November 5 - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Illinois 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.

You can breathe now. In a throwback to 2002, Ohio State hung on for a 17-10 win over a pesky Illinois team. It started off looking like most other OSU victories as OSU raced to a 17-0 lead. Then, the play calling began to look more like 1996 with John Cooper than the 2006 Tressel version. Run middle, run middle, run middle, and punt.

At any case, I told people that OSU needed a scare before michigan in order to focus. OSU had been winning by an average of 29 points per game with the closest call being by 17 points over Texas. Now they have had their close call, let’s get down to business.

OSU improved their record to 10-0. They maintained their #1 ranking in all major polls including the BCS. michigan also received a scare from Ball State. Ball State had seven plays from inside the 10-yard line in the last minutes of a 34-26 michigan win.


THE GOOD

• Scoring Defense – Even though OSU gave up 10 points in the 4th quarter, OSU remains #1 in SCORING DEFENSE at 7.6 per game.

• Turnovers – OSU ranks 3rd nationally in interceptions with 19 on the year. James Laurenitis picked up his 5th of the year.

• Kicking Game – Pettrey kicked a 50 yarder and Trapasso got plenty of action with 7 punts including a 60-yarder to clinch the game. OSU had no punts the previous week.

THE BAD

• Troy Smith – 13-23, 1 INT, 0 TDs and 108 yards. Smith may have opened the Heisman window for the self-promoting QB from Notre Dame. Charlie Weis isn’t above stat padding. One would guess that Weis gets another bonus or at least more doughnuts should a ND player win the award.

• Rushing – Pitman ran 32 times for 58 yards. Warren “The Refrigerator” Perry (at right) had better numbers and all of his carries resulted in touchdowns. I fault the Offensive Coordinator for running Pittman up the middle and not wide.

THE UGLY

• Second Half Offense – OSU had 29 TOTAL YARDS in the second half. Twenty-nine yards used to defined a stalled drive

A muffled shout-out goes to Chris Norwell, junior defense player from Illinois. Chris is from my local high school and had five tackles including a sack. I’m glad to see a local boy do well, just not against the Bucks.

My WTF moment came when “Beanie” Wells put the ball on the turf for the 5th time this year. He should be renamed ”Teenie” because that is how much playing time he is going to get if he continues to act as a “short possession” back instead of a “short yardage” back.

Ironically, another touted freshman. Maurice Clarett, on the left, fumbled three times against this week’s opponent, Northwestern. Hopefully, Mo is holding onto the soap better than he did the football.

This week’s early line has OSU favored by 22.5 points over Northwestern. I vividly remember the last time we went into NW Chicago. OSU lost in a night game 33-27 , in overtime.

Let’s get in, get out, and move on to THE GAME.

GO BUCKS.