third option.

Injuries are playing a part in the oline, with Shugarts being held out. Lawrence Wilson is in the same boat.

Sanzo is a slot, BTW. I think the first WR listing is for split ends and the second is for slot guys becasue thats what Ray, Sanzo, and Thomas play.

I really hope we use Thomas in a Percy Harvin type role though..

[fisherjr33]

Originally Posted by Sportsbuck

Injuries are playing a part in the oline, with Shugarts being held out. Lawrence Wilson is in the same boat.

Sanzo is a slot, BTW. I think the first WR listing is for split ends and the second is for slot guys becasue thats what Ray, Sanzo, and Thomas play.

I really hope we use Thomas in a Percy Harvin type role though..

If that's true then I'm pretty hopeful for our WR corps. Posey/Washington on the outside with Sanzo/Small and Thomas as the slot/inside receivers has the potential to be pretty nasty. It's all about application at that point.

On the line I guess we can hope that Browning is a significantly better guard than he was a tackle. With the lineup they show (Cordle-Browning-Brewster-Boren-Adams) I would think for rushing purposes we may become significantly more right-handed than we were in years past.

On defense there aren't any real surprises but I see the starting LB corps as being significantly less physical/nasty than I would hope it to be. Moeller was playing star last year and Homan for me left a lot to be desired, especially during the Wisconsin game. None of those three strike me as downhill defenders who will attack the LOS, leading me to believe our defense will continue to be relatively soft and predictable against top competition (read; USC game).

On another note, Rivals.com has an article out ranking the Big Ten football coaches. Tressell evidently ranks behind RRod, which I find laughable.

http://collegefootball.rivals.com/co...asp?CID=932723

[Swedish Chef]

I'm looking forward to the annual Austin Spitler personal foul call in this year's spring game.

[Sportsbuck]

What someone else put together but I think perfectly explains our big game struggles..

I pulled this from the Big Ten discussion thread, but I figured I put enough work into this that it warranted it's own thread.


Quote:
Originally Posted by blueinfla
However, you could make a claim the Tressel is further down the list because he has the best talent in the conference and despite being able to win in a very down Big10 conference, what else has he done? He's been bringing in top 10 talent every year, but what does he have to show for it? One MNC with players he inherited? Two other MNC game appearances where his team forgot to show up? I don't agree with the list, but I, at least, can see where the author was coming from.

This arguement (made many times by various fans of other schools) has always tempted me to go back and look at the recruiting classes and analyze what exactly happened.

My hypothesis is that several years of recruiting classes not panning out (in particular the '03 class) really hurt Ohio State's depth, so while we had top end talent to dominate the Big Ten, there wasn't much behind it which became obvious when we played teams with equal top end talent and depth to boot. I am certain that this is the case, but I have never taken the time to actually break it down, so now I will.

disclaimer: my categories are super hazy and I am having a hard time putting people into the did not contribute categories who were injuried, but I don't really want to debate why people did or did not contribute, I just want to look at how many people in each class made solid contributions to the program, also, I am not going to count special teams contributions, I love guys like Shaun Lane to death for being true Buckeyes through and through, but you don't recruit people to come to Ohio State to play special teams


2002 Class (24)

Stars (5): Bobby Carpenter, A.J. Hawk, Santonio Holmes, Nick Mangold, Troy Smith

Solid Contributors(7): Doug Datish, TJ Downing, Quinn Pitcock, Nate Salley, Rob Sims, Tyler Everett, Brandon Mitchell

Contributors that didn't quite pan out (7): Roy Hall, Mike Kudla, Joel Penton, Jay Richardson, Tim Schafer, Stan White, Justin Zwick

Little or No Contributions (4): R.J. Coleman, Mike D'Andrea, Michael Roberts, E.J. Underwood

No Category (1): Clarett

I think it's pretty clear that the 2002 class carried the team for as long as they were on campus. What comes after is where the trouble starts.

2003 Class (15)

Stars (1): Anthony Gonzales

Solid Contributors (5): Donte Whitner, Ashton Youboty, Kirk Barton, Todd Boeckman, David Patterson

Little or No Contributions (9): Sian Cotton, Marcel Frost, Ira Guilford, Dareus Hiley, Louis Irizarry, Devin Jordan, Curt Lukens, Brandon Maupin, Reggie Smith

I think that the 2003 class really hurt us bad, in 2006 and 2007 this class would have been Juniors and Seniors. The amount of non contributors in this class clearly hurt our depth and experience when in came time to play in big games after the '02 class was gone.

2004 Class (24)

Stars (1): Ted Ginn

Solid Contributors (6): Marcus Freeman, Vernon Gholston, Rory Nicol, Antonio Pittman, Steve Rehring, A.J. Trapasso

Contributors that didn't quite pan out (5): Dionte Johnson, Ben Person, Brandon Smith, Curtis Terry, Nader Abdallah

Little or No Contributions (12): Alex Barrow, Albert Dukes, Eric Haw, Chad Hoobler, Dennis Kenedy, Shaun Lane, Devon Lyons, Kyle Mitchum, Nick Patterson, Jon Skinner, Brandon Underwood, Sirjo Welch

Another class that had an abnormally large number of non contributors.


2005 Class (18)

Stars (2): Malcolm Jenkins, James Laurinaitis

Solid Contributors (8): Alex Boone, Jim Cordle, Brian Hartline, Todd Denlinger, Brian Robiskie, Lawrence Wilson, Doug Worthington, Donald Washington

Contributors that didn't quite pan out (2): Jamario O'Neal, Maurice Wells

Little or No Contributions (3): Freddie Lennix, Rob Schoenhoft, Ryan Williams

Give them one more year (2): Austin Spitler, Andre Amos, Anderson Russel

In '05 we finally came out of our slump and started having more contributors than non contributors again, and it was this class that formed the core group that took us to four Big Ten championships but a 1-3 bowl record.

It is too early to judge a lot of the players in the classes beyond 2005, but I think it is pretty clear that you don't have to look much further than the 2003 and 2004 recruiting classes to understand Ohio State's troubles in big games recently. I would also say that the arguement that we bring in top ten talent every year is also shot down by an analysis of the 2003 and 2004 classes.

Luckily, we are breaking out of the void that the '03 and '04 classes left on our depth chart and things are only going to get better. And by the way, only at a place like Ohio State can you say that things are only going to get better after going 33-6 in the past three season. It's great to be a Buckeye!

http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/b...-letdowns.html

[Swedish Chef]

Gosh, so many names there.

[jtothero]

Give Lawrence Wilson another year as well. Also, Gholston not considered a star? He was a monster.

[RandomHero]

Originally Posted by jtothero

Give Lawrence Wilson another year as well. Also, Gholston not considered a star? He was a monster.

He wasn't consistent enough to be a star. He had all the tools and the physical gifts but he just was nowhere to be found on too many downs.

Ask the New York Jets.

[ShotgunIPro]

Originally Posted by RandomHero

He wasn't consistent enough to be a star. He had all the tools and the physical gifts but he just was nowhere to be found on too many downs.

Ask the New York Jets.

14 sacks in a single season..Team Record.Who give a shit about pros? Whitner was a beast as well.

Regarding the rest of the topic, It is a sound statement,but you also have to factor in the realism of sweatervest being out coached in some big games as well. There is no excuse in getting destroyed in almost every recent big game. 06 OSU was a very stout team..Florida destroyed them..LSU physically abused them. USC embarrassed them. I heard a lot of OSU fans who were "happy" that they "barely" lost to Texas.

None of those teams were undefeated at the end of the season. The fact that they continue to recruit slow,huge lineman is fine for the big ten. When you play swamp area teams(or usc),and the dt's are manfucking every olineman it's a different story.

Terrelle Pryor is a stud,but we don't even know who USC's qb is and they will be favored to win in columbus.

[jtothero]

Originally Posted by ShotgunIPro

Regarding the rest of the topic, It is a sound statement,but you also have to factor in the realism of sweatervest being out coached in some big games as well. There is no excuse in getting destroyed in almost every recent big game. 06 OSU was a very stout team..Florida destroyed them..LSU physically abused them. USC embarrassed them. I heard a lot of OSU fans who were "happy" that they "barely" lost to Texas.

I wouldn't exactly say Tressel was "outcoached" in all of OSU's most recent losses.
-Against Florida his gameplan was shattered when Ginn went down since he was going to be utlizing him catching, running, and passing. There was no excuse for the complete meltdown after that though.
-I blame the players for the LSU loss. They made so many mental errors. Had they committed one less personal foul or roughing the kicker they would have been right in that game.
-I liked the gameplan for the Texas game. We probably should've won and it's not Tress's fault that Beanie went down.

[ShotgunIPro]

Originally Posted by jtothero

I wouldn't exactly say Tressel was "outcoached" in all of OSU's most recent losses.
-Against Florida his gameplan was shattered when Ginn went down since he was going to be utlizing him catching, running, and passing. There was no excuse for the complete meltdown after that though. No way you can convince me that there wasn't enough talent on the field to not get assasinated by 27,because of a WR.
-I blame the players for the LSU loss. They made so many mental errors. Had they committed one less personal foul or roughing the kicker they would have been right in that game. Better talent yes,overrated ohio state team yes. Their fault for being there? No. LSU did lose to Kentucky that year.Keep that in mind.
-I liked the gameplan for the Texas game. We probably should've won and it's not Tress's fault that Beanie went down.

If they keep losing big games(non big ten),then eventually it will be a given,that he is blowing big games,and there really isn't any other excuse.

[thurston38]

So many thoughts. I can say, on one hand, im embarrassed to lose in big games like we have. But on the other hand we have beaten tsun FIVE times in a row.
I understand the dillema that is at hand:
win against our hated rival;
or,
win the big, nationally televised game.

I do think our teams aren't as mean, aggressive, nasty, (or whatever you want to call it) as the 'swampland' teams.

I wish the tOSU fans I come in contact with were more humble though. I work in the western suburbs of Minneapolis, in a grocery store in Plymouth.

I know people in the pharmacy that talk to Mr. Laurinaitis, James' father.

Before the usc game, he said that we would win because "this was our year."

So was 96, 98, 06, whatever.
I guess I can say i'm happy to beat tsun five times in a row.
I just wish some things were different.
I hope our teams and coaches realize no one cares about us, and we are hated, mocked and disrespected.
I will always say this:
I am proud to be from Columbus, and I will be a Buckeye forever!

[Skeeter]

Originally Posted by RandomHero

He wasn't consistent enough to be a star. He had all the tools and the physical gifts but he just was nowhere to be found on too many downs.

Ask the New York Jets.

If you want to talk pros, ask Houston how Mario Willaims is working out for them. He was the punchline to every Reggie Bush joke his rookie season. D-Lineman just like WRs rarely make huge impacts their first year.

[Sportsbuck]

Against Florida, Tressel got outcoached. It seemed as though the team felt all it had to do was show up and they would be crowned champions, and Urban Meyer coached circles around the Buckeyes.

Against LSU, as hard as it is to admit, Tressel didn't get outcoached, the better team simply won. That LSU squad was loaded with NFL prospects, most of them seniors with tons of experience, meanwhile across the field you had an extremely young Buckeye squad with very little experience that probably shouldn't have been there.

USC... eh, I'm about 50-50. We didn't have Beanie and injuries abounded to key players along the lines, but we are Ohio State, we shouldn't be losing by 32 to anyone.

Given the amount of injuries suffered at the most important place in football (The trenches) and to the offense (Beanie, Robo) I'd say that Tressel and that staff did a pretty damn good job.

Sidenote - Did anyone else hear about the text Brewster sent Tressel at the end of the national championship game (Florida-OU)? Brewster said "That should be us"

[fisherjr33]

Tons of Spring Practice updates...

http://www.cleveland.com/buckeyeblog...thursdays.html

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content...1.html?sid=101

http://www.cleveland.com/buckeyeblog...haddeus_g.html

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content...A.html?sid=101

http://blog.dispatch.com/buckeyesblo...about_pr.shtml

I guess I didn't interpret the depth chart correctly. The line is most likely Adams/Miller-Boren-Brewster-Browning-Cordle from left to right, with Andy Miller really pushing Adams for the LT spot. Denlinger as the second TE in short yardage situations sounds good, but it means nothing if the middle of the line can't get push.

Ray Small evidently is getting more work with the first team, with Washington mostly working with the second team. Stoneburner seems to be the second string TE, and Adam Homan is getting work as the first string FB.