Remember the excitement of the "bull in the ring"? Then the Spring Game started and then we caught our 1st glimpse of a Meyer Buckeye offense! We saw pass after pass after pass. They were nice short passes which moved us down the field. I loved how we used 4 and 5 WR sets to spread the field. We need to see that again. I hope with Hyde back, we will see Hyde and Hall on the field at the same time. We can't get complacent on offense and continue to have 3 and outs back to back.
2 names, Michael Thomas and Tyrone Williams, I wish they could get it together! Williams is 6'5 and has speed. He should have been the WR coaches project over the spring.
I have seen several people post that we are running and should continue to keep running Heacock's defensive scheme. There is only 1 problem with that, Heacock always had some stud LB's that were leaders. I'm a little disappointed in Fickell and Withers comments about the D. Rothman hit the nail on the head. We didn't see alot (if at all) man press. Withers, yeah, you held *UAB to 15 points but how many yards did you give up?
The beauty of this year is it will allow the Buckeyes to take risks. As fans, I believe that we would be satisfied with seeing an aggressive defense that is high risk and at times high reward. Teams are watching tape of us and exploiting our weakness, things have to change.
The Bucks will get together, hopefully!
i think we need to give it some time... by meatchicken game the o should be humming along. the offense isnt what im worried about
mark may wins douchebag of the year... again
Meyer said before and after the Spring game that what we saw was not the offense we would run this fall. We had a horrible pass game and he wasn't worried about the run game, so he took it as an opportunity to get better in the passing game with a real game atmosphere.
If you watched his offense at UF you would not be surprised. They would throw when adventageous, just as we try to do (but we aren't that great at it yet), but they were a run first offense that would pass when the box was stacked and there was a numbers advantage in the pass game. Now we haven't been extremely successful through the air (some people need to recall that we were literally one of the worst passing offenses in the entire country last year, a new coach doesn't make us great in one year), but we will slowly improve once Devin starts hanging onto easy catches and Braxton gets more consitent with his footwork in the pocket.
If I was feeling sarcastic, I'd say the offense looked so good in the spring game because they were going against our defense. Have you not noticed that EVERYONE can complete lots of short passes against our defense?
Seriously, though, don't worry about it. A few things:
1) It takes a year to really learn a new system well
2) This year doesn't count anyway- it is ALL PRACTICE.
I'm pretty jazzed about our offense. On the drives where it gets going, it is practically unstoppable and scores lightning fast. We score way more TDs than FGs. We're good in the red zone. Yes, it is inconsistent as heck, but that's because it is in the fourth/fifth week of year one.
Now, the defense, not quite so jazzed. Haven't seen the same flashes I've seen from the offense. Some good personnel, so I'm not sure what the issue is. I'm not sure about the scheme. That's for another post.
Don't worry about the offense. You'll see some Thomas as the year goes on, but right now Smith, Brown and Spencer are all more complete WRs. Remember, playing WR is also about blocking, especially in this offense. Also don't forget Stoney is often taking a WR spot on the field. Again, blocking- Stoney has kicked butt blocking in that position.
Relax. It'll all click on offense. Now if you want to start a thread with a little panic about the defense, I'll probably mildly panic on that one.
CPlunk, I'm not being sarcastic and I completely agree with you on the Spring Game performance. If we go back and watch it now, the defense is playing exactly the same way and giving up those easy short passes. They were wide open in the SG, and are wide open now.
That alone is what worries me going forward with the defense if they don't press more. Even OSU's own offense takes advantage of the cushion given to the WR's. It's not the normal focus of the offense, but if a defense is going to give you easy yards almost every play, more often than not you are going to take it.
MSU may not necessarily be a quick-hitting, short-passing game offense, but you better believe if OSU gives that cushion, the Spartans will be more than happy to take the easy yards every time.
"What we do in life echoes in eternity"
Part of the reason we threw so much in the spring is that the QBs were non-contact. That sort of eliminates the possibility for a lot of the QB designed runs, triple options, read options etc. that we run. I'm pretty well pleased with our offense to this point. I expected it to be a bit bumpy in the first year.
@OldColumbusTown
Oh yeah, I definitely agree. To me, the lack of press is one of two things:
1) Lack of faith in safety and linebacker play. You can't press if you don't trust your LBs and Safeties to read the play well and have your CB's backs. If a CB misses at the line and you have bad safety play, you have a touchdown. Immediately.
2) Resistance to change an existing defensive scheme.
I think it is more #1, but I keep reading that one of the safeties or the nickelback graded out as a champion, so what do i know.
Personally I'd love to see more press coverage and take our chances. I think we'd give up some long TDs due to poor safety play, but I have a lot of faith in Roby and Grant. I think Howard is better than people on this site think, but his worst thing is long pass plays. Its almost a guarantee that it'll be a catch or a pass interference.
Frustrating to watch passive defense for sure. The year doesn't count, so I'm all for throwing the safeties and linebackers in the fire and going after the other team with a vengeance. Of course, I don't lose my job if we give up a bunch of long TDs.
The other thing to keep in mind with the offense is this will be the first time Hyde/Hall will be able to be on the field at the same time. If you've got both of them, as well as Boren, on the field, what package does the defense bring? OSU can go spread, power, option, etc. out of that formation.
Based on what Herman and Meyer have stated, I think we have only seen the plays and packages on offense that they are confident the offense can execute to this point. As the offense learns and progresses, as well as the addition of possible player packages, I think we'll see more.
"What we do in life echoes in eternity"
I'm disappointed with the lack of production from Stoneburner and the lack of playing time for Michael Thomas... I felt like Miller and Thomas had developed a good chemistry. My hope is that the staff has been holding back a lot of stuff that they didn't want to show before B1G play.
It may have looked like Miller and Thomas developed great chemistry because he was on his spring game team...but who's to say if Devin Smith was playing on Brax's team in the same position he would not have had the same production? I think Devin and Philly are clearly our best WRs
I think your points are spot on, especially regarding the play of the safeties and linebackers. If you don't believe they can help make a play when a CB gets beat, then obviously you do everything imaginable to make sure that CB doesn't get beat.
With that said, the scheme of the defense just hasn't jived for me so far. The defense has begun blitzing a little more, but yet the amount of press has not changed. If you blitz a LB and basically make the QB get the ball out of his hand faster, would you not want your CB in more of a position to negate a quick pass? Either by defensing it, or just by discouraging the throw altogether. I don't think we've seen a coverage sack yet by this defense.
"What we do in life echoes in eternity"
On a related note, where have all the screen passes gone? I realize that Hall has been out, but it seems like we could be better with the screen game. Maybe practicing this would help our defense in guarding it too!
If our first team offense played our first team defense, they would probably score points once every 2.5 possessions, if not more.
If it were full go, full contact, I don't think we have a linebacker or DB that could take Braxton down in the open field, once he got past the defensive front 4. (Shazier might get him once or twice following him downfield on a cutback.)
Brionte Dunn and Mike Thomas looked like a possible true freshman, Big 10 offensive freshman of the year candidates vs our defense, and they don't see the field.
Also, if our defense could provide more 3 and outs, our offense would have more attempts and better rhythm.
So, think about the offense's opponent in the Spring Game, and you will find your answer.
As far as screens go, I do see us run WR screens to Philly every now and then. The other side of the coin is I don't really expect to see other teams being ridiculously overaggressive at rushing Brax out of fear of him single handedly burning them. Screens are only effective against overaggressive defenses.
EDIT: *only effective against overaggressive defenses and us.