M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[Pasadena Blue]

right now Ohio is looking pretty good for running the table. don't see any real opposition.

[lineygoblue]

That's how they plan it.

[Hannibal]

I only watched the first 35 minutes of this game. I expect OSU to shred the living hell out of anyone in the Big Ten on offense. Defense -- I'm still not sure about. Cal had a lot of yards in the game. They had to run 90 plays to get them, but 371 yards passing by a true freshman QB is still 371 yards passing by a true freshman QB. Probably nobody besides Northwestern can take advantage of that though.

[iam416]

Wasn't mgoblog a big RichGOD supporter? They tweeted something like "I hate how much I love OSU's offense" and I thought of the Denard vs the World days.

I'm still not used to this football. 13 full-on drives per team. Tresselball usually saw about 9. 8 if you were playing Wisky. So Cal threw 53 passes for 371 yards. To scale, I'm fine with that. If Cal were, say 60% of that -- 18 for 31 for 220 yards -- that's meh. The volume of plays, though, is astounding.

Two keys really. Cal's long TD pass at 21-0. That was horrific. If the QB had hit the WR he as throwing to -- the guy criminally open -- then he would have gone out of bounds at the 35. The guy that he did hit wasn't poorly covered and the confluence seem to really F up Roby who could muster only a dumbass shove. Bah. That kepy Cal in the game. Then OSU fumbled on what was more than likely a TD drive that would have kept the margin at 3 TDs.

The second TD annoyed me b/c they had them at 3rd and 12, jumped offside on a play that was intercepted, and then gave up a jail break screen TD. But, OSU got one back in the 2nd half when a Cal offsides kept a TD drive alive.

So, the big plays sucked. I don't mind the dinking. If they had kept everything in front of them, I'd have been pretty happy. But, they didn't. However, as you noted, not a lot of B10 teams will run that stuff. Indiana and NW and that's about it.

Going forward -- Hyde comes back this week, but they have so many RBs it's not a huge improvement. He'll be nice to have back, though, even if his carries are limited. Dontre Wilson is fast. Joey Bosa is going to be ridiculous. And they need Adolphus Washington back for Wisconsin. With Schutt out, they can't have another interior guy down for the Badgers.

[hack]

Washington and Schutt are good comparisons -- same class as Wormley's, right? Those guys are making an impact already? I know Washington has. Of course he's enjoying the kind of academic support required to do so...

[Optimus Prime]

For the record, OSU is 3-0, full stop.

Although heavily sanctioned last year and prohibited from playing a CTG or a Bowl, OSU was permitted to play a string of exhibition matches in order to meet their financial obligation to the scheduled opponent, no sense every team paying for Ohio's never-ending transgressions.

12-0 pure fantasy: 12 wins + 2 disqualifications = INCOMPLETE SEASON.

No surprise that there appears to be no end to this selective revisionism.

Post-season ban was a real bitch, oh what might have been will never be.

[Hannibal]

Where is Brionte Dunn? Is he in the doghouse or is he just a bust?

The last time that I saw him he was getting screamed at by Urban Meyer in last year's Central Florida game.

[Hannibal]

Wasn't mgoblog a big RichGOD supporter? They tweeted something like "I hate how much I love OSU's offense" and I thought of the Denard vs the World days.

Yes. Brian Cook is a spread fanatic. He has some good reasons to be. It's hard to ignore the mounting evidence about how ridiculously effective it can be. Just look at what A&M did to Alabama. Incredible. Brian is rightfully concerned that we are running a 1990s offense in a time where the rest of the world has moved on. Stanford and Wisky have had some success running a smashmouth offense, but we don't even seem to be trying that.

I said it before and I'll say it again -- RichRod's 2010 offense was insanely, insanely, insanely underappreciated. It shredded the living hell out of good teams when it came to yardage but was undermined by turnovers and abysmal special teams. As a result, they would only get about 9 or 10 good posessions a game, move the ball on amost every one of them, but not put a lot of points on the board because they had to go 90 yards every time and they couldn't ever play for a field goal. Now, we are back to the Lloyd Carr days of our running game being a turd and relying on the QB to win every tough game.

[iam416]

Washington and Schutt are good comparisons -- same class as Wormley's, right?

I think so. UFM's first class, so 2012. Noah Spence and Joey Bosa also play on the DL. So, that's 4 guys from 2012-13 that are playing a ton up front.

Where is Brionte Dunn? Is he in the doghouse or is he just a bust?

I don't think it's either. I think he's stuck with a really good group of RBs. I wouldn't be surprised if they redshirt him this season. With Hyde back, he is, at best, even with Warren Ball at 4th on the depth chart.

There's a thread about him on an insiders forum -- I'll take a look and see if there's anything other than the above.

[iam416]

It's hard to ignore the mounting evidence about how ridiculously effective it can be. Just look at what A&M did to Alabama. Incredible. Brian is rightfully concerned that we are running a 1990s offense.

I think what Oregon, aTm and Michigan illustrate is the value of talent. I agree with your take on M under RichGOD, but they still had inferior offensive talent. Denard was silly, but they just didn't have enough on offense to really shitkick the good teams. I mean, yeah, they were stupid, too, and the defense was beyond words bad, but 7 against OSU is still 7.

Oregon and aTm have talent on offense out the ass and it shows. aTm, though, suffers from being god-awful on defense -- and they are. They are, IMO, a rich man's version of that M team -- they have far more talent on offense and the defense, while bad, can't possibly be as bad as that team's.

Oregon is just really, really good. It pains me to say that. When you put that kind of talent on the field and put that much pressure on the defense, it's tough. That's UFM's dream offense, I think. Doesn't have the overall speed, yet, but inching there.

[Hannibal]

Talent isn't a good enough explanation for the way that A&M and Oregon put points and yards up. They make the Charlie Ward and Danny Weurffel offenses from the '90s look like shmucks.

Our 2000 offense was insanely talented -- Hutchinson, Backus, Henson, Thomas, Terrell, Walker. Even they never put up 687 yards in a game the way that Oregon did against Tennessee this past weekend. They only scored 14 against MSU and 13 against Wisconsin. Even the 1994 Penn State team (IMHO still the best offense in the history of the Big Ten) never did what Oregon can do. That was with a few future pros on the line, the first pick of the NFL draft playing QB, a 1st round pick tight end, the Heisman trophy runner-up at RB, and Bobby Engram at WR.

Oregon shredded people when Mariota was a new starter, and A&M got a Heisman trophy winner with a redshirt freshman -- at a position where redshirt freshmen have historically sucked. The explanation that it is all about talent doesn't cut it for me anymore. Talent is obviously still a huge factor, but it's become more and more clear to me that your highest likelihood of success is to put 4 or five WRs on the field, force the defense to play six men in the box, and then pick them apart with a QB who can run.

[Hannibal]

Interesting about Dunn. His profile was a "can't miss" type. I'm still a bit surprised that he's not higher on the depth chart. I wondered if it was a Mike Cox type situation where he has all of the physical talent in the world but can't get on the field for some reason.

[iam416]

Talent isn't the sole explanation, but it's part of the explanation.

I was definitely more in the Tresselball camp than spread camp, but I'm moving toward it for many of the reasons discussed. I still wonder what offense is most effective against a really good defense, i.e., would you rather line up 2000 M against Alabama or Oregon? The most prolific offensive team I've seen were the 2008 Sooners, and Florida ended up shutting them down. Oregon, likewise, was foiled by Auburn.

However, it's utterly foolish to claim that 1 or 2 games proves it doesn't work. It's obvious that it does. Against lesser defenses, it's obvious that it's much better (IMO). And it's not going away -- most HS football teams are running some variation of that offense. That's what kids are "trained" in coming into college. And it's matriculating to the NFL, even (which shocks me).

[iam416]

Re Dunn, he's a between the tackles power back. Hyde is there. Rod Smith is there. And he's even with Warren Ball. I can see him getting plenty of carries in a year or two, but right now it ain't happening. I think they may redshirt him this season. We'll see.

[Hannibal]

IMHO a lot of the examples of the spread getting "shut down" are really people having double standards for what constitutes getting "shut down". The Oregon/Auburn game from 2010 is a perfect example. Oregon still ended up with 19 points. Compare that to the 6 points that Alabama scored against LSU in 2011. The spread bottoms out at 17 points instead of zero.