Eleven Warriors

Gonzo hauls in his first TD of the season.

It wasn't an eye-popping statistical week for the former Buckeyes, but there were a couple of performances that were critical to team wins as the playoff picture becomes a bit clearer.

Unfortunately, I must start with some injury news. Donte Whitner had four tackles before separating his shoulder in the second half of Buffalo's 26-17 home loss to Nick Mangold and the Jets.

Speaking of the Jets, Vernon Gholston is not having the rookie season he imagined, registering only 7 tackles through the first nine games, including just an assist on Sunday.

While it was in a losing effort, Ryan Pickett gets a special mention for his play in Green Bay's 19-16 OT road loss at Tennessee. Pickett had a season best 6 tackles and recorded his first sack of the season, while AJ Hawk chipped in with 6 tackles as well.

Some of the lesser offensive games included Ted Ginn's 3 catches for 39 yards, Joey Galloway's catch for 22 yards and Antonio Pittman's 14 touches for 27 yards. On the defensive side, Antoine Winfield had 5 tackles and his second interception of the season in Minnesota's 28-21 home victory over Houston.

When it came down to it though, it was another battle between former first round picks in Michael Jenkins and Anthony Gonzalez, with Gonzo pulling out the win.

Jenkins was held to two catches, but made both of them count in Atlanta's 24-0 win over futile Oakland. His first catch was a 37 yard touchdown to put Atlanta up 7-0 and then added a 27 yard TD in the second. Surprisingly the 64 yards were Jenkins high on the season and it was his first touchdown since week one. On the season he now has 18 catches for 323 yards and 3 TD's.

Gonzo takes home his second award this year, with a clutch game in the Colts 18-15 home win against the Patriots. He totaled 4 catches for 55 yards and 2 touchdowns. The TD's (12 and 9) were the Colts only two of the game and his first two of the season. His final catch was a 24 yarder on 3 and 9 in the fourth, that flipped the field from Indy's 39 to the NE 37 and set up the game winning field goal.

On the season AG has 34 catches for 412 yards, with 22 of those going for first downs. He is three catches shy of last year's total and has now caught 4+ balls in 6 of 8 games this year, including four straight.

Special mention has to go to Dick LeBeau for the lockdown his Steelers defense put on the Redskins in D.C. Monday night. After Washington jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first 4 minutes, the Steel Curtain created 7 sacks, 1 blocked punt and 2 interceptions, the first picks Jason Campbell has thrown all year. Clinton Portis was held to 51 rushing yards, his first game below 120 since week 3 and no WR has more than 22 yards receiving, while the Redskins were 3-15 on 3rd down.

After having largely avoided the injury bug the past few seasons, the Buckeyes have taken their lumps in 2008. Beanie's injury, while not season-ending, was the biggest setback, but there have been many others. Whether you value their contributions or not, both Rehring and Person have missed games due to injury and two of the three prized freshmen linemen are out for the year.

Tight ends Jake Ballard and Rory Nicol were shelved at the same time and both Robiskie and Saine have carried lingering preseason injuries with them. Boom and Sanzenbacher were each rocked for concussion at Wisconsin and while Dane played against Penn State, Boom hasn't seen the field in a month.

Dual hundies would be nice

The defense hasn't been hit as hard, but hasn't escaped unharmed either. Wilson is gone and Chekwa and Jenkins have both battled minor injuries as of late.

If there's any good news, it's that coming off of the bye week, the Buckeyes are quite possibly as healthy as they've been since the opener.

While the depth chart released for the Northwestern game doesn't look that much different than what was released for Penn State, the fact that the team is rested and some personnel decisions have narrowed has me feeling optimistic heading to Evanston.

The Wildcats are certainly better than the team that was blitzed 58-7 on a beautiful September Saturday last season and Ohio State still has plenty of things to figure out -- like consistent offensive line play -- but they've also had two weeks to stew over a gut-wrenching home loss to the Nittany Lions.

The offense is also due (again). Lost in all of this agonizing over the play of the offense has been the fact that Pryor has been pretty accurate throwing the ball this season. Some of his balls still look like freshman throws, but not once this season has he failed to complete less than 60% of his throws in a game. Against Penn State, Pryor had his finest game of the season, completing 16 of 25 for 226 yards. Take away the three spikes to stop the clock and he's 16/22 or good enough for a 72% completion percentage. I'm not sure what it says that his three best games in that sense are against USC (78%), Purdue (71%) and Penn State, but completing the majority of your attempts will never be frowned upon.

Pryor's backfield mate is one of those backs that performs better when given adequate rest. Beanie has that heading into Northwestern and you should expect big things out of him. Especially with Boom back and hopefully the pistol along with it.

On special teams, a small tweak that's going to pay a big dividend at any moment has been featuring Lamaar Thomas on kick returns. Penn State got the memo and kicked away from him late in the game two weeks ago, but would any of you be surprised if he got his first this weekend?

The defense has been playing as well as any unit in the conference lately and when the offense puts things together, the results are in line with what we saw in East Lansing. If that happens again Saturday, which I fully expect, the score could get out of hound (EDIT 4/4/08 1734ET: like "out of hand" but much radder) quickly again. However, if the offense comes out of this break, still sputtering, the Buckeyes are going to be in for a real fight to make it into a New Year's Day bowl.

"I'm M-Free, baby!."

Huh?

So distracted with the offensive shortcomings of our favorite team, it's easy to forget about just how awful of a sesaon Rich Rodriguez is churning out in Ann Arbor.

Saturday's loss, to Purdue on quite possibly Tiller's last trick (or as Poe put it: Tiller selling snake oil to the Michigan secondary) was their 5th in a row and Michigan's seventh of the season.

Gone with that one trick play were Michigan's national-best streaks of 40 winning seasons and 33 bowl appearances. The seven losses already tie the 1962 and 1934 teams for most in a season and the Wolverines must go to Minnesota this weekend, catch Northwestern at home next week and finish in Columbus to end the season. Not once in the proud 128-year history of Michigan football has a team suffered eight defeats in a single season and Team Rod 1.0 has a really good shot of getting to nine.

Had they not pulled a miracle out against Wisconsin, this could easily be a one-win team, with that lone victory a three-point win over a 2-6 Miami. But they did. So two wins it is.

Wolverine fan anger is directed at defensive coordinator Scott Schafer:

"The defense switched to a 3-3-5 stack for this game and that only made things worse. It's pretty clear that Scott Shafer has lost control of Michigan's defense based on the switch to a 3-3-5 alone."

Giving up 48 to Purdue -- and 25 or more to every non-MAC opponent -- seems to indicate that MSC has a point, but the problems on this team go straight to the top. From telling recruits about his resignation ahead of his team, to shredding documents and lawsuits. Whether it be players transferring to rivals and decrying the lack of "family values" to the steady stream of de-commits in his first full recruiting class, Rich Rodriguez has been a disaster of Weis-ian proportions.

Though some of the faithful can already see this, others aren't quite willing to go that far just yet. Somehow a team that went 11-2 and 9-4 (banged-up) the previous two seasons had left the cupboards bare... or it's his pattern of having rough first seasons before bouncing back with a strong year two... or his system takes 745 days to learn. Whatever. Great coaches do not flop this bad their first season on the job. Consider the following table:

First Season on the Job

Granted, there are many factors that contribute to the success of a coach in his first season on the job, but every single one of the coaches in the above table finished .500 or better year one. And a good number of them actually improved upon the win total of their predecessor. Rich, not so much. Best case scenario, he wins two of his last three and finishes -5. More realistic case: he wins one of his last three and is still looking at -6.

Early odds he doesn't make it through is first contract?

We expect some strong opinions after the weekend saw the Longhorns fall victim to the gunslinger from Texas Tech. We also bumped Florida to #4 as we think they are the best of the one-loss bunch.

We're still not sure where Boise State and Utah truly belong but we're confident they aren't the 9th and 10th best teams in the country so where should they be?

Once again, a host of teams previously in the 16-25 slots got ran so the back half of the poll is another crap shoot. We're honestly tired of trying to evaluate that crop of teams as they are all mediocre in their own special way.

Anyway, same deal as always...Give us your thoughts so we can reshape the poll before submission of the final ballot on Wednesday.

1		Bye week. Next up: Iowa	1
2		'Bama blitzed Arkansas State 35-0 to record their first shutout since '95 in a tune up for next week's trip to LSU. Freshman RB Mark Ingram went over a hundo for the first time ever (113, 2TD) but JPW was a pedestrian 15/28 for 152 yards and a pick.	1
3		We hadn't believed the hype - until now. Crabtree is a menace and Harrell can flat out sling the rock. He went 36/53 for 474 and 2 TD making a believer out of us. What we wouldn't give to see a big game effort like that in Columbus (ie: Beanie '07 Michigan). No rest for America's new darlings, however, with Oklahoma State up next.	5
4		Tebow of Nazareth jumped back into the thick of the Heisman race with 5 TD (2 pass, 3 rush) in the Gators' 49-10 demolition of annual pretender Georgia. Tebow is now Florida's all time rushing TD leader with 39 (Emmitt 36).	2
5		USC picked up their 3rd shoutout of the year with a 56-0 shank of Washington. CJ Gable paced the offense going 10/108 with 2 TD. Trojans have won 42 of last 43 at home. Next up: Cal.	--
6		A questionable defense finally caught up to the Longhorns. They allowed 31 first downs, 579 total yards and 474 yards passing in a 39-33 loss at Texas Tech. Even with the loss, Colt McCoy's Heisman hopes could still be in decent shape. He was sacked four times going 20/34 for 294 yards with 2 TD and a pick but still had Texas in position to win engineering an 11 play, 80 yard drive giving them a 33-32 lead with 1:29 to play.	5
7		The Sooners took advantage of three 1st qtr turnovers building a 35-0 lead en route to a 62-28 spanking of once proud Nebraska. Oklahoma is now 59-2 at home under Stoops. They play A&M next week before with Texas Tech and @ Oklahoma State. Expect the D to get exposed in at least one loss out of the next three.	3
8		Prepping for this week's showdown with Texas Tech, the Cowboys got 4 TD receptions from Dez Bryant in a 59-17 beating of Iowa State. It's the 5th time the Cowboys have scored at least 50 points this season. Dare to dream...	1
9		Another wack opponent, another blowout for Boise State. The particulars: New Mexico State, 49-0. Boise is now 9-0 against these bums outscoring them 107-0 in last two games while scoring at least 40 points in eight of of the nine. Why do we have them ranked so high again?	1
10		Utah barely squeaked by a then 4-5 New Mexico squad 13-10 at home. Time for a little poll correction. Brian Johnson picked up his 22nd win as the Utes starting QB, passing Alex Smith for most W's in school history. Next up: TCU.	1

11		Bye week. Next up: @ Northwestern.	2
12		Mizzou blew a 21-7 halftime lead but got a FG with 2:31 left to escape with an unimpressive 31-28 win over 3-6 Baylor. Chase Daniel was up and down going 30/38 for 318 with 3 TD and 2 INT.	--
13		The Horned Frogs moved to 9-1 with a 44-14 win over UNLV. TCU's strong defense prepped for Utah creating 3 TO while holding the Runnin' Rebels to 175 total yards, only 67 through the air.	1
14		Another season, another collapse - at least Ohio State waits until the bowl season (depending on your preference, I guess). Matt Stafford threw 3 picks while Moreno fumbled and was held to 65 yards. The UGA defense has given up 90 points in their 2 losses.	7
15		LSU went out of conference to gain some much needed confidence registering a 35-10 win over Tulane. The D held the Green Wave to 163 total yards while the LSU offense was paced by 114 yards rushing and 1 TD from Charles Scott. Unfortunately for LSU, QB Jarrett Lee is still crap. He went 8/20 for 99 yards with 1 TD and 1 INT. Next up: Alabama.	--
16		BYU needed a TD pass from Max Hall with :22 left to sneak past Colorado State 45-42 in Fort Collins. Seriously, why do we even rank teams past 15? Hall blew up for 5 TD and 389 yards passing helping BYU to 551 yards of offense.	--
17		Bye week. Next up: Northern Illinois	1
18		Sparty slipped past Wisconsin 25-24 thanks to a 44 yard FG with :07 left capping a 12-0 4th qtr scoring run. Ringer was held to a season low 54 yards on 21 carries but WR Blair White blew up for 164 yards. MSU is 8-2 for 1st time since '99. Penalties: MSU 2/30, Wisc 12/121.	3
19		Bye week. Next up: Georgia Tech	3
20		The Yellow Jackets ate their vitamins and said their prayers as evidenced by Florida State RB Marcus Sims fumbling into the end zone with less than a minute left helping Ga Tech to a 31-28 win. The victory was Ga Tech's first over FSU since Archie was rockin' the 'fro (ie: 1975).	NR
21		The Mountaineers rolled favored UConn 35-13 behind Pat White's combined 230 yards and 3 TD. WVU moved into sole possession of first place (3-0) in the Big Least and won their 5th straight.	NR
22		The Mildcats got a pick six with :12 left to win at Minnesota 24-17. Northwestern is 7-2 for the first time since 2000. Backup QB Mike Kafka went off rushing for 217 yards and passing for another 143 (12/16, 2TD, 2INT).	NR
23		Bye week. Next up: @ Va Tech. Fear the Turtle? I say embrace the turtle.	NR
24		Cal moved to 6-2 with a 26-16 upset win over Oregon despite their 5 turnovers in a game played in crazy rain storm. The teams combined for 8 turnovers and 11/37 on 3rd down.	NR
25		We're throwing Kansas a bone slotting them 25th after a 52-21 win over rival Kansas State. We don't know why - I think we just like morbidly obese coaches.	NR

DROPPED OUT: Minnesota (#17), Florida State (#19), Tulsa (#20), Oregon (#23), Louisville (#24), South Florida (#25).

We don't know yet whether it'll be C.J. Bacher or the talented backup, Kafka, leading the Wildcats into battle this weekend. We do know, that Evanston is one hell of a fun place to catch a Buckeye game.

We mentioned this a few weeks back, but if you're heading to Chicago for the game, we're having a get-together of sorts at Moran's this Friday (8pmish). We've heard from a few of you and would love to meet some of the other aspiring offensive coordinators that frequent this site. From downtown or Evanston, it's an easy find from the Addison Red Line stop.

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[Map to Casey Moran's]

Mack Daddy

The Buckeyes are off, but there are two fantastic games pitting top 10 ranked teams and we also will know more about how good Minnesota and Michigan State (also known as Ohio State's best wins) really are.

We'll be taking the weekend off to get to know our wives again, but feel free to dump any thoughts, insights, observations and frustrations in the comments below.

America faces an important choice and the contestants have painted compelling and detailed portraits. The contestants have battled for weeks and by now we have a clear picture of what each of them bring to the table and what they would mean for this country.

Alabama has manhandled its competition with superior trench play and Texas has looked even better, dispatching top five foes like it's no big deal. The nation's best one-loss team is back to destroying the Pac-10 and Florida could play with any of these teams.

And then there is undefeated Penn State of the lowly Big Ten. They've played one close game all season and came away with a win in one of the toughest environments in college football. The offense and the defense are both performing at a championship level and -- oh yeah -- there's that 45-14 win over the team that beat USC.

While the Big Ten has been pretty floptacular in recent BCS bowl games, if Penn State wins out, they should not and cannot be passed over for a berth in the MNC. Each team is its own team, irrespective of conference and until we do have a playoff system of sorts, an undefeated team from a BCS conference has to be given the opportunity to prove their validity.

GO. GET. THAT CRYSTAL.

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(It's our hope that you'll keep the comments clear of talk about that other big decision coming up. You're not going to change any minds at this stage and there are other forums for that discourse. Discussion and debate over the MNC and its potential contestants is whole-heartedly encouraged, however.)

With the bye week, the flow of information coming out of the WHAC has been a bit slower than normal, but Tressel did speak with the press on Thursday afternoon. As you might imagine, much of what he had to say was in response to questions about the offense or lack thereof.

Feeling a little heat

Off an early question about the general state of the offense, he said that one of the luxuries of having the bye week was being able to actually study film on yourself and your own tendencies instead of spending the week watching footage of the opponent that weekend. Tressel audited every passing play from both Pryor and Boeckman this season looking at technique, footwork, decision-making and what might have worked better against the coverage. The topic of putting Boeckman into the game came up again and JT pretty much shot it down alluding to the fact that he wasn't sure Pryor could learn watching from the sidelines.

Though he pointed out that most offensive "gurus" he had heard of were selling insurance or doing commentary, his remarks on potential personnel changes or turning over the playcalling were encouraging if you count yourself in the 98% of all Buckeye fans wondering WTF is up with the offense:

"If you're willing to try to decide which players are in the right position, you had certainly better be willing to think about which coaches are in the right position and are you doing the right things. You always do self-critique and so forth -- you always look."

When pressed about possibly giving up playcalling duties, he opened the door to having the finest punt team in the country:

"I would have a hard time not having work to do. If the suggestion would be made that maybe I should find some different work to do, then I think you have to be willing to look in the mirror and say 'Well, maybe I should work more on the punt team since it's so important'."

After being asked again if he could live with someone else making the calls on offense, he offered that there's a little bit of that today:

"I'll give you a good example. We were 3rd and 12 at Michigan State. And you know, 3rd and 12, you want to score a touchdown and all that and I said, 'Bolls what do you want?' He said let's run a -- we call it a certain number -- which is a lead draw and I'm thinking 'A lead draw? If we were playing at home, the tomatoes would be coming out.' He said, 'Yeah, I think they're going to come with such-and-such and I know we'll pick it up,' and boom we run a lead draw. Beanie walks into the end zone and jumps sideways or whatever he did."

So here's another humble suggestion. The offense needs a spark. How about for one game -- the Northwestern game -- Bollman gets to call every play. If the line still underperforms, but the playcalling is diverse enough to create some points and overcome some of that, then we're one step closer to putting our finger on the problem. If it's just as anemic -- or worse -- then we have further proof that some changes are needed at the OC/OL spot.

It's cute that Earle is on record as saying that a coach not calling the plays might as well go behind the bench and smoke cigarettes, and I love Bruce, but frankly, he still thinks it's 1982 outside (and we have it on good authority that he's angry that lineman don't wear foam arm-guards anymore). It's not, but the Buckeye offense still believes it to be.

Other nuggets:

• Tress mentioned the need for better footwork more than once when discussing Pryor's progress, but also pointed out that he reminds him a little bit of Troy Smith when he was younger in the sense that he "doesn't put a lot of balls into harm's way", which is maybe a bit unusual for a young quarterback.
• The Vest said he plans to spend his weekend watching football and mentioned that he sometimes gets a little to into it when watching "his guys". He said when he watches Dantonio's games he feels like he's coaching and wondered aloud at what he was doing up at 11PM the other night watching Mark Snyder's Marshall play.
• The players had Monday off and watched film of the Penn State game on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday, the team held regular practice and then today they'll have a short session before getting Saturday off.

They need to lose, but you gotta like this guy.

While the Buckeyes take the weekend off, here are the teams you need to be cheering for in order for the scarlet and gray to move up in the polls and solidify their bowl position.

There are only two top 25 matchups, but the three teams directly ahead of OSU play on the road and any loss by them will help the Vest's team tremendously.

National Games

#5 Florida at #8 Georgia, 3:30PM - CBS
The world's largest outdoor cocktail party comes back to Jacksonville, with first place in the SEC East on the line. Georgia took down Florida last year 42-30 and riled up Gator Nation with their celebration after the first score. The war of words has been quiet thus far, but Urban Meyer proclaimed Knowshon Moreno's play has made his quarterback better. However, Meyer has given his own team a gag order this week.

The winner obviously has the driver's seat to the SEC title game, with the loser having their national title hopes squashed. I think Florida is playing the better ball right now, putting up 112 points the last two weeks, so a Georgia loss seems like it would help the Buckeyes more.

#1 Texas at # 6 Texas Tech, 8:00PM - ABC
The biggest game ever to hit Lubbock is in primetime and this should be a high scoring affair, as TT is averaging 48 points and Texas is averaging 46 points. Some people are not sold on Texas Tech yet, as their toughest challenge has come from Kansas, a 63-21 win last week. After this game the Red Raiders take on Oklahoma State and Oklahoma in consecutive weeks, so I hope they lose Saturday and at least one of the next two to help the Bucks.

Texas is the best team in the country and if they get past this one, they only have Kansas, Baylor and Texas A&M before the Big 12 title game. This is a big game for Colt McCoy, he is the front runner for the Heisman and a poor performance could shoot down his dreams. He comes in completing over 82% of his passes and is the Horns leading rusher. I expect to see at least 800 yards of total offense in this one, so sit back and enjoy some offense (for once) in the Buckeye's off week.

Nebraska at #4 Oklahoma, 8:00PM - ESPN
This game may not have much bearing on Ohio State's chances of getting to a BCS game, but Buckeye alum Bo Pellini gets his first chance to take down the mighty Sooners. Nebraska is tied for first in the Big 12 North and a win here could help turn this program around. A loss for the Sooners would erase them from the national title picture, but something tells me they would still be ranked ahead of OSU.

#11 Boise State at New Mexico State, 7:00PM #12 TCU at UNLV, 8:00PM #10 Utah at New Mexico, 9:30PM
None of these games are on national TV, but they all have major implications for the Buckeyes BCS chances. Ohio State needs at least two of these teams to lose over the next four weeks and with Utah facing off against TCU next week, a Boise loss Saturday would be perfect.

Boise State doesn't face any type of challenge the rest of the season and I doubt they get one against the 3-4 Aggies, but anything can happen in the crazy state of New Mexico and the lack of blue turf just may throw them off.

Big Ten Games

Northwestern at #17 Minnesota, 12:00PM - ESPN2
Minnesota is looking to tie Ohio State for second place in the Big Ten standings with a home win over the ailing Wildcats. Who would have thought at the beginning of the year, this is where the Gophers would be at this point in the season. Don't look now, but Minny has a realistic chance to finish this season 11-1. Three (Michigan and Iowa) of their final four are at home, with an away game at Wisconsin on November 15th.

Can you believe that the Gophers may go from being 1-11 to 11-1? They got off the hook by not having to face Penn State or Michigan State, which can skew any record a bit, but props to Tight End Tim and the turn around he has done in Minnesota.

This brings back the argument of the Big Ten's scheduling. I'm of the opinion that one OOC game be eliminated and each team should have to face 9 conference teams. With all due respect to Minny, they have played one ranked team all year, OSU and 11-1 potentially sets them up to get destroyed in a bowl game by an SEC team on Jan. 1st. What are your feelings towards the scheduling?

Wisconsin at #22 Michigan State, 12:00PM - ESPN
This is an upset alert. After two straight weeks against Ohio St. and Michigan, the Spartans welcome a Badger team that got their first conference win last week against Illinois. With both teams favoring the run and the new clock rules, this game might be over before 2PM. OSU needs MSU to pull off a victory here and continue to climb the polls. At least this gives you a couple of games to flip between during the early afternoon.