September 10 - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Texas Recap

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

It’s my weekly critique of The Ohio State University football performance. OSU beat Texas 24-7 to maintain it’s #1 ranking and improve their record to 2-0. It was sweet revenge for last year’s loss.

Bevo – It’s What’s For Dinner.

THE GOOD

• Scoring Defense – OSU held Texas to 7 points. Texas had a string of 12 games in which they had scored at least 40 points. OSU started and ended that streak as they held Texas to 25 points last year.
• No Turnovers on Offense – Conversely, Texas’s turnovers were momentum changers.
  OSU Fans - A Buckeyes booster put up $225,000 to bring the Ohio State band to Austin. There were an estimated 40,000 Buckeyes faithful that made the 1,200-mile trip from Columbus, with or without tickets for the game.
• Troy Smith – He put up solid numbers for the second week in a row. 17-26, 269 yards and 2 TDs.
• Punting – Sophomore punter A.J. Trapasso had a 50.8-yard average on six punts. His performance earned him Big Ten Special Team’s Player of the Week honors.

THE BAD

• Missed tackles – The defense again missed too many tackles. It improved over week one, but there are still miles to go.


• Troy Smith’s Rushing – Smith has yet to repeat his rushing successes from 2005. No worries though. It’s early, and his passing is golden.

THE UGLY

• Penalties – OSU has eight penalties in the game. One egregious call that kept the lone Texas drive alive was a roughing the passer penalty. Kudos to the ABC broadcasting team for stating that it a TERRIBLE call.


• OSU Rioters - 17 arrests and 45 trash bin fires. Come on guys. Let’s act like we have been there before.

My WTF moment came in the second half. As Texas fell further and further behind, a growth on Mack Brown’s upper lip got redder and redder and larger and larger. If John Madden had been calling the game he would have used his telestrater to identify it, break it down, excise it, and give it a name. Keith Jackson just would have called it “A Big Ugly”.

I guess everything is bigger in Texas, even Herpes Simplex 2.

Ohio State solidified its #1 ranking with its impressive win over Texas. This week, Cincinnati comes to town. The early line is 30 points.

I doubt Tressel will run up the score on an old assistant. Especially one like Mark Dantonio, who was key to the 2002 National Championship team.