Oregon won in spite of losing one of their better receiver(his idiotic fault) and not playing with their best defensive linemen. We also caught a giant break with the throw to the TE to start the game that should have been their ball going the other way.
They turned us over and looked like the better team to me. I would rather NOT face them again. Go Bucks.
Agree with you on the interception, but I feel like the other two are balanced out by the fact that we lost arguably our best offensive lineman in the first half and we had to travel over 2,000 miles to get there. Seriously: there’s home field advantage and then there’s going from east to west coast.
Oregon was definitely the better team that day in my opinion, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say they “turned us over”. They made some mistakes too and it was about as tight as it could get.
Was at the game and it's taken 24 hours to sort thru it all. If this team had played really well and lost to a superior team, I wouldn't feel so disappointed. The two turnovers were flukes though they cost the team 9 points. The offense was mixed with great passing and sub par rushing but meh rushing results were somewhat expected. The defense 500 yard letdown was a shock and the painful penalties killed momentum. I've never considered this team in the same class as 2019 on offense or defense. This game provided a big clue that this team is talented but severely flawed for tests against truly good teams. The oline was always barely competent and now they are in a tough spot. The defense was exposed to be merely ok. The defensive coaching is fatally flawed and just not championship level. And, I'm becoming convinced that Day just doesn't have the Tressel, Meyer, "it" to be a championship head coach. He's a good coach but not great enough to drive this program in these types of games.
Day preaches that crap but doesn't know how to live it. The guy is a front-running LOSER and OSU won't win anything significant until he and Knowles are gone.
"Show me a gracious loser and I'll show you a bus boy." -Woody Hayes
A decent take. Most of the disappointing takes I have been reading stems from the pre-season hype more than a rational reaction to a loss. For months prior to the start of the season, everyone was listening to the non-stop talk about a guaranteed Natty. Ingesting this elixir for months on end intoxicated fans, and maybe even some players. This led to a frame of mind that included the notion that we are truly invincible.
No team will ever be invincible, and talent is not a force field that surrounds a team to protect it from harm. No team is guaranteed to score more points than their opponent. And opponents don't give a rat's ass that you have more talent. An opponent is going to do everything they can to beat you, and once in a while they will succeed.
Losing is never fun. But sometimes being shown that you are not invincible reinvigorates your focus and drive and makes you better prepared to face future challenges. Better to learn from mistakes now than in the Playoffs.
Physically manhandling your matchup; winning individual match ups, especially at the LOS when we have the ball. You know, the opposite of what we keep seeing against decent teams. We should be able to do that AT LEAST half of the time. Nope. We get pushed around like the JV team.
"Everyone has a plan, 'til they get punched in the mouth."
When removing "sacks" we ran the ball the better than Oregon did and only had one less TFL. So if we got pushed around then so did Oregon which makes your point objectively wrong
No DV from me, but our guys lost alot more physical matchups at the point of attack then Oregon did. I've rewatched most of the game twice. I'm not wrong.
"Everyone has a plan, 'til they get punched in the mouth."
Well we saw one definition of toughness yesterday when a Duck receiver tossed Burke around like a teenage girl for 20 yards. That's toughness in action.
I didn't mention that specifically since I felt like I covered it under the Zen Michalski section, but HOLY CRAP, that may be the most lasting consequence. I'm more worried about losing Simmons than I am about losing a game.
They used to be all flash with no ass to back it up. After teams like ours physically kicked their asses, they finally ‘got it’. Cristobal changed their mentality, much like he’s doing at Miami.
Lanning is a good coach and Oregon has benefitted tremendously from NIL. People talk about all the money OSU spent in the offseason but how much did Oregon spend? Their WR Evan Stewart was basically a pure money-driven recruitment and look where he landed...
So yeah, Oregon has definitely taken a massive step forward as a program. Some of it is coaching/leadership and some of it is $$$
"In weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify you."
-Jack Handey
I really didn't mind Howard's decision at the end. It's one of those things that will make him look stupid if it didn't work, and it didn't, but what were his alternatives? OSU can't hit a FG from that range, nobody was open for him to make a quick pass, so trying to scramble and get down and get the TO for a FG is a higher percentage chance than throwing it away and trying for a very low percentage Hail Mary. He wouldn't have been ridiculed for settling for the Hail Mary, but ironically I think it would have been the lower percentage play to attempt to succeed on.
The guy didn't have many good options and had he gotten down half a second earlier I think he gets the TO in. He just hesitated to run a split second too long. So some fans and media members will crap on him for the decision, when I actually think he came agonizingly close to making the best play available to him given the situation. It just wasn't a very high percentage situation for success overall with only 6 seconds left.
In hindsight on that last play, Oregon was in a fairly soft cover 2 man look. About a half dozen different quick hitter routes would have worked for an easy 10 yd gain in less than 5 secs and you have a TO so they didn't need to work the sideline. Smith was single covered with the DB giving a 10 yd cushion, and he ran a deep in and was clearly the #4 option on the play, Howard never even looked in his direction. Sigh.
I'm just mentally preparing myself now for more disappointments in the second half of the season. I'm not a fire Ryan Day guy even if he loses the coming Penn State game, but if he loses to this Michigan team.....we need to blow it all up and start over.
I don't like nice people. I like tough, honest people.
I think the best attitude that everyone can have, both players, and fans, is that a loss is always a possibility. It's a much better mindset to have than running with the idea that a Natty is guaranteed. Only one of these attitudes is going to serve as a constant motivator to always play at your best.
If he loses to PSU you can kiss the CFP good bye. So hell yes Day needs not lose another game this year with the talent he has or I will be on the fire Day wagon.
1 point loss to an equal talented team on the road is not a disaster.
Bama lost to Vandy, Georgia lost already this season. Are we the only team that is expected to go 12-0 every year lest we have "fans" completely lose their minds?
Oregon played .lights out and we did not. 1 point difference. I like our trajectory even with the loss.
It's all still in front of us. We play Oregon in B10 Champ game and get the rematch W, get a 1 seed for winning the B10 and the roll through the playoffs from there.
Go Bucks!
"Tough times don't last, tough people do" - Gregory Peck
Bama and Georgia gave up 500 yards to each other. It turns out that it's really hard to stop talented roster even if you have a talented roster yourself. Having said that, we now know where we have to get better to beat an elite roster.
And Bama and UGA have looked like shit ever since that game. We are not in such a dire situation as compared to the rest of the national powers.
We should able to take care of business against teams like Nebraska and IU at home. Comes down to that road game at PSU. To me they are very similar to Oregon overall, with probably a little better defense but a weaker offense with Allar and not much at WR compared to Gabriel and Oregon.
The reality is defenses are at a massive disadvantage compared to offense. Like what defense in the last decade has stopped a top offense? 2023 Michigan is the only team that stopped multiple top offenses and even then if Penix is even more 10% more accurate in that title game they would’ve been shredder as WRs were open all game
I like this take. Take a beat, let the emotions dissipate a bit, and then analyze. The defense was disappointing, as were the penalties. But we were playing on the road, in front of a rabid crowd (one poster that attended said it was the loudest stadium he’d been in), three time zones away. Oregon has the horses, too, and Gabriel played his best game ever.
I totally agree on WH. He can lead us to the promised land. We can win them all. Will we? Who knows. But it will be a great ride.
Can we drop the three time zone bullshit. They went there, did a walk thru, watched film, ate dinner and went to bed. They woke up on Eastern time, ate breakfast, did final meetings/prep, and played a game. It was s day and a half trip. SOFT
Knowles and the defense need to do some soul searching and basically wake the hell up. And the loss of Simmons is very worrisome. The mistakes, turnovers, and penalties just add to the challenges ahead. Day has yet to really show he has what it takes to come up with a disciplined championship winning team. If they win out the rest of the Big10 schedule, especially with a win against PSU, and make it to Indianapolis, it’ll show some real resilience but, sadly, I’m not all that confident after watching the performance against the ducks.
It was a very disappointing performance and loss. There was good and bad to takeaway from the game. The defense needs to play better in their assignments. JT abandons the edge, TD. Burke constantly looking into the backfield as the WR runs past him. I don’t want to sound like I’m discrediting Oregon, they are legit and deserved to win, however my thoughts on the only team that can beat us is us have not changed.
I know you and others have watched a great deal of college football. The defensive lapses and penalties are concerning, but look at the data rather than making rash proclamations. The home field advantage is amplified when traveling east or west over 2k miles for conference games. This is new, and it is different. It’s a factor no matter what the coaches and pundits say. I’ll say it here buried deep in a thread. OSU will beat Oregon on a neutral field. Mark it!
Great point about the travel. Especially if that "neutral" field is Lucas Oil in Indy, I love our chances in a rematch. Have to take care of a ton of business before then though.
I believe only Penn State has won so far when traveling either way in the time zones and they still almost lost to a mediocre USC team.
The time zone thing isn’t a made up excuse it’s very real we’ll have to figure out. I tried explaining it to people why USC was only favored by 4.5 points against Michigan earlier in the year when everyone was expecting them to blow them out. NFL teams have realized it and travel earlier. I’m just not sure how feasible it is with student athletes.
I think the loss, if viewed independently of everything else, wasn’t that bad. Playing at Oregon is tough. They’re a good team with really good players. It’s unreasonable to expect Ohio State to win every game, especially in this era of super-conferences.
The disappointment comes because this is yet another big game in recent memory where Ryan Day’s Buckeyes didn’t get it done. If they’d won 2 or 3 of the other top 5/10 matchups we’ve lost (even if one of those wasn’t a national championship), this loss would be a lot easier for fans to take. But it’s starting to look like a trend, which is concerning, rather than an aberration, which is not.
The other disappointing thing was our defense, the supposed strength of the team, giving up more points to Oregon than either U of Idaho or Boise State. That, combined with making zero adjustments to try and get more pressure on Gabriel and letting him pick us apart, doesn’t instill confidence in Knowles or the defense the rest of the way. Everyone with a brain could see Gabriel sitting back with tons of time picking us apart (how many times did we have to hear that “he’s the most accurate passer in college football?”) instead of mixing things up and getting pressure. It was clear Burke couldn’t cover anyone for more than about 2 seconds, so either slide someone over to help him deep, or get to the QB faster. Yet somehow Knowles didn’t see it or made zero adjustments.
The disappointment comes because this is yet another big game in recent memory where Ryan Day’s Buckeyes didn’t get it done.
When people say this, I wonder if they take into account the last three years of Michigan cheating? If you remove those three losses (or make them wins), suddenly, Ryan Day doesn't look so bad against top 10 competition.
"Because the rules won't let you go for three." - Woody Hayes
I just punished myself and watched most of the game on my DVR. What strikes me is this ….since we have exhausted the issues around Burke (his next truly physical, teeth rattling tackle will be his first) and the Defense, ad nauseam. Go back to late in the 3rd quarter when we stopped them inside our 5 yard line and took possession of the ball. Yes, we had to drive the ball the length of the field in a hostile environment or at least flip the field to make Oregon pay for going for the TD instead of taking the 3 points. The difference between Ohio State teams since Ryan Day arrived and elite OSU and other teams (yes, even Michigan’s the past 2 years) is the inability to exert their will and drive the ball down the field. Truly elite teams, OSU or anyone else can line up and run the ball down your throat even if the opposing team and 60,000 people in the stands know exactly what is coming. There has been some criticism in this Forum that Day abandoned the run too soon. I am not so sure of that. By the 3rd quarter, the breakaway runs by Henderson and Judkins were reduced to short gains. Oregon started crowding the LOS and we couldn’t do much about it. We all like Howard a lot…..but his arm strength scares nobody. He can’t stretch the field, even with Smith, so we are limited.
It was obvious our D was getting gashed by Oregon. But the one time they got a huge, emotional stop, the Offense (when Howard dropped the snap from center and ended the drive) needed to sustain what could have been a game winning drive…..they couldn’t. Elite football teams can. It remains to be seen what this team does. Their inability to exert their will in the trenches has been a focal point of debate and national scorn (Lou Holtz, etc.) since Day arrived. How or if they flip that script will decide what this team eventually does. You can argue that no OSU team should ever lose a game in which they score 31 points. I just don’t believe in the modern CF game…..that statement or assumption holds water any longer.
Only my dog can stand me watching games and i repeatedly told him during halftime stop score stop score and ride off to victory. We got 3/4ths of that done. All 4 would’ve all but guaranteed a win.
One thing that I haven’t seen overly discussed is the punter. And this is probably low on the list of last night’s issues but I think it warrants discussion. Oregon had significantly better field position even outside of the fumble and onside kick. I don’t want to pile blame on McGuire who is a walk-on out there trying his best. But I think our coaching staff expects these Australians to be game-ready godsends just because Johnston and Mirco (to a lesser extent, but he was a solid starter as a freshman) were. I don’t know much about how the Australians are recruited, and maybe they just got bad info from an Australian coach they trust, but I hope the staff realizes they need a contingency plan for this sort of thing in the future.
I love this take, and am surprised to be only seeing it here first. We need more consistency and bigger kicks. McGuire is doing a good job, but we needed at least the threat of a field flipping shot.
Oregon had three or four third down conversions on the last drive to kick their field goal. If Day had gone for two at some point when we were getting touchdowns, it’s a game tying field goal and not a game winner. Be that as it may, tha defense’s inability to get off the field and the presnap false start penalties and burning timeouts on offense caused the loss. Clock management is not great Bob
When telling the truth becomes a revolutionary concept, it’s wise to join the revolution
In my opinion, that game still was won and lost by the refs. There is no reason that offensive PI should have been called against JJ. With the game in the balance they called such a bs pushoff. I love it when the refs determine the outcome of the game. And yes, there were plenty of plays before that that affected the outcome. But, that was not that egregious of a push to be deserved at that time in the game. Complete BS!
I think that makes it an even game at worst though, considering Oregon pretty clearly had an interception at the beginning that was ruled in our favor. We essentially had one drive-killing penalty in our favor and one drive-killing penalty in theirs.
Right. Basically a break even in my opinion. I think it would've been a 3 point game regardless of the interception call (you never know where a game goes from there)
"In weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify you."
-Jack Handey
I think Howard knew if reviewed it would be confirmed as an interception so he did what he needed to do and got the team to the line and ran a play before it could be reviewed. Plays like that show his QB smarts.
A lot of us need to calm down! Yes the loss sucks but our season is far from over!
We rarely lose a big game mid season like this. It’s recently been against ttun or in the postseason and our season is usually over. We get the opportunity to redeem ourselves.
12 team playoff format allows us to be able to drop a game. It still sucks we lost but we’re #4 and still control our own destiny.
If we take care of our business, we will get a chance to redeem ourselves in Indianapolis. Losing this game sucks but in the grand scheme of things, it literally means nothing if we win out.
Burke and Simon played a bad game but I think it’s all correctable. Burke was put on an island and most of the defensive struggles were scheme related.
We needed a chip on our shoulder/motivation. The media has been gushing about us all offseason and we needed a swift kick to the ass to play like we’re the best team in the nation.
The bye week couldn’t have come at a better time. Injuries, scheme, etc all need worked on/corrected and having an extra week to marinate in the loss is bad news for Nebraska.
If Penn State beats Wisconsin then the table is set for a top 5 matchup and a chance to prove to ourselves and the country that we’re very dangerous.
Look around the rest of the country, nobody is dominating their schedule. Texas is still tbd as they have only beaten a bad ttun plus a bad Oklahoma. Oregon, we’ll see you in December!
This was a 2014 VT loss. It stings, hurts, and it’s embarrassing. But, this type of loss fuels a team and will make us damn near unstoppable moving forward.
Despite the loss, we have a damn good team and we lost a tough one on the road against the now #2 team in the nation by 1 point. Revenge will be beautiful and we now have a chip on our shoulder. Watch the F out!!
My feeling is that if the Buckeyes have what it takes to go the distance, the DL is only going to come up against better competition in the form of opposing OL's. There are teams right now that have much more NFL talent protecting their QB than Oregon.
That does not bode well for a DL that has been an embarrassment, at least at the edge rushing positions, so far this year.
The Excellence of Execution, the Best there is, the Best there was, the Best there ever will be!
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I’m just still shell shocked.
CanNOT believe how poorly our defense played; the lack of rush/pressure and why no rotating the poor performers out even if to let them calm down.
JTNYC
Shocked? It’s become a very normal occurrence.
Oregon won in spite of losing one of their better receiver(his idiotic fault) and not playing with their best defensive linemen. We also caught a giant break with the throw to the TE to start the game that should have been their ball going the other way.
They turned us over and looked like the better team to me. I would rather NOT face them again. Go Bucks.
C. Brian Massie
Agree with you on the interception, but I feel like the other two are balanced out by the fact that we lost arguably our best offensive lineman in the first half and we had to travel over 2,000 miles to get there. Seriously: there’s home field advantage and then there’s going from east to west coast.
Oregon was definitely the better team that day in my opinion, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say they “turned us over”. They made some mistakes too and it was about as tight as it could get.
Jesus is King
Was at the game and it's taken 24 hours to sort thru it all. If this team had played really well and lost to a superior team, I wouldn't feel so disappointed. The two turnovers were flukes though they cost the team 9 points. The offense was mixed with great passing and sub par rushing but meh rushing results were somewhat expected. The defense 500 yard letdown was a shock and the painful penalties killed momentum. I've never considered this team in the same class as 2019 on offense or defense. This game provided a big clue that this team is talented but severely flawed for tests against truly good teams. The oline was always barely competent and now they are in a tough spot. The defense was exposed to be merely ok. The defensive coaching is fatally flawed and just not championship level. And, I'm becoming convinced that Day just doesn't have the Tressel, Meyer, "it" to be a championship head coach. He's a good coach but not great enough to drive this program in these types of games.
SalemBuckeye
Did we?
-leave no doubt
-make Oregon defend every blade of grass
-let it be known that we are the hardest working team in America.
NO, we did none of these things that Day and company touted all off-season. Mantras don’t win football games. Talk is CHEAP.
Day preaches that crap but doesn't know how to live it. The guy is a front-running LOSER and OSU won't win anything significant until he and Knowles are gone.
"Show me a gracious loser and I'll show you a bus boy." -Woody Hayes
A decent take. Most of the disappointing takes I have been reading stems from the pre-season hype more than a rational reaction to a loss. For months prior to the start of the season, everyone was listening to the non-stop talk about a guaranteed Natty. Ingesting this elixir for months on end intoxicated fans, and maybe even some players. This led to a frame of mind that included the notion that we are truly invincible.
No team will ever be invincible, and talent is not a force field that surrounds a team to protect it from harm. No team is guaranteed to score more points than their opponent. And opponents don't give a rat's ass that you have more talent. An opponent is going to do everything they can to beat you, and once in a while they will succeed.
Losing is never fun. But sometimes being shown that you are not invincible reinvigorates your focus and drive and makes you better prepared to face future challenges. Better to learn from mistakes now than in the Playoffs.
BubbaGumps
I would just like to know where the hell all this much talked about toughness was? I saw ZERO of that.
As I get closer to my 50's, I notice there is more gray and less scarlet.
Define toughness.
BubbaGumps
Physically manhandling your matchup; winning individual match ups, especially at the LOS when we have the ball. You know, the opposite of what we keep seeing against decent teams. We should be able to do that AT LEAST half of the time. Nope. We get pushed around like the JV team.
"Everyone has a plan, 'til they get punched in the mouth."
When removing "sacks" we ran the ball the better than Oregon did and only had one less TFL. So if we got pushed around then so did Oregon which makes your point objectively wrong
No DV from me, but our guys lost alot more physical matchups at the point of attack then Oregon did. I've rewatched most of the game twice. I'm not wrong.
"Everyone has a plan, 'til they get punched in the mouth."
Well we saw one definition of toughness yesterday when a Duck receiver tossed Burke around like a teenage girl for 20 yards. That's toughness in action.
SalemBuckeye
“In terms of losses, it's about as good as it can get. ”
This is where I’m at. Really sucks we lost Simmons though.
The hope is that the defense gets its act together. Can Knowles, the players and the rest of the staff figure it out in time? We’ll see.
It’s fair to acknowledge that Oregon is really good and well coached too. NIL has done wonders for them in addition to Lanning.
"In weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify you."
-Jack Handey
I didn't mention that specifically since I felt like I covered it under the Zen Michalski section, but HOLY CRAP, that may be the most lasting consequence. I'm more worried about losing Simmons than I am about losing a game.
Jesus is King
They used to be all flash with no ass to back it up. After teams like ours physically kicked their asses, they finally ‘got it’. Cristobal changed their mentality, much like he’s doing at Miami.
Lanning is a good coach and Oregon has benefitted tremendously from NIL. People talk about all the money OSU spent in the offseason but how much did Oregon spend? Their WR Evan Stewart was basically a pure money-driven recruitment and look where he landed...
So yeah, Oregon has definitely taken a massive step forward as a program. Some of it is coaching/leadership and some of it is $$$
"In weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify you."
-Jack Handey
I really didn't mind Howard's decision at the end. It's one of those things that will make him look stupid if it didn't work, and it didn't, but what were his alternatives? OSU can't hit a FG from that range, nobody was open for him to make a quick pass, so trying to scramble and get down and get the TO for a FG is a higher percentage chance than throwing it away and trying for a very low percentage Hail Mary. He wouldn't have been ridiculed for settling for the Hail Mary, but ironically I think it would have been the lower percentage play to attempt to succeed on.
The guy didn't have many good options and had he gotten down half a second earlier I think he gets the TO in. He just hesitated to run a split second too long. So some fans and media members will crap on him for the decision, when I actually think he came agonizingly close to making the best play available to him given the situation. It just wasn't a very high percentage situation for success overall with only 6 seconds left.
Agree.
"In weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify you."
-Jack Handey
In hindsight on that last play, Oregon was in a fairly soft cover 2 man look. About a half dozen different quick hitter routes would have worked for an easy 10 yd gain in less than 5 secs and you have a TO so they didn't need to work the sideline. Smith was single covered with the DB giving a 10 yd cushion, and he ran a deep in and was clearly the #4 option on the play, Howard never even looked in his direction. Sigh.
I'm just mentally preparing myself now for more disappointments in the second half of the season. I'm not a fire Ryan Day guy even if he loses the coming Penn State game, but if he loses to this Michigan team.....we need to blow it all up and start over.
I don't like nice people. I like tough, honest people.
Woody Hayes
I think the best attitude that everyone can have, both players, and fans, is that a loss is always a possibility. It's a much better mindset to have than running with the idea that a Natty is guaranteed. Only one of these attitudes is going to serve as a constant motivator to always play at your best.
BubbaGumps
If he loses to PSU you can kiss the CFP good bye. So hell yes Day needs not lose another game this year with the talent he has or I will be on the fire Day wagon.
Good perspective.
1 point loss to an equal talented team on the road is not a disaster.
Bama lost to Vandy, Georgia lost already this season. Are we the only team that is expected to go 12-0 every year lest we have "fans" completely lose their minds?
Oregon played .lights out and we did not. 1 point difference. I like our trajectory even with the loss.
It's all still in front of us. We play Oregon in B10 Champ game and get the rematch W, get a 1 seed for winning the B10 and the roll through the playoffs from there.
Go Bucks!
"Tough times don't last, tough people do" - Gregory Peck
Bama and Georgia gave up 500 yards to each other. It turns out that it's really hard to stop talented roster even if you have a talented roster yourself. Having said that, we now know where we have to get better to beat an elite roster.
And Bama and UGA have looked like shit ever since that game. We are not in such a dire situation as compared to the rest of the national powers.
We should able to take care of business against teams like Nebraska and IU at home. Comes down to that road game at PSU. To me they are very similar to Oregon overall, with probably a little better defense but a weaker offense with Allar and not much at WR compared to Gabriel and Oregon.
The reality is defenses are at a massive disadvantage compared to offense. Like what defense in the last decade has stopped a top offense? 2023 Michigan is the only team that stopped multiple top offenses and even then if Penix is even more 10% more accurate in that title game they would’ve been shredder as WRs were open all game
I like this take. Take a beat, let the emotions dissipate a bit, and then analyze. The defense was disappointing, as were the penalties. But we were playing on the road, in front of a rabid crowd (one poster that attended said it was the loudest stadium he’d been in), three time zones away. Oregon has the horses, too, and Gabriel played his best game ever.
I totally agree on WH. He can lead us to the promised land. We can win them all. Will we? Who knows. But it will be a great ride.
Apple in Borlando
Can we drop the three time zone bullshit. They went there, did a walk thru, watched film, ate dinner and went to bed. They woke up on Eastern time, ate breakfast, did final meetings/prep, and played a game. It was s day and a half trip. SOFT
Knowles and the defense need to do some soul searching and basically wake the hell up. And the loss of Simmons is very worrisome. The mistakes, turnovers, and penalties just add to the challenges ahead. Day has yet to really show he has what it takes to come up with a disciplined championship winning team. If they win out the rest of the Big10 schedule, especially with a win against PSU, and make it to Indianapolis, it’ll show some real resilience but, sadly, I’m not all that confident after watching the performance against the ducks.
It was a very disappointing performance and loss. There was good and bad to takeaway from the game. The defense needs to play better in their assignments. JT abandons the edge, TD. Burke constantly looking into the backfield as the WR runs past him. I don’t want to sound like I’m discrediting Oregon, they are legit and deserved to win, however my thoughts on the only team that can beat us is us have not changed.
Now i become Boob Salsa, grifter of men.
I know you and others have watched a great deal of college football. The defensive lapses and penalties are concerning, but look at the data rather than making rash proclamations. The home field advantage is amplified when traveling east or west over 2k miles for conference games. This is new, and it is different. It’s a factor no matter what the coaches and pundits say. I’ll say it here buried deep in a thread. OSU will beat Oregon on a neutral field. Mark it!
Apple in Borlando
Where did I make a rash proclamation?
Now i become Boob Salsa, grifter of men.
Great point about the travel. Especially if that "neutral" field is Lucas Oil in Indy, I love our chances in a rematch. Have to take care of a ton of business before then though.
I believe only Penn State has won so far when traveling either way in the time zones and they still almost lost to a mediocre USC team.
The time zone thing isn’t a made up excuse it’s very real we’ll have to figure out. I tried explaining it to people why USC was only favored by 4.5 points against Michigan earlier in the year when everyone was expecting them to blow them out. NFL teams have realized it and travel earlier. I’m just not sure how feasible it is with student athletes.
Now i become Boob Salsa, grifter of men.
I think the loss, if viewed independently of everything else, wasn’t that bad. Playing at Oregon is tough. They’re a good team with really good players. It’s unreasonable to expect Ohio State to win every game, especially in this era of super-conferences.
The disappointment comes because this is yet another big game in recent memory where Ryan Day’s Buckeyes didn’t get it done. If they’d won 2 or 3 of the other top 5/10 matchups we’ve lost (even if one of those wasn’t a national championship), this loss would be a lot easier for fans to take. But it’s starting to look like a trend, which is concerning, rather than an aberration, which is not.
The other disappointing thing was our defense, the supposed strength of the team, giving up more points to Oregon than either U of Idaho or Boise State. That, combined with making zero adjustments to try and get more pressure on Gabriel and letting him pick us apart, doesn’t instill confidence in Knowles or the defense the rest of the way. Everyone with a brain could see Gabriel sitting back with tons of time picking us apart (how many times did we have to hear that “he’s the most accurate passer in college football?”) instead of mixing things up and getting pressure. It was clear Burke couldn’t cover anyone for more than about 2 seconds, so either slide someone over to help him deep, or get to the QB faster. Yet somehow Knowles didn’t see it or made zero adjustments.
OSUCOM 2008 Graduate. Go Bucks!
When people say this, I wonder if they take into account the last three years of Michigan cheating? If you remove those three losses (or make them wins), suddenly, Ryan Day doesn't look so bad against top 10 competition.
"Because the rules won't let you go for three." - Woody Hayes
THE Ohio State University
I just punished myself and watched most of the game on my DVR. What strikes me is this ….since we have exhausted the issues around Burke (his next truly physical, teeth rattling tackle will be his first) and the Defense, ad nauseam. Go back to late in the 3rd quarter when we stopped them inside our 5 yard line and took possession of the ball. Yes, we had to drive the ball the length of the field in a hostile environment or at least flip the field to make Oregon pay for going for the TD instead of taking the 3 points. The difference between Ohio State teams since Ryan Day arrived and elite OSU and other teams (yes, even Michigan’s the past 2 years) is the inability to exert their will and drive the ball down the field. Truly elite teams, OSU or anyone else can line up and run the ball down your throat even if the opposing team and 60,000 people in the stands know exactly what is coming. There has been some criticism in this Forum that Day abandoned the run too soon. I am not so sure of that. By the 3rd quarter, the breakaway runs by Henderson and Judkins were reduced to short gains. Oregon started crowding the LOS and we couldn’t do much about it. We all like Howard a lot…..but his arm strength scares nobody. He can’t stretch the field, even with Smith, so we are limited.
It was obvious our D was getting gashed by Oregon. But the one time they got a huge, emotional stop, the Offense (when Howard dropped the snap from center and ended the drive) needed to sustain what could have been a game winning drive…..they couldn’t. Elite football teams can. It remains to be seen what this team does. Their inability to exert their will in the trenches has been a focal point of debate and national scorn (Lou Holtz, etc.) since Day arrived. How or if they flip that script will decide what this team eventually does. You can argue that no OSU team should ever lose a game in which they score 31 points. I just don’t believe in the modern CF game…..that statement or assumption holds water any longer.
Only my dog can stand me watching games and i repeatedly told him during halftime stop score stop score and ride off to victory. We got 3/4ths of that done. All 4 would’ve all but guaranteed a win.
Now i become Boob Salsa, grifter of men.
One thing that I haven’t seen overly discussed is the punter. And this is probably low on the list of last night’s issues but I think it warrants discussion. Oregon had significantly better field position even outside of the fumble and onside kick. I don’t want to pile blame on McGuire who is a walk-on out there trying his best. But I think our coaching staff expects these Australians to be game-ready godsends just because Johnston and Mirco (to a lesser extent, but he was a solid starter as a freshman) were. I don’t know much about how the Australians are recruited, and maybe they just got bad info from an Australian coach they trust, but I hope the staff realizes they need a contingency plan for this sort of thing in the future.
Yes. We need better than 35-45 yard punts.
"Because the rules won't let you go for three." - Woody Hayes
THE Ohio State University
I love this take, and am surprised to be only seeing it here first. We need more consistency and bigger kicks. McGuire is doing a good job, but we needed at least the threat of a field flipping shot.
How long has that van been there?
Oregon had three or four third down conversions on the last drive to kick their field goal. If Day had gone for two at some point when we were getting touchdowns, it’s a game tying field goal and not a game winner. Be that as it may, tha defense’s inability to get off the field and the presnap false start penalties and burning timeouts on offense caused the loss. Clock management is not great Bob
When telling the truth becomes a revolutionary concept, it’s wise to join the revolution
Your friendly reminder that Ohio State still controls its own destiny this season.
I have doubt that any team goes undefeated this year. Regroup and move forward.
In my opinion, that game still was won and lost by the refs. There is no reason that offensive PI should have been called against JJ. With the game in the balance they called such a bs pushoff. I love it when the refs determine the outcome of the game. And yes, there were plenty of plays before that that affected the outcome. But, that was not that egregious of a push to be deserved at that time in the game. Complete BS!
I think that makes it an even game at worst though, considering Oregon pretty clearly had an interception at the beginning that was ruled in our favor. We essentially had one drive-killing penalty in our favor and one drive-killing penalty in theirs.
Jesus is King
Right. Basically a break even in my opinion. I think it would've been a 3 point game regardless of the interception call (you never know where a game goes from there)
"In weightlifting, I don't think sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify you."
-Jack Handey
I think Howard knew if reviewed it would be confirmed as an interception so he did what he needed to do and got the team to the line and ran a play before it could be reviewed. Plays like that show his QB smarts.
Indeed. Lanning played the system, but so did he.
Jesus is King
Unfortunately plays like the slide show his QB farts
Now i become Boob Salsa, grifter of men.
A lot of us need to calm down! Yes the loss sucks but our season is far from over!
My feeling is that if the Buckeyes have what it takes to go the distance, the DL is only going to come up against better competition in the form of opposing OL's. There are teams right now that have much more NFL talent protecting their QB than Oregon.
That does not bode well for a DL that has been an embarrassment, at least at the edge rushing positions, so far this year.
The Excellence of Execution, the Best there is, the Best there was, the Best there ever will be!