Get Your Jingoism On
AMERICA, JACK YEAH! (USA Football Photo)If you get a chance to see live football in July, you take it. Better yet if it features future Buckeyes. Throw in the fact that today’s game against Canada is for a gold medal and it’s icing (and not of the “here’s a free faceoff in our zone” variety).
The 1pm final of the IFAF World Junior Championship will be a battle between the tournament’s top seed in Canada, and the United States, the country that invented and perfected the sport. The name “International Federation of American Football” should provide a clue as to who might be favored, but the Canadians bring a surprising 7-5 all-time record against USA into the game (including three-straight wins, though those came in a defunct annual series taking place Super Bowl weekend and the talent level of those American teams was very meh).
With the game taking place in the shadow of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it’s only fitting that the inaugural Junior team roster is well-stocked. Future Buckeyes Storm Klein, a captain, and Jack Mewhort are part of the most talented national team roster to date and it’s shown in complete ass-kickings handed out to France (78-0) and Mexico (55-0) earlier in the week. Thanks in no small part to future Hokie David Wilson and his 327 yards and 7 TDs in those two games, of course.
Canada advanced to the championship after squeaking by Japan 35-31 earlier in the week. Before you spit out your coffee, consider that the Japanese have been playing American football since the 1930s (or about six decades before the Florida Gators). It was a pesky Japanese team that Team USA had to rally past to win the last World Cup of American Football, if you will. If only Reggie White had known this!
So count me in. I’ve got popcorn, plenty of sodas and some free time after taking care of what I needed to over the long holiday weekend. There’s only one problem: I don’t get Fox Sports College. Unless you have DIRECTTV or subscribe to a sports tier, chances are you don’t either. Thankfully, the games will be streamed over the tubes, and the announcers are supposed to be fantastic:
If by chance you are available on Sunday to watch the championship game, I highly recommend you tune in. The play-by-play commentators are bad. I mean Best In Show bad. So bad they actually started openly apologizing at one point. It’s really something to witness.
Jack looks like a mean dude. Go Titans! Go Bucks. Go USA.
Good to see a Toledoan and future Buckeye representing America so proudly. Good job J.M.!
Japan has a greater football dynasty than the gators. I vote the next city we drop the H-bomb on is Gainesville. Who’s with me!
You say “next” as though we already dropped an H-bomb on a city. We dropped two atomic bombs, which of course are fission devices and not fusion devices like hydrogen bombs. If you’re going to advocate for the mass destruction of an American city, at least get your nuclear devices correct.
Thanks for clearing that up because everyone here was dumbfounded by what Kyle said.
Nice day for the Bucks in waiting. Storm Klein took an INT to the house on the second play from scrimmage.
Plus, can’t help but love this sounder from Mr. Mewhort: “I got to play the game I love for my country. This was awesome.”
“If we can make (Stoneburner and Ballard) threats, that’s going to take a little bit of pressure off those younger (receivers),” Tressel said. “Football is a game of pressure, and if everybody out there is a threat to catch it, that puts more pressure on the defense.”- Jim Tressel
So why the hell did we only get 11 catches out of tight ends last year? And no TE has caught more than 18 since 2003? Did Tress just figure this out? Why throw to the TE’s now? Sometimes I have to scratch my head.
Our OL has blocked so poorly in Pass pro in the last few years that often the TE isn’t even in the pattern and instead is helping block,,,also, on many obvious passing downs we go 3-4-5 wide with no TE on the field,,,all this limits opportunities..finally, I am not sure Ryan Hamby or Rory Nicol were as good as we thought. The last TE we had who had real pro potential was Hartsock and he caught 33 passes in ‘03,,,I think Ballard and Stoneburner have that potential, but again it will depend on how the OL blocks in Pass Pro. If the 5 up front can do the job with minimal support, you will see more passes to the TE this season.
also if we run a more open style attack, think about how you want to use Terrelle and how we used troy in ‘06, you will tend to spread the field and use 3-4 WR’s rather than a TE/FB. In ‘06 Troy only threw 7% of his completions to TE’s, last year TP threw only 7%. But in ‘03, Krenzel threw 24.5% to TE’s. in ‘04/05/06 ie the Troy years we threw just 11%, 11% and 7% to TE’s respectively,,,but when we had a more drop back passer ‘03, and ‘07, we threw 25% and 14% respectively…hence I wouldn’t expect a big increase (25% or more or the total), in catches by TE’s this upcoming year, but we may see a jump to about 12%….so if we complete nearly 200 passes, our TE’s should get about 25 total.
You right on, Phil. But Id still like to see us at least plan to throw to TE’s, it doesn’t seem we do because of how we recruit the position. Also, in many cases TE’s can be used as an outlet for QB’s under pressure. I really hated to see Marcel Frost go. He’s the only TE I can think of in the last 7 years or so that was dangerous as a reciever.
iball,
I too think we could throw to them a bit more, but if the offense as designed is clicking, TE is typically the 3rd or 4th read,,,and we will complete a bunch to the WR’s and run both Boom/TP effectively,,,hence TE will get little work again.
I think Stoneburner more than Ballard is the real threat…he can stretch the field at his size and speed especially against LBs,,Ballard is a little of a “traditional” TE, Big noy with good hands,,,he will get a throw or 2 a game, but much more than that I think limits hw we can utilize the overall speed of the team..