Presser Notes: Minnesota Week
“I hear Cartman plays a pretty good Left Tackle”The agenda was the Minnesota Gophers, but all the focus was on last week’s depressing loss to Purdue. Marked as the worst loss in the Tressel Era, the loss to the Boilers dominated The Vest’s weekly press luncheon, as there was barely any talk about the upcoming match up with the Gophers.
Sure, Tressel could have dived in to how the Bucks plan to stop Eric Decker and company this weekend, but reporters were only interested in how a 5-1 Buckeyes team could lose to a 1-5 Purdue team. Additionally, with all the talent the Bucks have on the offensive side of the ball, many are curious to know why the unit is ranked 91st in the nation and how The Vest plans to fix what was supposed to be an offensive explosion this past weekend.
Faced primarily with questions regarding the performance to date of quarterback Terrelle Pryor, Tressel refused to throw his quarterback under the bus, instead shouldering a lot of the blame himself. The ninth year Buckeye head coach opened up at the podium discussing his performance as a coach in last week’s loss and said:
Well, obviously it was a tough one for us to go drop a game on the road in the conference, but that’s exactly what happened. We didn’t do the things that you need to do to be successful and what we asked ourselves and our team to do was first and foremost as they studied the film and as they reflect and think about it and our guys think about it all day long, I’m sure, just like we do, is to first think about what is it that I could do better and I know from a coaching standpoint when young people decide to come to Ohio State and we convince them that this is a great institution and so forth that one of the things that we want to know for sure is what is it that you’re interested in doing individually, collectively as a team, obviously a million things outside of football, and then you go about trying to coach them, aid them, teach them and so forth in what it takes to accomplish that. And probably the first reflection that I have personally is that I’ve certainly got to do a better job of helping this group understand what it takes to do the things they would like to do. Haven’t done as good a job as you need to do.
It’s good to see Tressel taking some of the blame, but the rest of the coaching staff should right there next to him. Clearly the Buckeye struggles are an issue of teaching not talent and Tressel and his staff have not done a good job of putting the team in position to succeed this year. Whether certain players (cough, cough, Terrelle Pryor) are performing or not should not effect the development and growth of the team which has been non-existent so far this season. It’s certainly time for the coaches to look in the mirror and man-up before it’s too late and the season slips right through their hands.
One group that’s been taking some heat other than the coaches and Pryor has been the offensive line. When asked by a reporter what is to be made of the poor performance of the line the last few weeks, and if the return of Andy Miller and Jim Cordle could help the unit in terms of depth, Tressel responded:
Andrew has practiced a little bit and I hope he can contribute. This will be an important week of practice to see if he can get some weight back on and get some strength back and so forth. Jimmy Cordle, we tried to get him into the game Saturday and he just isn’t quite ready. It’s one thing being able to be able to go through a practice tempo and it’s another thing to be able to do it on a Saturday. I like to think he’d be a lot healthier because we kind of took a step back with him. We didn’t leave him in so long that he got banged up. So what can you do? You can go to work. You can start working to become better. You start with what are you going to ask them to do? To me that’s critical. I’ve also believed that as much of a success of any unit is making sure they’re capable of doing the things you’re asking them to do against the people you’re playing against and hope that you learn lessons along the way. I have a lot of confidence that our young people will improve. I’m not worried about that much we just need to get better.
The offensive line was horrid and the addition of Andy Miller and Jim Cordle will not make the group much better. Justin Boren has been quite disappointing this season, Bryant Browning has been average at best, and “The Brew Crew” has not grown up the way we all hoped and dreamed for. It seems Pryor is the one taking all the flack, but the offensive line has been horrible, especially the last two weeks, and that will have to change if the Bucks want to get anywhere near sniffing roses this season.
Turning to Pryor, the biggest recruit possibly ever to come to OSU has been anything but that when it comes to filling his potential on the field. Pryor suffered through more growing pains this past week, turning the ball over four times (2 INTs, 2 Fumbles). Many fans have been posting their desire for back-up Joe Bauserman to see time, but Tressel does not seem to be too fast to put Pryor on the bench in favor of the red-shirt sophomore. When asked if the thought has crossed his mind to play Bauserman, Tressel said:
Do we have any immediate plans that we’ve sat down and said, okay, now we’re going to put Joe in at this point in time or we’re going to commit ourselves to putting him in the game, haven’t had that discussion. Don’t believe at this moment that that would be the best thing for the team and ultimately you make all your decisions based upon, okay, what does the group need and so at this moment, we’ve got a lot of practice and a lot of work to do, but at this moment, I wouldn’t say we would be.
I agree with Tress on this one and I think the Bucks have to sink or swim with Pryor. Whether you like it or not he is the quarterback for the next two and a half seasons and I truly believe one day he will be a good college (key word: college) signal caller. Virginia Tech fans were in the same situation as the Scarlet and Gray faithful at the end of last season and the beginning of this year with Tyrod Taylor and he finally was able to live up to his hype and turn things around. Obviously Pryor is not developing as fast as many expected after a promising freshman campaign, but part of the blame has to go to the staff for not recognizing this and calling plays in which he can be successful. With the OSU defense being as strong as it is, the offense only needs to be efficient and that can happen with a game plan focusing on Pryor’s strengths and executing simple plays that can minimize turnovers. This is the answer to the offensive woes, not inserting Joe Bauserman into the lineup. The long-term fate of the team needs to be taken into account, not just the short term effect, when making a decision like the one many fans are clamoring for.
That being said, Pryor’s progression has been beyond disappointing. It really seems like he has taken multiple steps backwards from last year’s production and trying to fit him into whatever offense is being run looks like it’s trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. When asked about his quarterback’s progression in his young college career and if he has improved, The Senator said:
From the film grade standpoint, he probably had less minus plays than he did in the past couple weeks. Now, that’s the good news. Here’s the bad news. The minuses that we had were those triple minuses, just so happens in our grading system that it’s one thing to get your job done and handed off or block one guy or whatever, but you have a missed assignment on the offensive line, that’s, like, worth three pluses, you get three minuses. Just the way we weigh it mathematically. So his total grade didn’t end up better, but the numbers of plays where he had positive grades were higher than they’ve been and that’s the reality and the beauty of what we do is that you can have 72 great plays at corner and you get beat over top and you probably didn’t have a very good game. You didn’t have a game good enough to win. So what is it that we see that maybe someone else doesn’t? We get to see him every day, so I guess my answer would be a lot. Are we committed to Terrelle? Yeah, just like we’re committed to Todd Denlinger or Rob Rose or Anderson Russell or whomever to do whatever it is we think is the best thing for the team.
It’s hard every week to hear Tressel talk about the progression of Pryor when there are no positive results being seen on the field. It’s great that his footwork is improving in practice and he is in the film room all the time, but as far as I am concerned I don’t care if his grade is a 58%, as long as the Bucks win and he proves to be a part of that victory. What I care about is results, and, win or lose, Pryor is not giving the proper results to help this team achieve its goal of winning the Big Ten Championship. Until he starts proving he is progressing as a quarterback and a leader, Tressel cannot continue to praise TP’s progression as a quarterback at Ohio State.
Turning attention to the offensive play calling, the media was not very friendly to Tressel in regards to finding out exactly what this team has been trying to do on offense. It seems at times (see: first scoring drive vs Purdue) that the offense is on all cylinders, but more times than not, it seems there is a high level of confusion, especially from Pryor, when the team is on offense. Tressel was asked exactly what the team has been trying to do on offense and what it will do in the coming weeks to improve the lack of performance and he replied:
I think the biggest thing and the most obvious thing is, you cannot be wonderful, but don’t turn it over and you can maybe survive, but if you turn it over, the impact that has on more than just you is tough to — take any level of football. You’re not going to be successful if you make errors like that. The question I think you ask, you have to ask yourself is, is it something we’re doing that all of a sudden one of the cardinal principles that you know is true about the game, there’s debate all the time, should we be doing what Georgia Tech’s doing, should we be doing what Florida’s doing, should we be doing what whoever’s doing, that’s a debate. There’s no right answer to that. There a right answer to whether or not you should be turning it over, regardless of what kind of system you’re using. So the question I think you have to ask yourself in the mirror, is there something we’re doing that is contributing toward not being good in a critical situation, just like if you had the ongoing discussion about the guys up front. Well, the cardinal principle there is, you can’t miss an assignment because what that can do to the rest of the world, well, then you know he didn’t want to miss an assignment, he didn’t go out there with the intention of missing an assignment, so what is it we had him thinking about or we didn’t work on enough that would have led to us missing an assignment. So I don’t know if that answered your question but I did my best.
One thing is certain and that is that Tressel definitely did not answer the question. When trying to get some clarity on the team’s offensive identity, it seems Tress doesn’t even know what they are trying to do, or it could be that he is just trying to hide the fact that they are still struggling to find this team’s offensive identity. Limiting turnovers is something the Tressel offenses have lived by in the past eight years and that will always be something he stresses, but that cannot be the backbone of an offense and clearly it is not the case this season. Pryor has already thrown 8 interceptions on 159 attempts this year compared to 4 picks on 165 attempts last year and that can be (at least partially) attributed to his lack of comfort in what the offense is doing. The coaches need to come together, stick with one plan of execution and go with it, because if they keep trying to change things up as they have been it will be a long season for us Buckeye fans
Finally, the lack of preparation going into the Purdue game was a common theme amongst post-game interviews with the players. Terrelle Pryor, Todd Denlinger, and some other players admittedly did not prepare for the game properly, saying they didn’t respect Purdue and that there was a lot of joking around in practice last week. While the coaches apparently tried to stress to the team how important it was that they took Purdue seriously, apparently they did not get their message through and had to deal with the consequences:
The implication was I didn’t think I did a very good job of getting them to really understand the challenge we had, it’s hard for people to understand the depth of a challenge, but I didn’t think I did a very good job as I looked out, I didn’t see — there’s nothing you can put — I can’t give it an exact, well, this person did that, I didn’t have a good feel, maybe I just didn’t have a good feel that I was doing a good job, you know how that goes, but I didn’t sense that from anyone that, man, these guys are good or these guys, man, I can’t believe they’re not 5-1. There wasn’t any of that from any which way I looked and maybe that’s just my natural paranoia because I’m always looking at the film saying, oh, man, if they don’t turn it over — they had 20 turnovers in their first five games. Well, I mean, you are all schooled well enough to know by now that you’re not going to win with that, but if all of a sudden you create five takeaways and what did they have, two or three? Three. Yeah, you’ve got a chance. You’ve got a plus two in the game, you’ve got a chance. So that’s my implication that I’m not sure — and that’s my job, that’s not your job, it’s not someone else’s job, it’s my job to make sure we understand the difficulty of the challenge truly. I mean, honestly the difficulty of the challenge. What’s the percent chances of being the national champions I don’t know, what’s the percent chances of being the Big Ten Champion, what are we going to have to do to do that? And I’m not sure I’ve done as good a job as I need to do helping us understand that those aren’t just, oh, shoot, we’ll be the champions. You know, that’s — there’s been a lot of people come through here that have never been the champions and it’s a difficult thing and you’ve got to understand the difficulty of the challenge.
It’s amazing to hear the players talk about their lack of respect for Purdue coming into the game after the loss, but it’s even more amazing for a coach to admit he didn’t mentally prepare his team properly. My hat is off to Tressel for taking a step back to admit that he didn’t have his team fully ready to play Saturday, but the players still need to come ready to play every week. Nobody is entitled to a Big Ten Championship or even more so, a National Title, especially the Buckeyes who have flopped on the big stage the last few seasons. This team should have been playing with a chip on their shoulder every week and not gotten comfortable with skating by as they had in previous weeks. From here on out the effort better be there otherwise the Outback Bowl or (gulp) even worse destinations could be calling the Buckeyes’ name.
Look, I have no problem admitting a lack of preparation, but that’s easy. What I want to hear is why there was such a quick hook of Boeckman for not protecting the football, but no such thing with Pryor? And I don’t want to hear about his fragile psyche or any of that other b.s…at the end of the day, he puts his pants on like everyone else.
I also want to hear why the offense continues to regress year after year, and why the lack of adjustments in coaching philosophy. Change is good, you know.
I don’t think the hook was that quick with Boeckman. Remember, he had less than stellar games against Illinois, Michigan, and LSU at the end of ‘07 before he was finally replaced following the USC game in ‘08.
I think what concerns me most is that Pryor is playing this badly, but no one is pushing him for playing time. Bauserman seems to be regarded as a career backup. Why was a freshman who couldn’t throw a basic pass our next best option after Boeckman last year?
You need depth as well as talent. Look at USC – Corp and Mustain were both 4-5 star talents coming in, and they’ve been working in the system, but they’re sitting behind a freshman because Corp can’t avoid throwing multiple interceptions to Washington the one time he came in and played. Some talents don’t pan out – you need someone nearly as talented breathing down his neck so you have a better chance of getting someone actually good playing.
What happened to Schoenoft and Henton? Seems a real problem that they couldn’t compete with Pryor last year, let alone this year. Zwick was the all-everything talent coming out of high school, not Troy Smith. There is something in common in all of the positions we excel at on this team – depth of talent. Our second team of linebackers could start at almost any D1 school. We have a whole extra team’s worth of well-regarded high school defensive backs who seem to have washed out and are not seeing the field. Look at how many D-linemen we have, and how many of them were considered busts a couple years ago.
If we have a competent future quarterback behind Boeckman, pryor gets to hang out and learn how to throw for one or two years and then steps into the limelight fully formed, instead of spraying his growing pains all over the field.
I read into what Tress was saying as Pryor, right now, is our best option. I think he was trying to avoid saying that Bauserman isn’t ready and can’t scramble for his life because our line plays soft at times. That is why these situations aren’t “similar”.
Anybody notice since we moved into the new plush weight room/revamped Woody Hayes Center…we have sucked?
dude, we don’t suck.
ehhhhh
OK,,,we sort of suck.
The hook for Boeckman is very easy, and i agree with the move…
Boeckman was finishing his last year, he was not going to help the team of the future. He made mistakes, you, me, and buckeye nation were yelping for the freshman to take the helm.
So, now we have the (true) Sophmore quaterback who is learning, and i mean learning how to suffer through his horrible play!
The bright side is, we were still in the game, and TP can only go up from here.
i recall all the fumbles from Eddie George his first year. He learned and became a Heisman winner. TP has incredible potential. He needs fan support, good coaching and a backup who pushes him.
he’s not getting the latter two
actually seems like the latter three these days
There are so many seniors on this team.
What will we do next year???
All, thats right we are going to lose what 3 starters!
Cmon fellas we have had some time to digest this. Shoot even i had time to blow some steam, relax take a breath. Is pryor inconsistent yes! Was the line to blame for a lot last week yes! Did our bend don’t break philosophy kill us on defense yes! (well, the fact that our offense couldn’t stay on the field could have a big part in that)
Calm down!
agreed
Kurt Coleman is a senior :(
Jermale Hines, Cam Heyward, Thad Gibson and Dexter Larimore are juniors. Nathan Williams is a sophomore. :)
agreed :(
@Alex – Probably worth renaming the Subject of your entry “Presser Notes: Purdue Post-mortem”.
+1….I’m trying to keep myself focused on moving on and playing for some roses, but it crossed my mind
The Buckeye in me hopes we can play for Roses too, but the realist in me points out that the only roses we’ll see are the ones laying around the 2009-10 Season’s gravestone.
Too depressing? Haha
it is depressing. would you rather be in Madison? If they win out they MIGHT get to the outback bowl. IF THEY WIN OUT.
That’s a great underachieving attitude to have.
@Kurt – and Tressel’s attitude is different how….?
e-roc, I’m not supporting anything Tressel is saying or doing with that comment. I’m simply not in the camp of OSU fans that say ‘things aren’t that bad, just look at Wisconsin or Illinois…’ which is non-sense.
The thing I’m getting from Tressel through all of this is that he’s sort of okay with losing, so as it happens his way with his boys (Bollman, Siciliano, Heacock etc…). which is also non-sense.
If i had to cover these dithering fucking press conferences i would seriously have trouble not throwing my chair or something else hard at Jim Tressel. I am so tired of his answering questions with more questions and not getting to the god damned point of the matter.
This team, at least on the offensive side of the ball, isn’t getting it done. They are not coached and instructed properly, they aren’t running the right schemes, and/or they aren’t executing, and it isn’t a recent phenomenon. Since 2006 we’ve had to suffer watching a c-list offense with b or a talent because our offensive line sucks a bag of dicks and our offense in general is run out of the “Coaching for Dummies: You Too Can Be an Offensive Coordinator” book. How we get any offensive recruits above a 3 star is beyond my explanation because clearly if you come to OSU your talents will likely be squandered.
Sorry for the rant but I like, I’m sure most of you, are extremely frustrated by one unit that sucks on a yearly basis.
Everyone wants answers, but Tress is trying to say ” I don’t know them either!”
Tress coaching Pryor is like Mr.Rogers snorting coke off a strippers ass. Doesn’t look right. We need to bring in someone who knows how to handle a Lamborghini like TP. Tress drives a Yugo.
So, can we invest in some advertising on firejimbollman.com? that’s gotta be getting some traffic nowadays.
I visit it 30 times a day waiting for the good news.
If stonewalling were an Olympic sport, Tressel would be a gold medal champion. Sorry, I just can’t abide with the no-answer answers. Also, why doesn’t someone have the balls to say: “You didn’t answer my question”?
or ” i don’t even know what that means, could you try again and actually answer what i asked?”
“the Bucks have to sink or swim with Pryor” that’s a lot of rubbish Alex and the mentality that reminds one of Cooper. More and more Tressel is also sounding a lot like Cooper putting it on the kids, “he’s (Pryor) probably had less minuses..but the minuses were triple minuses.” Unbelievable bullshit!
Compare that to how the best coach in Ohio talks “It’s going to fall on offensive play-calling, it’s going to fall on making sure we get the right kind of calls for whoever the quarterback is.” That’s right Coach Kelly, that’s how a real coach talks and it’s inspiring your Bearcat team to play with intensity not the crap we see the Buckeye’s bringing on the field. The versatility and creativity makes Cincinnati a joy to watch, only wish Tressel could learn from you.
I forget, how many BCS Bowls has Brian Kelly won? Games against Top 10 teams? Because his offense is fun to watch, that makes him an elite coach?
The Big Ten by no means is as mighty as they were a few years back, but the BIG LEAST is a joke
+1
Knowing when your time has come and gone, difficult for most coaches with an enlarged ego but the question remains …what is in the best interests of the Ohio State Buckeyes?
I’m beginning to think that the “Presser” should be called the “depresser”. Just can’t see things getting much better at this time.
I don’t understand this at all. When asked why Bauserman got a series against Navy, he said it was their game plan to get him a series or two!
So why against Purdue didn’t Tressel walk up to TP after his 3rd or 4th turnover and say, “you are still our starter, but we are going to give Joe a series to spark the offense”?
Is TP’s ego that fragile that he can’t sit a series? This is a complete diservice to the rest of the team.
My only hope is this loss is a huge kick in the ass and the team comes out a plays with a chip on their shoulder the rest of the year!
Tressel has never answered questions. I appreciate that Alex fills in the blanks.
That said, I appreciate that Tressel protects his players from the press and fans. Those are kids that don’t deserve the vitriol they are receiving. Kids make mistakes. We have to live with that. In the end, I bet nearly every player on that team would take a bullet for that man. We don’t know what he’s saying behind closed doors. I’m sure he’s giving TP and the rest an earful, but you’ll never hear about it. I’m OK with that. I’m frustrated with the Purdue game, but I see a bright future in ‘10.
Let’s face it. We’re facing a season like ‘04, not ‘06. This program is rebuilding. It takes longer for offenses to gel and with so much inexperience, we won’t see anything we can be proud of until next season.
Boeckman was a turnover machine. People conveniently forget that. Our o-line couldn’t protect anyone as cement-footed as he, so Pryor was the right choice. Most schools outside of southern California have to have a mobile QB. Boeckman was not that guy.
I think that if you really look at what Pryor is doing, he is showing improvement. It’s just that the mistakes are way worse than they ever were before. Tressel didn’t give him enough of the offense to make those same mistakes last year…that and they had Beanie. My bet is that they will take a step back to insure that he is and the rest of the offense is successful the rest of the way.
2002-03 ruined us. If we don’t win every game and a NC every year, it’s a complete failure. I used to love watching OSU go 9-3 as a kid. They were exciting, competitive, and even the losses provided insight into the character of the players and coaches. We’ll survive this loss, believe it or not.
And this from the wise ones at EDSBS: Pryorball
“No one has a disdain for turnovers any more than Terrelle,” said Tressel.
And yet he continues to make them at an astonishing rate, meaning he should just embrace his inner reckless genius and become what he truly is: a turnover-happy qb with moments of occasional brilliance who takes a different path to the same result, that result being games you win by about four points every time. In Tresselball, you do that when you begin running the clock out with a two point lead in the second quarter, and in Pryorball you do that when you scramble for a game-winning TD after throwing a pick six and fumbling to keep the other team in the game.
Honestly, pryor has made all of us upset…
Even, i thought why not bring in Bauserman for a series. But, lets face it, bauserman is not going to be the future for Ohio State. TP is!!!
All the people who don’t want to see this happen, need to understand talent has to develop.
IS PRYOR REALLY REGRESSING??? Let’s see he had a fake playbook to use last year, and the best rb in the nation behind him, with veteran recievers.
Now, tressel has opened the playbook given him three to four different types of offenses to run, young recievers, and a o-line that is not playing to there talent.
If you want to see a Vince Young type player you have to be willing to stick with him, and watch him develope. Because, one of these days he is going to explode… with 17 games left, and two offseasons till his senior year!
That is what we are building for!
or, we can watch a moderate offense get on the field and get destroyed by the better teams in FBS.
“Who is to say bauserman would even play better”
From the ESPN article:
“You always try to keep in mind people’s feelings, but not to the point where it will hurt the team,” he said. “Our responsibility is to the group. Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t care about the individual. You do all you can do to help every individual. But not at the expense of the team.” – Tressel
Then why the fuck don’t we start playing towards Terrelle’s strengths? He is not a pro style quarterback, yet we continue to try to turn him into one. You can tell by the mere fact that he is so much more hesitant to take off and scramble this year. Plus, he doesn’t even makes reads through his receivers. He locks onto one target. I don’t mind Tressel being the head coach. I am not calling for his head. I do not mind Pryor as our QB, either. He is the best talent and option we have at the position. But for christ sakes, call plays that utilize the kid’s strengths.
this is the worst quite yet,when i played college ball the coach didn’t give a funk about “feelings” if you didn’t do your job you got snapped on, if you didn’t do your job again you got taken out until you could prove you would do your job. FEELINGS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FOOTBALL EXCEPT MAKING THE OTHER TEAM “FEEL” PAIN ala thank you homan,coleman, etc, etc
I am tired of all the hate. I understood it under Cooper but I don’t understand it so much now. Quit listening to eSECpn, Mark May, and the Fan. Stop reading national “foxsports.com” type blogs, stop buying into all this hate and disdain for a team you say you are a fan of. I’m not saying you are not a fan if you complain about a bad call, or not showing up, etc. But to say that you would rather have Brain Kelly over Tress? Really? Saying you’d rather have “Little Man Tate” over TP? Really? I’m not saying that you don’t have a right to be upset, but c’mon……I am struggling to see the logic in this.
Are we supposed to stop watching them play on Saturdays as well because that’s where I draw my observations from. I don’t need broke dick Mark May or permanently salty Bruce Hooley to tell me what my eyes can see.
The OSU Athletic Dept’s slogan used to be (maybe still is) The People, The Tradition, The Excellence well the OSU football team’s slogan should be “Great Defense, Good Special Teams, Unwatchable Offense.”
lmao, yeah….the offense is very painful to watch
I just can’t hate Jim Tressel and what he has done for OSU. Could it be better? Yes. Losing to Purdue SUCKS! I felt like I lost my last argument for Tressel, (Tress doesn’t lose to unworthy teams) was just ripped away from me.
Tressel is starting to justify his own mistakes… that is a huge warning sign. The man has to start admitting he makes mistakes and fix them for gosh sakes. Pryor needs to sit on the bench and get his head right… if he cant handle that, then he doesnt need to be a starting QB… period. Not for good, but let Bauserman take the start vs Minny and bring Terrelle in the game and go from there…. he is not a team player or leader if he cant handle that and I would test that.
These are the top rated by espn qb that came out during pryor’s year. NONE OF THEM WERE FORCED TO PLAY THERE FRESHMAN YEAR!
ESPN Ranking:
22 Dayne Crist 84 Notre Dame (not playing still)
32 Mike Glennon 83 North Carolina State (not playing still)
51 E.J. Manuel 82 Florida State
82 Tyler Wilson 82 Arkansas (not playing still)
109 Taylor Cook 81 Miami (FL) (not playing still)
111 Nick Crissman 81 UCLA (not playing still)
34 Kyle Parker 83 Clemson CMP ATT YDS TD INT
2009 84 169 1027 6 5
38 Blaine Gabbert 83 Missouri CMP ATT YDS TD INT
2009 126 218 1620 12 5
61 Andrew Luck 82 Stanford CMP ATT YDS TD INT
2009 97 168 1589 9 3
122 Landry Jones 81 Oklahoma CMP ATT YDS TD INT
2009 91 154 1111 11 5
for comparison;
TP
2009 89 159 1169 10 8
so running about the same on td’s, lower on completions (but also attempts), middle of the pack in yards, and much higher on INT’s
and he’s had a half year extra game experience
You are forgetting his 86 carries for 367 yards and 4 touchdowns!
Yeah. It seems to me that he’s right in the mix. I’d also argue that Missouri has not played a very great schedule and looked pathetic versus Nebraska (I live 1 minute from the stadium). The other three teams all have great running games that don’t depend on the QB.
So, all is not lost.
i thought about that, and you’re right, it does make a big difference, but then you have to add in the running game of the other qb’s, and i didn’t feel like looking that up
but yes, if you add that to his stats since it is such a huge part of his game, it does push him up to the top tier in his class, and really, we all know that’s why he was there, not because of his passing, right?
Pryor’s high school coach is calling out tressel on ESPN.com
Says OSU is not letting him run. Says he’s a robot.
It doesn’t matter how often you run Pryor if he’s going to shy away from hits 5 yards before the first down marker.
Wow, i just read that…
I think everyone agrees that Pryor has not been used to his full potential.
It seems to me if you read between the lines Tressel let this team lose to prove a point to these kids. Sounds like good coaching to me.
I don’t know anything about copyrights and such, but could you turn the SouthPark Tressel into a T Shirt, maybe with the hidden caption (Tressel killed Kenny) on the shirt.
“We didn’t do the things that you need to do to be successful and what we asked ourselves and our team to do was first and foremost as they studied the film and as they reflect and think about it and our guys think about it all day long, I’m sure, just like we do, is to first think about what is it that I could do better…”
“And probably the first reflection that I have personally is that I’ve certainly got to do a better job of helping this group understand what it takes to do the things they would like to.”
Unfortunately, it’s glaringly obvious from his alzheimeresque rantings that Tressel has absolutely NO idea what “IT” is. Is it just me, or do you just want to put a gun to your head reading his ridiculous run-on stream of consciousness deflections?!
And I disagree that he doesn’t know, or the offense doesn’t know it’s identity. Tressel says:
“I think the biggest thing and the most obvious thing is, you cannot be wonderful, but don’t turn it over and you can maybe survive…”
So there it is. Don’t try to be wonderful, don’t turn over the ball, and try to survive. That is what our offense is, and that is Tresselball in a freakin nutshell. That is what we’ve been seeing for the past few years since Troy left town.