Last week I was a bit upset with some of our fan base that felt like they needed to be so negative about our kids, coaches, schemes, and team. Hey I critique and second-guess like everybody else, but it was disturbing how many people were calling for Fickell's ouster, slamming our kids, and being plain ridiculous. To all of you I say - HA! TAKE THAT! For those of you who still believed and knew that this is a week to week team that needs time to develop I say - WAS THAT GREAT OR WHAT? We still have a long way to go, but we knew that. Today I am going to enjoy this win just like I enjoyed the other 4. Anyone else glad that we're 5-0???
PHONE'S RINGING -- IT'S URBAN ON THE LINE
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Lol. Um...who wouldn't be excited to be 5-0?
very happy to be 5-0
O'Deez330
stark county football
That was one of the most entertaining games I've seen in years! Hooray for 5-0!
Very pumped! This was a team win! All 3 phases made some great plays and some terrible ones, but came out on top together!
NO! I WANT TO BE 0-5...0-5 YOU UNDERSTAND!!1!1! lol
Just win baby.
Run_Fido's favorite word is strawman.
In the end, its always great to be undefeated. But there is no problem with criticism especially when needed. I agree slamming kids and asking for Fick's head is a bit extreme but there is still alot of stuff that needs to be shined up before we call this a good team. Im fine with criticism but I have more of a problem with the people who just think the bottom of the barrel is fine as long as we get a win.
I will ride this train with you MACEYKO! Last week I battled for days with you against the naysayers. 5-0 and it feels good. Was it pretty. Hell no. Was it a F&#$ing exciting game to watch? Hell yes. GO BUCKS!!!!! I saw some great effort on the field today!
An angry fan...rooting for an angry team...led by angry coaches
I'm glad we're 5-0... I continue to be amazed by our team that even when things look bad we still win. A win over Wisconsin and Sparty feels good. Keep it going guys.
Ohio State's band SLAUGHTERED Michigan's band. If this were a football game, it would have been Florida State vs. Savannah State. - SB Nation following OSU vs. UM 2012
BHardy - You have a problem wth the people who "think the bottom of the barrel is fine as long as we get a win?" If you have ever played the game and/or coached then you know to enjoy the W when you get it - even when it's ugly - because the next game may be the big "L". We can def get A LOT better and I hope we do, but once again the expectations of some of our "fans" is what gets me riled up. Either way we are 5-0 with a good chance to be 6-0 and the way that we looked the first few weeks I doubt many of us expected it! GO BUCKS!!!!!!
Very glad to be 5-0 especially when we all know there is room for improvement and not to mention still a VERY young team.
Anyone who saw Urbzs reaction after the game has to feel good about it..the guy was stoked..and for good reason..tough win on the road against whats probably the 2nd best team in the conference.
Well i like college and i like football...and im gunna keep doin em both cause they make me feel good!!!
Great game
anyone crying about this game and/or the coach's will cry about every game.
GO BUCKS
O H I O is the Buckeye State
It feels great. The haterade drinking seems to have gone down, which is good to see. This fanbase certainly is passionate, vocal, and may go too far sometimes with criticisms, but not completely unreasonable. Many questions were answered tonight. Once again, this team is not perfect, but I like where it's headed.
Class of 2010.
It was not the greatest performance. However, no one on the team gave up and they pulled out a tough win on the road against Sparty.
WOO HOO!!!!!!! GO BUCKS!
It's 9:02PM Denard still can't throw and TTUN still SUCKS!
Feels great to move the ball against a quality defense and have our D shut down a tough running back
Ohio State and Urban Meyer accomplished something today that the last two ScUM coaches haven't been able to do.....BEAT MSU. Urban did it his first try.....AT SPARTAN STADIUM!!!!! GO BUCKS!!!!
O!-H!
"I'm One Bad Buckeye, and I approve this message."
OSU vs Sparty. This was the best defense OSU has faced all year and it showed - Braxton had 3 turnovers and the offense looked sluggish. Still they came from behind in a hostile environment, away game and that shows they have some character. Sparty played classic “dirty” Michigan style play – they hit Braxton after he was out on almost every play along with a host of other Michigan style crap!
The defense played better than they have in the previous 4 games. They tackled much better except on the play where Sparty scored. Why were they more worried about stripping the ball than tackling that guy? Six guys touched him and he still scored – it made the game a lot closer than it needed to be.
I liked Urban’s comment at the end, “I love these guys, they toughed out a win”! They will play even harder for him now. It was pretty ugly - still they held MSU off in the end and got the win. I too am psyched to be 5 -0, Go Bucs!
DEB II
I was a doubter going into this game and I was critical as I think I am aloud to verbalize my critisism as long as it stay fairly respectful. I am excited for the gutty win on the road against a quality team but I am still not sold on this team 100 percent. They have to put this kind of effort on the field every week which so far I've only seen it once. Play with this intensity every week and we will be fine.
Criticism is fine, but unreal expectations and the negativity that comes with them aren't. It's one thing to point out real problems, it's another to have a fit because Braxton hasn't mastered the offense 5 games in.
I'm done replying to these post.... oh crap...
Funny thing.... We seem to be playing to the level of our competition right now... Sounds like the same complaints that our fair weather fans had when Tress was here...
I'm happy to be 5-0 but I'd like to be winning by about 20+ points a game. I like to embarrass people, not just win.
If Braxton stays healthy --- OSU is going 12 & 0.
"You win with people." - Woody Hayes
I am very glad we are 5-0. We knew this would be a tough game, and it was. I was on the Debbie Downer bandwadon at 4-0 but the defense played pretty well not letting them run the ball. Not too bad for the first road game.
Wherever you are, there you be!
Bring on Nebraska and 6-0. Revenge time for last year.
Keep avenging last years Ls and we end up...........in very sweet position for 2013!!
(As uncrowned B1G Champions)
Very. The mantra for this team is "a win is a win"...I'll take it.
Great road win with intensity. Love it.
Last year around Christmas I'd heard about a study about gift wrapping, how people who received packages in plain brown wrapping or no wrapping at all reported more satisfaction with the present. It had to do with expectations. OSU comes with a lot of shiny gift wrapping, Heisman winners, B10 Championships, National Championships. The 2012 Buckeyes are still --as they must be-- a work in progress. Anybody who expects the O to look like Oregon and the D to play like Bama is going to be disappointed. My approach is to appreciate this team for what it is (5-0), and look forward to what it will become.
Adamant wrote, "I am still not sold on this team 100 percent."
Not sure what you mean by this. You certainly did not mean that you're not 100 percent sold yet on whether to support this team, for better or for worse.
So, you must mean either that, A). You're not 100 percent sure yet whether this team is very good; or B). You doubt that this team will be 100-percent perfect.
Obviously, no team is ever perfect, so that leaves option A above. Well, it is often the case, for the great majority of teams, that we can't be sure how well they'll end up playing over a full season - injuries, etc.
So, what you're basically saying is this team is not (yet) a powerhouse, a la Nebraska 95, Miami 01, Bama recently, etc. I don't think you ever had any disagreement on that point, though.
Fido you bring up some good points, and I think that's the problem with a large portion of the fanbase. They heard Urban Meyer, and thought he would instantly have this team crushing fools by 5 TD's and the team being elite. It's troubling to think people are expecting this team to be a top 5 team. A lot of damage had to be fixed from last year's awful season. Meyer had to get this team to buy in to his vision. That was the first step, he had to change the personality and culture of the program after last year.
He also has to deal with a team that is depending on you and inexperienced guys. He has people like Fragel(who is doing very well) playing out of position. He has to get the offense to learn a new playbook and system and execute it.
I think ESPN doing their preseason look in at camp and reading the great praise Meyer had for how far the offense had come got people expecting way too much. It's easy to remember Meyer winning the 2 BCS titles, and hugging Alex Smith as Utah won their BCS game, but no one remembers the work it took for him to get those teams to those points. All the hiccups, and frustrating moments and misreads by Braxton are HUGE for the growth of the team. They give Meyer teaching moments. Braxton is a smart kid, they break down film and he puts the work in 2013 and 2014 Braxton is going to be an amazing player. 2013 is the time to be upset if the offense stahls, not 2012 and certainly not 5 games into the regular season.
I'm pretty sure everyone was happy OSU was 4-0 MACEYKO. Everything OSU was doing in the first 4 games was fixed for the most part in this win to make them 5-0. Only one bad tackling episode on the underneath route for a TD. The Defense looked MUCH better. Offense did what it had to to win...I'd say that show's how UFM and company will be treating B1G games. It was the level of oppenents in those first four games that made most including myself have some serious doubt about how good this team really was. Jury is no longer out for me...these kids have what it takes to win every game left on the schedule IMO. I say they make a statement this weekend and win big at home.
"There's nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you."
"I love football. I think it is most wonderful game in world and I despise to lose."
Woody Hayes 1913 - 1987
@btalbert
absolutely agree with your post. Spot on.
i also agree with btalbert.
I was 12-0, can live with 11-1 team or bust even under Tressel. Meyer doesn't make me more spoiled.
Albert, I agree with all your points. Except I wonder how many people expected Ohio State to be a top 5 team. Even some predicting 12-0 before the season began, and especially after the first two weeks of Big Ten futility, might have been using process of elimination more than were convinced that Ohio State would be a powerhouse team this year. Yes, some did, but I'd guess they were a small minority.
Maybe there was another dynamic at play that contributed to the withering criticisms after weeks 2, 3, and 4. I'll use myself as an example . . .
I ran some quick "objective" numbers before the season, which had me guesstimating that Ohio State would win about 9.5 games this year. Being an optimist, I rounded up and predicted 10-2. Before the season, I had the MSU game as roughly a 50/50 game. So, I had no delusions of the 2012 Buckeyes being the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Yet, I still go into every game as a passionate, unforgiving fan who demands victory. Making pre-season twelve-game predictions is an abstract exercise. In contrast, reacting to how the Buckeyes play in a real live game is an immediate, emotional experience.
And as an emotionally-invested Buckeye fan, I don't tolerate the mistackles and the other teams running for 200+ yards on our defense, etc. When I experience the actual losses in "real time" - even if I predicted them to happen - it's not an abstract thing. They feel like punches to the gut.
Later, after I've got the emotional reaction out of my system, I can step back and rationally put the games back into perspective. But there will always be a part of me that's still pissed off that the Silver Bullets let Denard eat cereal in their faces. These two sides of the fan experience - rational and emotional - often contradict eachother, but that goes with territory.
My point, then (sorry for the essay) is that maybe the hysterical fan reactions from weeks 2, 3, and 4 did not only stem from unrealistic expectations.
@Albert:
I don't think most people's areas of concern are the offense. Hell, the offense has looked remarkably better than I thought it would this season. I thought it would be a mess while things were getting sorted out this year, yet we'd have a very strong defense. Like I said, I don't think it's the offense people are concerned about, but rather the defense. This defense isn't experiencing a total overhaul. It has brought back pretty much everyone (and this was a young D last year with tons of raw talent) as well as its defensive coordinator and system. The concern is that the defense looks totally lost at times while the offense has looked absolutely brilliant at times. I pegged this team at 10-2 and that was based on the total garbage that is our schedule this year. A 5-0 record is extremely pleasing and I'll take it any year, let alone this year of transition.
I didn't much expect this team to blow out every opponent by 50 but I think it's perfectly understandable to take a look into some concerns with why our defense is struggling the way it is (what else is this site good for then?). Granted, there will be yahoos that think their team is 100% going undefeated every year and Ohio State is not exclusively in that club. You'll find those (what do we call them...10%ers?) in every fanbase. A win is a win. Especially in the Big Ten. Doesn't mean there aren't still areas of concern and that if we were playing a better schedule this year and a few bounces don't go our way we could be a 4 or 5 loss team.
Not sold on Buckeye's 100 percent means that I am not really sure how good this team is. They have talent and they should be 5-0 at this point but a few days ago I did not really think they played up to there potential the first 4 games. Are they a top 10 team, I don't know? Are they gonna run the table? I am as big of a OSU Football supporter that you will find but I also am more on the realistic side of things and was not sold on how good this team is. Before MSU I thought they were ranked WAY to high with close wins against cupcakes. Now I think they are a top 10-15 team and could run the table IF they can play with the intensity of the MSU game. B1G is weak this year and going undefeated is realistic at this point. Sorry your so confused FIDO but I didn't think what I wrote was that complicated.
Agree with smithwesson -- who wouldn't be happy about it? :D
Adamant: I'm less confused now that you defined what you actually meant by not being sold on the team yet. You're not 100 percent sold that they can go 12-0. Okay, I'm not 100 percent sold on that proposition yet, either. You're not 100 percent sold on them being a top 10 team. I'm not 100 percent sold on that, too.
Then again, I'm also not 100 percent sold on FSU, South Carolina, UGA, WVU, etc. being top 10 teams either. I guess we'll have to watch and find out.