Well, it was a win, 26-14. Seven of those points came from a fumble into the endzone, but don’t let that fool you, the Bobcats came to play and the Buckeyes were thinking about USC. As usual, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly to follow…..

The Good

• Takeaways - The defense and special teams came up with 4 interceptions and a recovered fumble.
• Return game - We’re finally seeing that come alive as Ray Small hits his stride.
• Win with adversity - One thing that has been missing from the prior two seasons is tempering by being in tough spots. Down 14-6 in the 3rd quarter the team came together to put up 20 points.

The Bad

• Place kicking - This unit left 4 points on the board with a missed FG and PAT
• Defensive backfield - On broken plays when the QB is scrambling, they need to tie up the opposing team’s receivers to prevent big plays.
• Defensive line - Got good pressure, but couldn’t finish and lost contain multiple times.
• Linebackers - Looked very average. Still can’t shed blocks and are confused with misdirection and quick developing plays.
• Officiating - Even though it helped OSU, there was a missed block in the back on the punt return for a touchdown. That counter-balances the tackling and holding that the D Line faced all day.

The Ugly

• The offense - Um, does Beanie make that much difference? Guess so. What an ugly outing.
• The offensive line - We’ve heard about the depth and talent of this line. Well, I’m sorry, I don’t see it. They were beaten several times last week and repeatedly this week. They didn’t look good run blocking and they didn’t look good in pass protection. If line play does not pick up substantially, USC will win by 3 scores next week.
• Attitude - Where was it? Where was the killer instinct? Where was the pride? This was a flat team that could have very easily lost this game.

While this may seem like an overly negative review of a win, let there be no mistake, this team is capable of achieving big things. In order to do that, they’re going to need to give maximum effort with maximum focus and adjust as opponents find things that work. Instead of 2 losses this year, we could see double that number if the team routinely plays like this.

With that behind us, on to USC next week. Let’s hope the team is a little more awake and ready to play. And let’s hope Beanie can contribute, based on what we’ve seen so far, OSU is going to need him to make a game of it.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites