October 15 - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Michigan State 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.

Ohio State visited the cold tundra of Michigan State last Saturday. The pre-game was filled with much historical reference to Michigan State upsetting the previously undefeated OSU teams of 1974 and 1998. The suspense didn’t last long after kick-off as Ohio State rolled to an easy 38-7 victory. Michigan State’s lone points came on a meaningless touchdown in the last minute when OSU had their 2nd and 3rd stringers in on defense.

OSU improved their record to 7-0. They maintained their #1 ranking in all major polls including the first release of the BCS standings.


THE GOOD

• Scoring Defense – OSU allowed 7 points. It is now ranked as #3 in the country at 9.0 points per game. Rutgers and LSU moved ahead of OSU as they both pitched shutouts in their games on Saturday.

• Turnovers – OSU recorded their 13th interception of the year and ranks 2nd nationally in turnover margin.

• Special Teams – Teddy Ginn finally ran North-South and the result was a 60-yard touchdown. Teddy, remember that feeling.

• Troy Smith – 15-24 and 2 TDs. He IS the Heisman frontrunner. Two of the runner-ups had major setbacks. Adrian Peterson, Oklahoma RB, suffered a season-ending broken collarbone. From the replay of the injury, it looked like Adrian was doing a celebration dive into the end zone and landed funny. Sounds like something you would expect from the class-less University of Miami players. Troy’s other competition, the less known, but extremely talented RB for Northern Illinois, Garrett Wolfe only managed 25 yards on 18 carries against Western Michigan.

• Flea Flickers– Two consecutive reverses involving OSU speedy receivers netted 45 total yards. Tough to defend once, but twice? That was an XBOX moment.

THE BAD

• Fumbles – Freshman Chris Wells put the ball on the turf again. I’m having flash backs to Eddie George’s freshman year.

• Special Teams – OSU gave up a 39-yard return on a kickoff with the wind. How about more Nugent/Houston style touchbacks?

THE UGLY

• Nothing to see here, move along folks.

I want to also provide a shout out to Paul Maguire, an analyst, on last week’s game. I thoroughly enjoy his insight, introspection, and humor. He should be on ABC/ESPN’s #1 team.

My WTF moment came when it was determined that for the first time in 12 years an OSU game will not be televised by the local cable companies in Ohio. It will only be available on ESPNU. Sounds like someone is trying to squeeze a little profit. Last Saturday’s Indiana-Iowa came was worthy of ESPN2, why not an Indiana game against the #1 team in the country.

I suggest everyone write their congressmen, senators, priests, grandmas, cousins, and the Dalai Lama. This travesty should not stand.


This week’s early line has OSU favored by 31.5 points over Indiana. Does the brain trust in Vegas know that Indiana has beaten Illinois and #15 Iowa in the last two weeks?

GO BUCKS.