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EXTREMES versus Experience..OSU in NC Series..

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BoohBah Buckeye's picture
June 5, 2016 at 9:01am
18 Comments

Why we make it to the championship series….

Summary:

OSU is experiencing the EXTREMES and I'm not sure any other team in the nation is so fortunate.

EXTREME RECRUITING: a staff priority--get right people they make you look GREAT!

EXTREME TALENT: See above: it's been going on for several years now! It's not only in the fold it's stacked.

EXTREME DEVELOPMENT: not only the above two we have extreme development of players going on vastly accelerating the players development.

EXTREME COACHING: this staff is freaking loaded just like the roster with extreme coaches guided by the most extremely best coach in college football.

EXTREME LEADERS: Leadership is a major focus of the program and the leaders are in the fold and JT Barrett is undoubtedly an extremely qualified leader and proven.

Reasoning:

I have been, albeit, rightly accused of wearing scarlet and gray colored glasses.  Almost each year for the last 18 years I’ve predicted that they OSU Buckeyes would contend or take the national championship.  Seeing that we only (ONLY????) have two NC during that time I’ve been off a few times. 

That being said, there were three times in that time period that I DID NOT give an ultra-positive prediction. One was when we lost Tressel and Luke Fickell took over and the other two times was when we had back-to-back games with USC when Pete Carroll was coach.  In those years I delayed my over exuberance and took the position that I’d wait and see how those games played out. 

The issue was not because we did not have talent or a very good coaching staff.  We had a coaching staff that on balance (but for offense IMHO) we had excellence.  Not extreme excellence but excellence.

In the two years we played USC, we played a team coached by Pete Carroll.  I evaluated him as a very, very good coach on balance, but he created an extreme recruiting environment. 

In those two years I reserved judgment on the outcome of the games.  Bear with me here please:  The question is why, a known Buckeye Homer and over positive fanatic (fan in short), did NOT predict anything until after those two back to back games.  The answer to that question, (thanks for bearing with me to this point) also predicates the prediction for this year in the heading above.

After evaluating the returning starters for each team, after evaluating statistics on NCAA Stats for each team, after looking at matchups on each team, after evaluating the recruiting assessments on each team for the last 4 years, I came to a conclusion.  I could not make a definitive conclusion on where OSU stood nationally until after the game was played.

In each year OSU had very good to excellent coaching and had a number of returning players that were very good college players all tolled. Okay that was exciting.

USC in the first year had a brand new QB and a brand new freshman RB, and a number of new starters on offense (if I recollect correctly) but had an excellent somewhat seasoned defense.  It was reversed the next year. (Those with better memories please help out).

After all the analysis, I concluded that this was a game pitting two very good overall coaching staffs but OSU was facing Pete Carrols’ EXTREME RECRUITING advantage. In analyzing the recruits the USC recruits were, collectively, qualitatively better than OSU had for the last 3 years IMHO

Boiling it all down, this game was about what the impact was when two quality teams face each other where one team had edge on experience and the other team had the advantage of EXTREME RECRUITING.

The result was the same, both years.  The team with extreme recruiting won both games:  USC.   The first game was a nail biter the next game a USC blow out where the USC defense just dominated.

The point I’m trying to make is this:  Extreme Recruiting trumps just about everything else when you have an excellent coaching staff and program in place.

Urban Meyer pretty much has recruited most all of this current team and his primary emphasis has been RECRUITING.  I believe that when Urban looks at coaching he values the following in assistant couchette the following abilities: 1. Recruiting 2. Recruiting 3. Recruiting 4. Teaching Effectiveness, 5. Football knowledge.  Not that the last two aren’t important but the first three are of primary or EXTREME importance.

Now that brings us to the prediction.

Urban Meyer has created an EXTREME RECRUITING situation.  This situation has been year to year extreme for multiple years now!  But he has more.  He also has created the EXTREME CULTURE of competitiveness in the NCAA. He also has created this year an EXTREME CULTURE of coaching.  We have the most elite staff in the entire country.  AND he has created an EXTREME DEVELOPMENT program.  That being said the number one key is EXTREME RECRUITING.

No question OSU lost a ton of NFL talent from last year.  It is incomparable and a valid concern for fans as we approach this year!  That being said, EXTREME with the priorities in place, takes over experience loss IMHO for this year.

Add to this phenomenon at OSU the following:

*Extreme Leader and experience in J.T. Barrett.

*Additional coaching time permitted for coaches in the off-season:  HUGE!

*Returning injured players:  e.g. Noah Brown, Corey Smith, and Eric Smith

We beat Oklahoma and we are in the NC Playoff for this coming season.  MID.

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