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The Buckeye Defense and being Shredded by State College's Barkley. Should We Be Scared?

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CGroverL's picture
October 24, 2015 at 4:27am
63 Comments

Those of you that know and hate me know me as a "numbers guy" that argues with you all but seem to lose those arguments and bring on more hate because I back up my comments/opinions with facts. For some reason, proof doesn't help you here. We members of Buckeye Nation are a hard headed bunch, but hey...we should be. If you are not a Buckeye fan, you hate the Buckeyes (see Paul Finebaum and Mark May). Right now though, it seems that the Buckeye offense is starting to click, so voters and writers alike are finding new ways to show why the Buckeyes are overrated and, they soon will attack our defense. The team winning the title last season and returning most of their starters has faded in the eyes of most and they have to attack this loaded team somewhere. The most obvious place to attack the Buckeyes would be to attack their defense.

Let's be honest. Maryland's Hills (QB) and State College's Barkley (RB) ran all over the Bullets. Huge holes, missed assignments and missed tackles, and maybe even poor game planning is what I blame it on. I'll not bring out numbers as usual and I will answer questions to this forum topic (I normally don't and my last write-up that was supposed to be humorous in a way didn't go over well with just 8 comments). I really just want to know why our solid defense is giving up huge rushing yards, even to a non-running QB. Does it scare me? No. I see injuries to all three levels of the Bullets as part of the problem, but I want to know what Buckeye Nation thinks about it.

Now to what I am scared of. I know that many of us won't watch games played by TTUN. However, my wife and I watched TTUN play Sparty and my wife was good as she never said "M!ch!gan" and referred to TTUN as "the weasels" and Sparty as "the Green Team"). I have trained her well despite her family coming from Florida State. Hell, my wife's sister was a sorority sister at Florida State's Chi Omega chapter during Ted Bundy's murders...and she returned afterwards (I mention that only because of Halloween coming and I recently had a conversation about how people in horror movies say things like "I may have just heard something in the basement where the stairs are rickety and both light bulbs are blown.... Oh, and my sister, her boyfriend, and the guy that just brought us our pizza were killed by a psychopath over the last 30 minutes.... I really need to go see if I did really hear something in the basement").

 

 

 

Duh, anyway...I know I'm talking scary stupid stuff but this is about what really scares me: OUR SECONDARY!!!

I see the healthy secondary as one of the best in the nation but what scares me most is what I noticed in that game between TTUN and Little Brother. Countless times, Hinckley, Ohio native Connor Cook threw up 50/50 balls...and it worked, worked, and worked again. M!ch!gan's DB's actually played those 50/50 balls well, but unless the ball is picked off, Cook needs to just complete one of three to be effective with that brand of football. So, even though the defense won the battles, they ultimately lost the war. When Sparty comes to the Shoe, I see Cook being put under pressure by Bosa and the horribly underrated Adolphus Washington (Be honest without being biased...What are Todd McShay and Mel Kiper thinking? Washington really isn't a top 5 player when it comes to a DT?) along with Fickell throwing blitzes from everywhere and Cook throwing up those same 50/50 balls. If Cook is able to do what he did in Ann Arbor, and let's be real about it, the Buckeye defense will have to pick some balls off. Cook's numbers were not stellar. Because of those lobs in one on one circumstances, Cook completed just 18 of 39 passes but did have 328 yards (the yards were aided by a 74 yard non 50/50 pass) with no INT's even with his throws into tight coverage.

The bottom line is that I'm looking too far into the future and I know it. Sparty is the next team that should have a chance to win against our Buckeyes though...and I can see a lot of pass interference penalties against our secondary or worse if they don't get their heads turned around and snatch the ball from Cook's targets. Off the subject, what Cook is doing by giving AND TRUSTING his receivers to come down with those 50/50 type passes is what Jones was not doing in his time as QB. We all remember Jalin Marshall pulling the ball off of a defender's back in the playoffs to make a catch. We have seen NONE of that this season. Jones doesn't trust his receivers. Well, Cook does.... And if we lose to Sparty because of Cook lobbing balls up to his WR's, it will look and feel nasty enough to make you want to hit the shower and use brillo pads. It was gross what he did to M!ch!gan and I don't want to see that happen to our Buckeyes. When Sparty comes to Columbus, they won't be able to run, Cook will not have time to throw, and I hope that Fick, Ash, and Coombs have a recipe to beat Cook and his garbage.

I'd love to have more than 8 comments even though this is being written about 18 hours before the game against Rutgers. Why am I writing things like this at 4:11 a.m. on Saturday morning? Well, after breaking my foot from falling off of a roof, my doc said I was not allowed to put any weight on my broken bone which now permanently has 8 pins, 4 screws, and a plate in it. So, my life is now Buckeye Football while being stuck in bed for at least one more week. So please indulge me with your acumen. Why is our defense playing so poorly and no one is talking about it very much? I promise that my forum topic following the Rutgers game will be a bit better. I'm just trying to pass my time by writing about my beloved Buckeyes while the rest of you are getting enough sleep to get ready to put a foot in Rutgers' a**. Put an extra foot in for me. Mine isn't working so well. Go Bucks and Go Silver Bullets!

This is a forum post from a site member. It does not represent the views of Eleven Warriors unless otherwise noted.

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