Eleven Warriors

Morelli doesn't blog, but his headband is strong

With so many excellent Penn State blogs out there, we'd be remiss not to point them out. These guys are so intense that in addition to the weekly Big Ten Blogger roundtable, they also have their own "Blue and White Roundtable".

• Black Shoe Diaries: Mike is the dean of the PSU blogging scene. Quality updates and analysis on a regular basis -- plus he has the Bucks #1 on his BlogPoll ballot.
• Run Up The Score: Despite hoping “the creeps catch an exploding urine balloon in the face” this weekend, RUTS brings it daily - witness his pwnership of fellow Big Ten bloggers in the pick 'em contest.
• The Nittany Line: These guys share a special bond with 11W as both blogs first saw the light of the internet in July of 2006. We can each claim to have written 400+ posts with only $11.42 to show for our efforts!
• There Is No Name On My Jersey: Very fond of plain uniforms, this site called the Lou Holtz pep-talk curse back in its infancy. Also, where else would you go to find out that there's a dangerous shortage of portable crappers for the game this weekend?

Check them out and catch up on their wishful thinking, but be sure not to drop comment piss all over them after the game. Show some class, boys!

221 with a bone chip?

Attempting to reverse tracks from when he, among others, called out Beanie's toughness two weeks ago, the Dispatch's Ken Gordon reveals that an anonymous source told him that Wells actually has a bone chip in his left ankle that will require surgery.

Beanie has been toughing it out and is putting surgery off until after the Michigan game so he'll be ready for the bowl game.

Now, Gordon is singing a different tune:

My beef with OSU is Wells was getting questioned about his toughness all season, and the Buckeyes could have ended that by saying what exactly was wrong with him, but they didn't. They hide behind medical-privacy issues, which is a complete joke. Once somebody reports on an injury, Jim Tressel freely discusses that player's status, his rehab, his chance of playing, etc. So don't give me that.

He's got a point. Why has so much been made of Beanie "becoming a warrior" and things of that nature this season when he's been playing through this type of injury?

2nd Generation Buckeye

11W Inc. is pleased to announce the hiring of employee #4. Mark, who has actually been contributing to the Buckeye NFLer of the week for a while until he got up to speed with the levers and gears, will now get his cut of the $0.13 we take in each day from Google ads. He'll be taking over that feature as well as contributing other posts. As a 6th-team all-Ohio offensive lineman, he's uniquely suited to bolster our trench commentary.

Shawn Springs of the Washington Redskins takes home this week's Buckeye NFLer of the Week award. Shawn pitched in with 7 solo tackles as the Redskins defeated the Arizona Cardinals 21-19.

Springs had an injury-riddled 2006 season with the 'Skins. He didn't make his season debut until week 6 of 2006 after having surgery on an abdominal muscle. In December of 2006, he was placed on injured reserve with a fractured clavicle. Shawn has since recovered from his injuries and has returned to his starting role in 2007 as the Redskins shut-down corner.

Shawn Springs deserved this week's award for his outstanding performance during week 7 against the Cardinals. We also felt it was worth mentioning that Springs has not practiced with his team the past few weeks. Springs has been flying back and forth from Washington to Dallas to be with his ailing father, Ron Springs. Ron Springs, also a former Buckeye and NFLer, fell into a coma after complications arose from a surgery to remove a cyst from his elbow on Oct. 11.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Springs family.

Dallas could be mistaken for Redd Foxx

Basketball season is drawing closer and Thad has another stellar recruiting class coming in. This year's roster features only 4 players with any type of Division I playing time and it may take them some time to gel.

However, just like last year's young team, they will have some "older" leadership. Greg Oden was often confused with Morgan Freeman last year, as he lead the Buckeyes to the National Title game and played beyond his age of 43. This year, Buckeye freshman Dallas Lauderdale will be looking to compete well beyond his tender age of 40.

Dallas Lauderdale is one of the few lucky Americans who doesn't need a different name to star in porno movies and comes to Cbus via Solon, Ohio. The wide bodied Lauderdale will help the Buckeyes rebounding margin and will assist our underclassmen in obtaining beer (for the ladies of course) without a fake I.D. Dallas is part of another highly ranked recruiting class. All 5 incoming freshman, were ranked in the top 150 last year, giving Matta another top 10 class. As fans, we may have been spoiled by the success of last years team, but something tells me this year will not be a let down.

When Thad arrived at Ohio State he made no bones about turning tOSU into a national powerhouse and he continues to be prophetic in that case. Coach Matta received two more verbals this past weekend, for the class of 2010! Trae Golden and Cameron Wright gave the Buckeye coaching staff their commitments after a campus visit over the weekend. While Cameron is not rated nationally, Trae joins Jared Sullinger and DeShaun Thomas in the top ten of the 2010 class. Matta has already put a top 5 class together for 2008 and as mentioned before on 11W, the present and future is looking bright.

It wasn't nearly as bad as the past couple of weeks, but the 2007 football season still feels as if Hunter S. Thompson is at the wheel. Strike that. Hunter S. Thompson after he smoked a joint composed of Jim Morrison's ashes that were soaked in mescaline.

The Buckeyes are still our number one, although LSU will more than likely get more than it's share of BlogPoll love later this week. The hits keep on coming.

There are quite a few big games this week: Boston College at Virginia Tech on Thursday, Cal at Arizona State, USC at Oregon, Florida at Georgia and the Buckeyes revisiting the site of their last regular season loss when they take on Penn State in Happy Valley.

As always, you can check the ballots of every voter and the final version is due Wednesday morning, so get your thoughts in by Tuesday night if you think we got it wrong.

1		The score didn't reflect the true domination of the Spartans. Happy Valley or bust Saturday night.	--
2		This team has the type of magic that NC teams need. Much needed bye week coming up.	2
3		The Ducks hung 55 on Washington behind 450+ on the ground. The Trojans come to Autzen this weekend.	3
4		The Sooners squeaked by hapless Iowa State on the way into a bye week.	2
5		Enjoyed a bye week before heading into Blacksburg for a huge game this Thursday night.	--
6		Put up 31 in the first half on the way to a rout of Mississippi State. The Mountaineers are at Rutgers this weekend.	3
7		Had a bye, but welcome a wounded Cal to town this weekend.	3
8		Tebow looked pretty amazing in the win over Kentucky. Next up: The Game Formerly Known As The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party	5
9		The Jayhawks are 8-0 after picking up their first win in Boulder since 1995.	2
10		Like BC, Tech also enjoyed a bye prior to the Thursday night matchup. This should be some collision.	2
11		Evidently Mizzou's defense can play a little ball as well.	5
12		Irish prove to be the perfect pick-me-up ahead of Oregon trip.	2
13		Things don't get much easier for the Bulls. This weekend, they travel to 6-1 UConn.	10
14		It wasn't pretty, but the Horns pulled away from Baylor to move to 6-2.	3
15		The OBC drops his first ever game to Vanderbilt. Practice gonna be a biotch this week.	8
16		The Dawgs had a bye ahead of welcoming the Gators to town.	4
17		You lost to Karl Dorrell. Ha-Ha. The Bears are limping into Tempe.	9
18		UVA pulled off a nail-biter over Maryland.. yet they're 7-1.	--
19		Big win at Illinois without the services of Hart. LLLLloyd is starting to think his job is safe again.	6
20		After taking on LSU and Florida back-to-back, Kentucky catches a break in the form of Mississippi State at home this weekend.	5
21		Evidently, this team thrives off of off-the-field drama. Oh Noes.. the whiteout is near.	NR
22		Had a bye or we would have found a way to move them down a few more spots.	--
23		Seriously. Is Tennessee any good? Nobody knows. At any rate, Bear Saban gets a crack at his old team this weekend in Tuscaloosa.	NR
24		If Rutgers ain't the Cinderella, ain't nobody gonna be the Cinderella. West Virginia travels to the near Big Apple this weekend. That should be interesting.	NR
25		Click-clack. You gotta play defense after scoring at the end. Click-clack.	4

DROPPED OUT: Tennessee (#19), Cincinnati (#23), Texas Tech (#24)

Wells is learning to play with pain

Bea-nie!! Bea-nie!! Bea-nie!!
Bum ankle or not, Beanie Wells is a mother. The press reports may have minimized his impact in the victory over Michigan State, but whenever the team needed a play, Wells came to the rescue. He had a big run on each of the two crucial opening drives and his reverse field jaunt for 27 was Barry-esque. Then when the team needed to kill clock at the end, he was there again.

His patience as a back is something that cannot be taught. Yesterday was one of those games where Wells made his two very-capable backups look like walk-ons.

As good as the team has looked this season, they've done it all with arguably their best player at only 80% for the last month or so. If he gets into a groove during this stretch run, it will make Boeckman's life that much better.

The Best Defense in America
Do you think Ringer is wishing he were a Buckeye now more than ever? The way Animal, Freeman and the rest of the defense hounded him was beyond impressive. Here's Ringer's rushing total the last five weeks: 144, 145, 185, 203 and 49. Can you pick out the OSU game? He got a gift from the zebras or he would have had a fumble to his credit as well.

Laurinaitis continued his stellar play, but the unsung hero amongst unsung heroes on this unit could very well be Marcus Freeman. It's almost as if the two linebackers are having a contest to see who can lay the most wood each weekend. Freeman finished 3rd on the team in tackles and also had the key block to seal Ray Small's 21 yard punt return.

I realize it's nigh blasphemous, but is this unit better than the 2002 edition? 2005 was pretty sick as well, but this team, despite being so young, may be a more talented group than those other two defenses from what we've seen so far. Still a lot of football to play, no doubt, but...

The O-Line Has It Going
I'm not ready to indict the line for the two Spartan defensive scores in the 3rd quarter. It's not like Michigan State trotted out a bunch of cripples - they have some players. Sparty's defensive front was good coming in and the Buckeyes did a good job of neutralizing that for most of the game. Those two plays and the Wells fumble were just football plays. Sometimes your opponent is going to make plays, especially when they're a decent team like the Spartans are. That's just football.

Saint-Dic will be playing in the NFL next season and I'm just happy that this is the last time the Bucks will have to take him on. He broke the Big Ten record for forced fumbles when his 8th of the season came on the Boeckman hit. He stands just two short of the national record with four games to play.

Simply put, the offensive line has played exceptionally well for the past two months. There have been the occasional sack allowed, but what I see is a quarterback given a lot of time to pass and nice holes for the running game. I continue to have doubts about their ability to fire off on a 3rd or 4th and short situation, but you have to be happy with the body of work through eight.

A More Emotional Vest
Tressel is showing more emotion on the sidelines this season. There was the jig at Washington and several times over the past couple of weeks where he's been a little more animated than normal on the field, including a couple of instances against the Spartans.

Could this be something he took away from the BCS debacle? Have a little more fun with things, show some more emotion? Part of the healing process even?

One of the things I love about the Vest is that he never rarely says or does anything stupid. Those that have ever read FARK, realize that most people on earth are bad at this. I'm sure if the Senator lets loose a little bit more here and there, he'll do so in a dignified manner.

The 11W neckwear collection

Telecast Notes
The candid moment where Matta and Tressel were discussing the advantage of not having to worry about your tie length when wearing a tie was priceless.

As a victim of the "skinny side be longer than the fat side" myself one too many times, I can appreciate this benefit to wearing a sweater vest. The only downside is that I'm a good 20 years away from being old enough not to look stupid wearing one.

The promo for the ACC/Big Ten challenge got me salivating about something similar for football. The Big Ten and PAC10 would never do one because they'd fear jeopardizing the luster of the Rose Bowl, but the Big 12 would be a great candidate. Throw one of the cupcakes off the schedule of each team and then you can get: Michigan/Missouri, Ohio State/Oklahoma, Wisconsin/Texas and Penn State/Kansas.

Beanie runs away from an MSU defender en route to a career best 221 yards rushing (AP Photo: Kiichiro Sato )

Beanie Wells has taken his share of shots this year regarding his toughness. Either everyone was wrong, or that criticism has made him stronger as evidenced by today's 31 carry, 221 yard, 1 TD performance in a 7 point win against the Spartans. The 9th best rushing effort in OSU history got an early start as Beanie led long scoring drives on Ohio State's first two posessions with runs of 48 and 35 yards leading to a 10-0 cushion with 4 minutes left in the opening quarter. The lead would increase to 17-0 on Beanie's 5 yard TD run on the heels of Doug Worthington's interception giving OSU the ball at the Spartan 29 yard line.

The 17-0 halftime lead appeared to be more than enough to move OSU to 8-0 considering the dominance of the Buckeye defense but there was also the sense that Tressel buttoned up the offense a little early giving MSU an opportunity to hang around. That point not withstanding, the Buckeye offense still had enough to muster a 3 play, 70 yard drive midway through the 3rd quarter giving OSU a 24-0 lead before the offense slipped into the fifth dimension.

QB Todd Boeckman stained what was an otherwise solid performance tossing a 54 yard INT for a TD then promptly fumbled on the ensuing possession giving up another TD trimming the OSU lead to 24-14 with 3 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. It wasn't all Boeckman's fault as the line failed to pick up blitzes and guard Ben Person racked up 3 false starts in another sporadic performance by the offense but in a season where survival is truly what counts, Beanie took over in the 4th quarter. The man carried the ball on 13 of OSU's final 15 plays (two drives) chewing up 59 yards and 9 of the final 12 minutes to secure the win. It was simply a dominant performance and seems to have gone a little underappreciated, at least in the initial game summaries I've seen.

Not to be outdone, the Silver Bullets again brought the heat holding the supposedly explosive Spartan offense to 3 points on just 185 total yards including only 59 on the ground. The defense was so dominant that MSU ran just 3 plays in OSU territory through the first 3 and a half quarters and only 8 plays for the entire game. That, my friends, is domination. The pundits likely won't see it that way and will again attack the Buckeyes for their schedule but the fact is that this game was another complete mismatch if you subtract two plays from the equation.

OFFENSE:

As usual, the offense got off to another quick start behind Beanie's big runs and Todd Boeckman's early marksmanship but sputtered for most of the 2nd half. Am I being too critical or does it appear this team lacks a killer instinct sometimes triggered by the tendency to become over conservative with the playcalling? After taking the 17-0 lead in the 2nd quarter and before the final two drives where Beanie took over, the Buckeyes either punted or turned the ball over on 5 of 7 possessions and committed numerous unforced penalties. I can only hope this was part of Jedi Tressel's master plan to ensure a focused week of practice before heading to Happy Valley, the site of OSU's last conference loss back in 2005.

Dr. Jekyl drops back

Getting back on the postive tip, Boeckman showed what he's capable of early, connecting on his first 10 passes including a 14 yard TD strike on a nice grab by TE Jake Ballard and later a 50 yard TD pass to Brian Robiskie giving OSU a 24-0 halfway through the 3rd quarter. Boeckman appeared in total control hitting 7 different receivers and tying a school record with 12 straight completions before making two poor decisions in the face of the blitz. The real issue to ponder is whether or not Boeckman can avoid the big turnover in tight spots as the Buckeyes hit the meat of the schedule. On paper, the PSU game is a mismatch but the Bucks have shown they're no stranger to struggling in Beaver Stadium and a couple turnovers could prove fatal to what could be a magical season.

The up and down performance by the offense certainly drew the ire of Kirk Barton as he's been around long enough to realize the Buckeye offense is playing with fire:

"When your foot is on that jugular, you have to kill that fool,'' offensive tackle Kirk Barton said. ''You don't just back off, let him stand up and punch you a couple of times and then knock him back down.''

One last thought before we move to the defense - Is there any reason Brandon Saine seems to be morphing into a wideout? I know he's got hands and Tressel loves Mo Wells, but Saine loses that double-threat effect on a defense if he's constantly split out or going in motion. It's not like Mo was having a great day with 9 carries for 18 yards.

DEFENSE:

Laurinaitis and Co. held Ringer to 2.7 ypc

We keep saying it, but you know the Buckeye defense is impressive when it's more exciting to watch them on the field instead of the offense. Today's effort continued the season long dominance of the Silver Bullets as they held the Spartans to 3 points on 10 total possessions allowing just 59 rushing yards to the nation's #9 ranked rush offense coming in at 242 ypg. RB Javon Ringer was held to 49 yards on 18 carries after averaging 178 ypg in conference play. The Spartans didn't fair much better through the air as Brian Hoyer was held to 12/24 for 126 yards including a Doug Worthington interception at the MSU 29 setting up Beanie's 5 yard TD to give OSU a 17-0 lead.

For the game, Jim Heacock's group forced 7 punts including five 3-and-outs led by James Laurinaitis' team high 12 tackles. The five 3-and-outs brought the season total to 49 on 103 possessions equating to an amazing 47% rate. The swarming defense stopped MSU on 10 of 13 third downs and allowed just 4 plays of over 10 yards. Yes, you read correctly. Just 4 plays over 10 yards and two of those occurred on the Spartans final drive. That's why it's more fun to watch the defense this season. They keep their intensity for the full 60.

SPECIAL TEAMS:

The special units had an up and down day as Ryan Pretorious nailed a 42 yard FG in a windy Shoe but later had a 37 yarder blocked. The FG unit needs to get it together before next week if Tress is going to play close to the vest in the hostile environment. I'm too lazy to research exactly how many have occurred but blocked or botched FG attempts are getting a little too commonplace for a championship team.

NOTES:

The Buckeyes wore #23 decals on their helmets in honor of Ron Springs who is still in a coma down in Dallas... Hoyer's 2nd completion came in the team's 4th possession...The defense didn't allow a TD for the fifth time this season...Ohio State is now 65-9-1 when ranked No. 1 in the country...The offense has scored on the opening drive in 4 straight games and 6 of 8.

The Commodores?

Perhaps Georgia knew something when they celebrated on the Vanderbilt star at midfield last weekend. Is winning in Nashville that tough?

The Commodores sent the latest top 10 team tumbling when they handed the Old Ball Coach and his #6 Gamecocks a 17-6 setback this afternoon.

Spurrier's sparkling 14-0 record against Vanderbilt came crashing down faster than you can say "era of parity".

#20 Tennessee took one on the chin, going down to Alabama 41-17 and #19 Cincinnati lost by 7 to a 2-win Pitt. Highly regarded Oklahoma managed to squeak by a one-win Iowa State -- a team that lost to Kent State.

Best conference? Best team? Who really knows anymore.

With each passing weekend -- each upset and crazy outcome, this Buckeye team looks better and better.

----

After our plea for the whereabouts of former Buckeye safety and special teams kamikaze Tito Paul, a reader fills us in.

Paul is now an insurance agent for State Farm in Delaware, OH. Thanks Zeke!

To his credit, Mason did bounce right up. Anyone know what Tito Paul is up to these days?

Elsewhere, Laurinaitis was named a semi-finalist for the Butkus and Lombardi awards. Three other Big Ten mates join him in the semi-finals: Michigan's Shawn Crable, Penn State's Dan Connor and J Leman of Illinois. Leman, and his patriotic neckwear is looking tough this season.

PREVIEW: #1 OSU vs. Michigan State

Giving up 181 yards on the ground to Rice? 7 sacks to a team that had only 16 coming in? All this to a team that lost to Maryland by 10? But.. but they beat Auburn.

Now there are only 3 major undefeated teams left. And Hawaii. The BCS nigthmare scenario of 6 one-loss teams moves closer to reality.