Tupac Would Love It
So we have some blood in the water. ESPN pounced earlier today when they dialed up Pryor’s former high school coach hoping to get a juicy quote to run with. The verdict: plenty of quotes, but only one or maybe two that really pack any punch. The most damning, offering that Ohio State could maybe make better use of his talents is now one of the biggest non-adultery related stories in the sporting world.
ESPN loves usYahoo!’s college football blogger, Matt Hinton of Doctor Saturday, quite possibly now addicted to the pageview gold that publishing disparaging notes about the Buckeyes can be, published his fourth Buckeye article in three days this week, essentially recapping the turmoil in town and offering up a curious assessment of his own:
Would Tressel set Pryor free as the most gifted runner on the field, a la Vince Young in his second year as a starter at Texas, when he guided the Longhorns to a Rose Bowl win in 2004 as a prelude to a perfect national championship run as a junior? Or would the Buckeyes continue to play their usual, close-to-the-sweatervest brand of conservative power running, “efficient” passing and field position?
The answer through the first half of the year — against USC as well as Wisconsin and Purdue — has clearly tended toward the latter, with the result that OSU ranks next-to-last in the Big Ten in total offense, Pryor’s personal production has plummeted from his freshman campaign and the team has endured probably its worst loss of the nine-year-old Tressel era.
[...]
When Pryor hits the field Saturday against Minnesota, the Buckeyes are going to do what they’ve always done: Establish the run between the tackles, look for the occasional big play off play-action passes and studiously avoid anything that might do more harm than a solid punt.
Now we’ve always been huge fans of Hinton’s writing — dating back to his days at Sunday Morning Quarterback. He’s as talented as they come and he’s certainly correct about the love of the punt, but the part about power running against Wisconsin and Purdue and establishing the run between the tackles in the Minnesota game? If you’ve watched any Ohio State football in the last month, you know that’s one thing the team has pretty much abandoned this season.
So the pundits are circling and Tressel is talking a lot but not really saying anything. What’s the team to do? Why send out the beleaguered sophomore signal caller to meet with the media, of course. After Tuesday’s practice session, a somber, reflective Pryor met with the media (video here) and pretty much came out and handled the situation as well as he possibly could have. Setting aside the point that we have to get all the hard information out of the QB instead of the coach, he offered the following gems:
“Last week, that opened me up to the world and opened me up to myself and who I am as a person. I think maybe that was the best thing to happen to us last week, maybe we’ll learn from it. We’re having real good practices, and we’re just trying to get the fans back on our side.”
And:
“I just feel so relaxed. I think I’ve just been so tense and maybe handling things the wrong way, maybe talking to teammates not the way I should have, instead of being the leader that I want to be.”
That, ladies and gentlemen, is called manning up.
Suppose it also didn’t hurt that he was receiving advice from LeBron James and Jacory Harris during the week (what’s the world coming to when sophs are mentoring other sophs). At any rate, he delivered to the press corps and will have a chance to back those words up Saturday. And the more this kind of spins into chaos and recriminations, I like our chances. Nothing will bring these youngsters together faster than the feeling of them against the world.
ESECPN at its best.
Once again.
“Nothing will bring these youngsters together faster than the feeling of them against the world.”
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I really liked your update on all this ESPN BS Jason, but ending it on that sentence above….. we said that after 2006 Florida game.
Its been tOSU vs The world since.
True dat…
True, but this is a completely different group of players. Honestly, we all knew they were a year away from greatness. This could be the moment they come together and build toward a special season.
Then again, the pessimist in me thinks they’ll lose this weekend.
Yeah, definitely. It’s been OSU v the world for quite some time, but most of the key contributors on this team weren’t around for LSU and certainly not for the Florida debacle. This is probably the first time they’re really feeling this type of pressure.
The Scarlet Scourge, I’ve been saying it, embrace it.
And for GP, the ship I rode this week made it a point to call us out. Maybe it’s time to start acting like Raider fans.
I’m surrounded by there here, and you know what? We get blamed for acting like them, so why not have the fun. It’ll be more fun not giving a s#!t what people think, instead of trying to be a good ambassador of the “drunken army of idiots” I sarcastically referred to us as.
Trust me, when I lived in New Orleans, I saw a good amount of SEC hate from LSU and FU (intended) and they sure seemed to have a clear conscious.
If you believe history repeats itself, Troy Smith always said his turning point was the loss to penn state, away, his sophomore year, because of a turnover…
That was his junior year, but otherwise, great observation.
That’s what I was thinking as well; but to be more correct, it was his redshirt junior year, right? I remember watching from the Shoe, the first few times Smith was on the field. He would come into the game, as a redshirt frosh, and take direct snap keepers for like 1 yard gains, or he would return kicks, for little gain. We were all so geeked to have him, because of his dual threat nature, but he mostly disappointed at first. I guess that had to have been the 2003 season.
I like Pryors statements. He is manning up, and I think you’ll see quite a difference this week. This team as bad as it has looked on offense, is also very close to being great. I think they put it together against Minnesota.
I agree with liking Pryor’s statements. I thought his most recent interview was much better than some of the others (eye black). We keep waiting for him to click but I’m not holding my breath. I’ll be happy with him putting us into positions to win and when he gets that down, then he can start ripping teams apart.
And the stories keep coming. http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/-LeBron-in-Cleats-advised-on-handling-freakish-?urn=ncaaf,197630
come to the dark side on hinton. its lovely here. the dude talks and talks and talks and never quite seems to get to a point. each of his buckeye articles the last week or so have merely been re-statements of his past articles that were themselves aggregations of others’ work. (and in this case reveals that he has not been paying a bit of attention to the games with that between the tackles power running game bit)
can we call hinton, Buckeye Pageviews™
anyone know where i can find the Tressel laminated play card? saw it over the weekend but have not been able to locate it online.
ESPN’s executives realize that Ohio State does one thing for their network that no other school does, and that is….OSU Makes ESPN more money than any other college football program. Period!
Tracking down Pryor’s high school coach is simply a way to keep the Buckeyes in the college football discussion (nothing like making news instead of reporting it…similar to the “One & Done days and Mr. Clarett).
Remember after the 02 national championship game…Nike sold more apparel (due to the OSU victory) than it had previously in their history for any single athletic event…regardless of sport. That’s powerful!
The OSU vs. USC game was the largest television audience for the network…(hopefully you’re starting to get the picture).
While OSU may be the team that some of America loves to hate the boys in Bristol wish the losses to USC and Purdue never happened.
Trust me, if ESPN had it their way they would want OSU in the Top 5 of the BCS…because as much as the national media pretends to hate our beloved buckeyes…tOSU is the key that starts the BCS engine.