This thread is not about the kickoff game. I'm strictly talking about kicking field goals. You'd be blind to not see the difference in our field-goal making ability form the Tressel years, to the current Urban era. Don't get me wrong, I would rather have Urban as my coach at this point in time, but this is one area that Tressel definitely did better. Yes, Tressel did have heavy focus on special teams. We all learned from him that the punt is the most important play of the game. But it isn't like Urban doesn't focus on it. We've heard how he will stand inches away from his kickers in practice to try to prepare them for the pressure packed situations. And we know Urban takes pride in his special teams unit. However, the numbers don't lie.

If you look at just the field goal make percentage, you will be mislead, as they are very similar between Tressel and Urban. With Urban, the percentage is inflated a bit due to mainly attempting short field goals. So I am just going to look at the 40-49 yard category. 

Under Tressel: Nugent, Houston, Pettry/Pretorius, and Barclay

• Total makes/attempts 40-49 yards: 48/65 - 73.8%

Under Urban: Basil, Das Boot, Willoughby, Durbin

• Total makes/attempts 40-49 yards: 14/29 - 53.8%

I put Drew Basil's stats under the Urban era; however, he was recruited and spent his first year with Tressel. Without his stats included, the Urban kickers are:

• 7/19 for a percentage of 36.8% from 40-49 yards. 

Here is the really interesting part. After seeing these huge differences in the stats, I wanted to see how Urban fared at Florida. During his time at Florida, his kickers went:

• 13/19 for a percentage of 68.4%.

And I did not include the final two years of Caleb Sturgis, because Urban was not coaching. However, he was Urban's recruit. Adding in his final two years, the numbers are:

• 24/33, good for 72.7%. 

Before looking at the Florida stats, I thought maybe the discrepancies were due to such a small sample size compared to the Tressel era (65 attempts compared to 29 attempts). However, when you look at the Florida stats, that proves untrue. His kickers at Florida and Ohio State have attempted nearly the same amount of 40-49 yarders, and the results are extremely different. 

I must say, I am lost as I try to find the root cause. Initially, I thought it could be due to not attempting those field goals enough, making it hard on our kickers to get used to it in a real-game scenario; however, he rarely attempted them at Florida, and those guys were able to convert at a much higher rate. So that is disproved. 

So is it the scheme? Could it be that good high school kickers choose to not play at OSU, because they know they won't get a ton of opportunities in games, due to Urban electing to go for it on many 4th downs in field goal range? That is possible, but it's not like Nugent, Huston, Basil...etc, were these highly rated kickers, that were recruited heavily. 

So that leaves me with a development issue. Nugent struggled as a freshmen, and ended up going down as one of the top kickers in CFB history. Urban has been talking up Das Boot this year, but it is hard to trust a guy that has lost his job twice. Once to a transfer, who ended up losing it back, and once to a walk-on. 

At the end of the day, we have yet to lose a game due to a missed field goal under Urban (Penn State was blocked). But we have been close (UM last year), and the two Clemson misses definitely took the wind out of our sails. And had Urban chose to kick the ball instead of having JT bitterly disappoint Michigan, I am by no means confident we would have made it. My step-dad who doesn't really follow Ohio State was watching the game and asked me, "Man, can you believe that risky call?" I replied with, "Honestly, it is more risky for us to try a 33 yard field goal". 

Just a video to start your day on a high note. 

Also, props to whomever invented HD TV. You are the real MVP.