Champs Sports Bowl, Anyone?

I, like others, was somewhat hopeful of an at-large BCS bowl big heading into the game tonight. After all, we would have a defeat over a #1 team on our resume and assuming we would win out, 10-2 would be pretty solid. Now, it's going to be rough to even get back to the Outback Bowl. I don't even know where to begin about tonight.

Joey was right on with the defense. I and the fans around me were continually baffled at what the defense was doing. The lack of blitzes really killed us and I believe that started a bad chain reaction with the rest of our defense. I mean, we didn't even try to put extra pressure on their passing game. That led to the the secondary playing very poorly, as Boeckman had years to throw. Terrible performances by King and especially Lydell Sargeant really doomed us but our lack of pressure on Boeckman probably had something to do with that. Regardless, they still looked lost half the time. Not only that but we couldn't contain the Buckeye running game whatsoever. The D-line just got completely owned and the Buckeyes probably could have picked a play out of a hat and had success with it. We really should have called some DB blitzes to mix things up but we all know how conservative our play calling can be on both sides of the ball.

The 7-10 yard TE passes were ruining us too. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 9078234987 times...do we even try on defense? OSU burned us so much on simple patterns with the TE coming across the middle. When that happens, stick a LB on him or something! Make adjustments!! Just have him covered. On offense, we were ok. Kinlaw looked very solid but again, Galen Hall refused to really open up the playbook. Derrick Williams and Deon Butler combined for an embarrassing 3 receptions and 14 yards. We have playmakers for a reason. Get the ball in their hands. Yes, Morelli had less than stellar numbers but I felt that he managed the game fairly well outside of his retarded INT (which of course ended up being the ultimate back breaker). One way or the other, the defense just couldn't make a stop when they needed one and PSU couldn't convert on 3rd down when they needed to. Put those together and you get a loss.

However, when all is said and done, I believe D-Coordinator Tom Bradley is the goat for this game, but the entire starting defense is a close second. The schemes Bradley called were pathetic and utterly ineffective. Yes, the players have to execute (and they normally didn't which was definitely a major part of the problem) but Bradley put them in really crappy situations right off the bat. There's only so much you can do. I mean, Ohio State never even punted the ball. It looked like Bradley never even looked at a tape of OSU's offense. PUT PRESSURE ON BOECKMAN! Did he not see the two picks MSU returned for TDs against him last week? Just another frustrating loss. If only adjustments could have at least been made at halftime. I ranked OSU #1 after USC lost to Stanford and they've at least certainly backed me up. They were easily the better team on the field and they were the better team by a wide margin.