Fire Jim Tressel?

Whistler Luge Course, Asinine

2010-02-14T06:41:00Z

Sometimes you gotta go off the board, and today is one of those days.

By now, you've probably seen the Luge tragedy at the Olympics more times than you'd like to recall. But, I have some BIG issues as to how they handled that whole thing, and with the course.

First thing is that they ran their "investigation" internally (which is NEVER objective in ANY organization), they completed it in just a few hours, and then determined it was 100% slider error, say it ain't so. There's no conflict of interest there. If the internal group doing the investigation admit ANY percentage of error, they're opening themselves up to lawsuits because of the admission of guilt. It doesn't take an attorney to see through that one. Then they're trying to insinuate that he wasn't "experienced" enough. The guy came from a family of sliders, he was 44th in the world, and his accident happened on turn #16, well past the most difficult portion of the track (turns #5-#6 and #11-#13). The most technical luger in the world crashed in practice somewhere during turns #11-#13 during his first practice run. So, if the guy that's 44th in the world makes it through the most difficult and technical part of the track, I'd like to think he's qualified enough to get through the easier parts of the track without killing himself due to a mistake.

My second big issue is with the design of the track, and I'm not talking about the difficulty. You mean to tell me they build the Talladega of ice tracks for umpteen millions of dollar (something like 110 million if I remember correctly?), and the only other starting point aside from the top is a point that has them doing about 25mph (exaggeration) for half the run? However, they still hit about 90mph at the bottom of the run? That sounds like a really bad design flaw to me. All of the drop seems to be near the top and at the bottom of the course. Now, these guys have to glide like their grandma out on a Sunday drive until they hit the bottom quarter of the track and still ramp up to about 90mph, That's kind of dumb if you ask me.

My third issue is this, who the hell thought it was a good idea to get these guys close to 100mph on a lunch tray with blades anyway? Who the hell ignored all the Lugers saying that the course was too dangerous? I guarantee you one of these guys would've hit 100mph if they ran from the top. One would think they would've looked closer at this thing when turns #11-#13 became know as the 50/50 curves, because at one point...only 50% of the bobsledders were coming through #11-#13 right side up during a training prior to the Olympics. The lugers then started calling them the 50/50 curves too because if you didn't hit them perfectly, you had a 50/50 chance of staying on your sled. Call me crazy, but that just doesn't sound too safe.

Last issue is the obvious, I don't care what sport you're in...steel poles without any protection within arms reach of a racing track just doesn't seem like a good idea. The sad part is that this guy could've very well shot over the opposite side wall (since he ricocheted), but they didn't put one of their home-made wood walls or plexiglass over that one. They only put the wall up to protect against the steel beams. How come I can see that issue from my couch but the experts on the scene cannot?

It's indescribable sadness when an athlete loses his life while participating in something like the Olympics. It's also an absolute tragedy when there's NO independent investigation and the athlete is then blamed for his own death when logic and the obvious say otherwise. We love the Olympics because it seems to be much more pure than professional sports. But,when they handle it in a way that reminds us of the things and people we hate in professional sports, it tarnishes the whole thing which is sad. Hopefully, they'll go back and get it right at some point, but until then, there's a black cloud hanging over the sport of Luge and the Winter Olympics as a whole.

Superbowl - Another Great Example...

2010-02-08T16:48:00Z

Wow, what a great Super Bowl! I was moderately rooting for the Colts, but am extremely happy for the Saints after watching them win an awesome game!

Several things stood out to me (and to many other national analysts it seems as well):

-The Colts went super conservative at times in play calling, especially trying to force the run when it had stopped working. They were forcing the run with one of the best quarterbacks of all time in his prime taking the snaps??

-The Colts made several poor coaching decisions (play calling in the red zone, going for the long field goal, conservative GP throughout most of the game)

-The Saints absolutely had the more aggressive game plan. They had coached their defensive backs to jump routes, they blitzed and blitzed, they were aggressive in passing, they went for multiple risky plays (i.e.- on-sides kick).

To me, this game was a classic representation of Tressel (= Colts) against the other top coached teams in college football. Never in a million years would Tress approach a game like Sean Payton did for the Saints. Tress wouldn't even take on 10% of Payton's game plan style from the Super Bowl.

My point is that the game has changed in both college and the pros. Unless you have a world class, shut-down defense (against both pass and run) that is heads and tails better than any other offense in their league (college or NFL), an ultra conservative game plan doesn't work in this day and age of football. I don't think you need to be quite as aggressive as Sean Payton to win, but it seems to help in this day and age.

It's pretty clear that the Saints clearly out coached the Colts in this one. When is the last time that we thought Tressel out coached someone in a big time game? Especially against someone that was ranked significantly higher than the Buckeyes? NEVER.

Can OSU fans find some perspective?

2010-01-11T12:00:00Z

First off, I'm not here trying to call for Jim's firing after the win against Oregon. All I'm asking for is a little more perspective and rationale as to who JT really is as a coach, and what this win against Oregon really meant.

Did JT get the monkey off his back? Sort of.

Anyone that thinks this Oregon team wasn't over rated and over hyped are nuts. Arizona put 41 pts up against Oregon and lost 33-0 to Nebraska in their crappy bowl game. Let me re-emphasize that, Arizona scored 41 points on Oregon but couldn't muster up ONE single point against Nebraska. Albeit, Nebraska has a great defense, but you mean to tell me they couldn't get 1 single point on the board in a bowl game? Purdue dropped 38 on these guys, and let's remind ourselves, we LOST to Purdue. Stanford dropped half a century on the Ducks defense (51 to be exact). Granted, Stanford turned out to be a dramatically improved team...but nowhere near the top teams in the country. Again, I'm not trying to take away credit of our win or a good showing by the offense, but I hear Buckeye fans talking about Pryor and Tress like they somehow transformed themselves into Peyton & Dungy. We scored 26 points on a team that routinely gave up 30 points to teams just for showing up...kind of like the SAT that gives you points just for putting your name on the test.

Do we need to be reminded that the Bucks were only up by 2 points after 3 quarters of play? The Buckeyes dominated this team and we only had a 2 point advantage after 3/4 of the game? The Ducks barely had the ball, OSU set a record for time of possession, but again, we could only muster up a 2 point advantage after 3 quarters of play (sorry for the broken record effect)? You may think that I'm splitting hairs and am hopelessly dissecting something that we should all be happy about, but the Buckeyes routinely play close to the vest in score, which works against them when playing better teams.

Remember Iowa? We dominated them, but needed them to make some brain-dead coaching decisions at the end of the game in order to ice the victory. Yes we won, but it was close, and it shouldn't have been.

Moving back further, USC: Played it tight to the vest, lost by 3 points.
....(I won't mention the Purdue loss)
...even further, Texas in the Fiesta Bowl: Had to make a 4th quarter comeback down 17-6 in order to take a brief lead at 21-17, but still lost.
....before that, Penn State 2008: Lost 13-6
....further back, USC 2008: 35-3
....still going, LSU 2008: 38-24
.....yep, there's more, Illinois 2007: 28-21
....oh wait, here's one more, the infamous 41-14 beat down

Is Tress a good coach? YES. Does he recruit well, run a clean program, and win a large number of games with his style? YES. Is he known to win the big game (currently)? NO. Does he run a modern offense? NO. Does he even have top notch offensive coordinators/coaches? NO.

So, what do we want??? We want Tress to bring in a REAL offensive coordinator, a REAL quarterback coach, and meet his true potential as a head coach. That's it.

As Predicted...

2010-01-02T15:06:00Z

Congratulations to the Buckeyes against Oregon, they played a great game. I've intentionally stayed away from all/any comments on this site since the game prior to writing this post. One of the main reasons is that I know plenty of Tress apologists are going to come out of the wood work to slam this site with ridiculous comments. However, most of them will never read any of the previous posts or comments, so I'd like to revisit some of the posts prior to this game.

Let me start by saying this, the previous posts (before the bowl season even began) stated that the Buckeyes would most likely win this game. Not because of any major changes from Tress or advancements in the offense, but because the Buckeye's defense was that good. The other assessment I made was that I believed the Pac-10 was completely over rated going into the bowl season even though many of the top analysts were saying that the Pac-10 was probably the 2nd or 3rd best conference in the nation this year. One of my main points of evidence was that the top 4 teams in the Pac-10 combined, only managed to beat Notre Dame and Utah as notable out of conference wins. The point was, the top four teams in the Pac-10 hadn't beaten anyone of note outside of their conference.   I took some heat for that position, but now that the Pac-10 finished 2-5 in bowl games, the both of my predictions were dead on.

Now, back to the game...anyone that thinks this game was about Pryor developing or Tress opening up the offense, I think you're only maybe 10%-20% correct. First, this game was never going to be mostly about Pryor and Tress opening up the offense, it was always about whether or not the Buck's defense was good enough to slow down the Duck's offense, which we predicted they would do. The Duck's had given up considerable points this year to several teams, 38 to Purdue and 51 to Standford as a couple of examples (so don't think the OSU offense are world beaters now!).   After watching the game, Oregon's defense was much worse than anticipated. If you look closely at the play of the DB's, they were HORRIBLE. Pryor did make a couple of great throws that were right on the money, where even the best corner backs wouldn't have been able to break them up, and tremendous props to him for that! But, Pryor looked terrible through much of the first half and threw SEVERAL of those damn lob passes throughout the game for completions that only works only in high school, and against Oregon's defensive backfield apparently.

Ultimately, the Ducks were a great match-up for the Bucks, and the Bucks came out and executed a decent game plan. Once again, if you really look at this thing closely, the Buckeyes DOMINATED (if there's a word better than dominate, insert here) time of possession, and every major stat possible (offensive and defensive).   But, we were only up 19-17 after three quarters of play. I'm not trying to find the negative here, but am just pointing out the facts before everyone watches the highlights and says that Tress opened up this offense, Pryor came of age, and they completely changed their normal game plan. We scored 26 total points against a team that has routinely given up 30+ points this season. To me, winning by 9 points against a team that only had 18:23 of ball possession and 12 first downs is not phenomenal.

The Bucks played an excellent game, which was predicted on this site. In the end, the Buckeyes defense is awesome, the Ducks defense is average at best, the Ducks were over rated, and Tressleball will always reign supreme in this type of equation. Tress' coached teams are like a rigid math equation, if you change the variables, it doesn't work out because they do not adapt or change. If anything, this game showed nothing of change except that Prior is able to periodically make some difficult throws, which is a great sign. Other than that, this was Tressleball at it's finest, don't kid yourself.

"Food For Thought" - the Ducks also gave up:
38 to Purdue (who didn't even get eligible for one of the 34 bowl games)
33 to Oregon State (who were blown out by BYU in the Vegas Bowl, 44-20)
41 to Arizona (who were routed by Nebraska 33-0 in the Holiday Bowl)
51 to Stanford (who lost to a down Oklahoma team 31-27 in the Sun Bowl)

Fat Girlfriends, Leach Firing & Coaches

2009-12-30T20:27:00Z

First off, I think Leach's blast to the players about listening too much to their "fat girlfriends" was classic, and probably warranted. Frankly, more coaches need to come up with blasts like that to inspire their teams. But, it's a non-issue to this story. If people are offended by something like that, they would have to fire about every high-school and college coach in America.

Regarding the concussion stuff, that's another story. The first problem is that people want to make this about James and his father, but, it has nothing to do with Leach getting fired. I'm not saying James was a model player, hell, he might have been a thorn in Leach's side. But, there seems to be more than enough evidence showing that Leach really didn't care about his concussion and wanted to do whatever he could to prove his point that James should've been practicing.

#1 No one would've EVER heard the story and it would have been dead before it happened if Leach would have issued an apology to James as requested by the university. But he would not. We all know how strong willed, big headed, and how much power head coaches are given now-a-days, and it seems Leach couldn't bear the thought of having to apologize to James for running things "his way." Had he sucked up and apologized, nothing would have ever happened, he'd still have his job, and there wouldn't be a black mark on his record.

#2 James could've kept this thing manageable had he signed the legal document the university gave him stating that he would agree to treat players injuries according to the team physicians and NOT apply pressure on the athlete or physicians. The agreement went on to also state that his coaching staff would be held to the same terms. While it may sound ridiculous, they needed to do this because if James would do something else that caused harm on a player, the university would be sued out the wazoo and have to pay Leach's contract to boot. Whereas, if there was an agreement, it limits their liability and gives them cause to fire Leach should he do it again. Let me say this...I don't think a university is going to hand a document like that to a high profile head coach to sign for s_its and giggles. They had good reason to ask James to sign the document, and he again refused to do what the university was requesting of him. (Note to self...if someone is paying several mill a year for my job, I might want to at least consider signing a document they hand me and tell me to sign, no matter how much it pisses me off.)

This story has nothing to do with; athletes expecting primadona treatment, athletes not being tough enough, athletes always getting their way, James having a vendetta against Leach, the university rushing to judgment against Leach, Craig James flexing his muscles, and so on. Most people, including the media want to cling to some of these points but conveniently ignore the fact that Leach wanted to handle the situation his way, on his terms.

THAT'S why Leach was fired. It's not because of Craig James, his son, or mis-information and advanced judgment by the university without due process. He was fired because they had evidence he acted inappropriately, he then refused to apologize as requested, and then, he refused to sign an agreement with the university stating that he would abide by their terms for handling players with injuries. That's why he was fired, period.

Is the Pac-10 That Good? Really?

2009-12-24T13:00:00Z

posted on 12/14/2009 @ 8:00 AM EST

Frankly, I don't think Oregon is all that good, I feel like they got in through a backdoor to the Rosebowl. They earned it, but I don't think they're the powerhouse we're being led to believe. They have a potent offense, and that's about it. They lost to Boise State and Standford, one is a really good team and the other is just a decent team. Stanford lost to Wake, Oregon State, Arizona, and Cal. Oregon's power wins came against USC, Cal, Utah, and Oregon State. I'm not sure any of those really impress me so much (although neither do any of the Bucks power wins outside of maybe Penn State). I also think that the entire Pac10 became over ranked early on because of how high USC and Ohio State were ranked before their big showdown. Once USC beat Ohio State and their frosh QB looked good, Pac10 teams got huge points and rankings for beating USC, but that obviously slowed down as it became obvious that most of the teams in the Pac10 could beat USC on any given Saturday this year.

Here's some stats I'd like to throw out that highlights the vaunted 2009 Pac-10:
This is a break-down of the non-conference wins/losses for the top 4 team in the PAC-10. I chose the top 4 because the 3 teams that followed Oregon had identical division and overall records. In essense, these stats are highlighting the top 2 places in the Pac-10.

1. Oregon (10-2): LOST to Boise State, Beat Purdue by ONLY 2 points, Beat Utah

2. Arizona (8-4): LOST to Iowa, beat other gimme's

3. Oregon State (8-4): Lost to Cincinatti, beat UNLV by 2 points

4. Stanford (8-4): Lost to WAKE Forest, Beat Notre Dame by 1-Touchdown in a Shootout that they probably shoudl've lost if Notre Dame didn't choke every time a game was tight in the closing minutes.

The end result is this, the Pac-10's non-conference wins from its top 4 teams consists of Utah and Notre Dame (wins against anyone that's even moderately respectable, I left Purdue off...that doesn't count!!!). Hell, the Mac's top 4 teams have non-conferenc wins against (again, wins semi-worth mentioning): Michigan State, Purdue, Army, and Navy. While none of these are world beaters, the wins are moderately respectable (considering it's the MAC) and probably looks better on paper than just Notre Dame & Utah...but we're talking about the freaking MAC in comparison to what's supposedly one of the top 3 conferences????

I'm not saying the Pac-10 is bad, I'm just saying they haven't proven ANYTHING to me except beating up on each other so the top few teams in their conference each have a decent record. Am I supposed to believe this conference is great based on the fact their best 4 teams only managed 2 meaningful non-conference wins against Utah and Notre Dame (go ahead and throw Purdue in there if you want)?? I want to see some "W's" against teams outside of the conference. The bowl games will let us know if these guys are pretenders or the real deal. I'm hoping someone else will take some heat for once for being overrated rather than the Big-10.

UPDATE!
12/24/2009 @ 9:00 AM EST
We're learning the Pac10 might be about as tough as I predicted (or less)...so far, they've kicked off their bowl season 0-2 with losses to BYU & Utah. Granted, BYU and Utah are pretty good teams, but I think it's safe to say they aren't world beaters. The AP Poll had Oregon State ranked 16th and BYU ranked 15th, but Oregon State got BLOWN OUT by BYU. Cal looked tough early against Utah, but gave up something like 30 unanswered points to lose the game. Granted, I don't think CAL was good enough to play Utah, but that's the nature of bowl selections...pick one team that deserves to be there and the other is simply the team that's available who will bring the best crowd possible.
With all of that being said, the Pac-10's top 4 teams still only have 2 meaningful out of conference wins, Notre Dame & Utah.

For those that are interested, here's the link to ESPN's ranking page....
http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings

How Are Coaches Rated?

2009-12-21T12:00:00Z

Many people say that "Tress" is great because he wins the Big10, beats UofM, and has a clean program. So, let's talk about the standards by which big time coaches are measured.

I believe this is the order of importance (for top tier programs in the US):

1. Record - must be good enough to get into the top BCS bowl games, because that's where the $$ is at

2. Bowl Wins - helps with recruiting, university prestige, and preseason rankings which leads to better BCS points once the BCS ratings come out, plus the fact that bowl games bring in HUGE $$ to universities

3. Bowl Appearences - Excellent - goes back to the $$ factor

4. Conference Titles - conference titles are important to universities for the sake of prestige, but they really mean diddly squat in comparison to big time bowl appearances and bowl wins. Saying that Conference Titles mean alot is like saying an NFL coach is great if he wins his division but loses in the first round of the playoffs each year, it only means something if you win in the post-season. Otherwise, it's just a banner you hang up, who cares?

5. Rivalry Wins - every college team has a rivalry, few (none really for obvious reasons) are like OSU-Michigan. While it means a lot to the fans, it still falls to 3rd or 4th on the importance list. For Ohio State, it probably falls #3, but with most colleges...it's #4.

6. Clean Program - This is actually #1 in the sense that ANY coach that doesn't run a clean program will get run out of town because the risk is TOO GREAT to the universities. I think we all know that the NCAA doesn't fool around, they love to find infractions. If a coach has too many infractions, he's gone. But, putting this #1 is like saying "gas in your car" is the most important thing to look for when comparing cars. Of course it is, that's the same for everybody...it's obvious. With that being said, there are coaches that run cleaner programs than others, and Tress seams to be one of the best. That's great, and is important to administrators. But, kind of like the "Gas" example...it's mandatory for everyone now-a-days so it's already expected. Therefore, the small nuances of a clean program that doesn't cause major NCAA violations is probably the 5th most important aspect for head coaches. College football is a money game now-a-days, and winning means everything. College football pays for every other university sport except basketball at most major universities, tha's why appearing and winning big bowl games are VERY important.

7. Recruiting - If you manage to get through the first 6 with flying colors but somehow don't recruit well, a coach will still be OK. But, recruiting is kinda like the cart behind the horse, if you're succeeding in records, bowl wins, and conference titles, you're probably recruiting well. If you're not, you're finding talent somewhere, and no one cares as long as you're winning.

Tressel's Review for the last few years.
#1 - Record: Good, not great because he's had an incredibly WEAK schedule with a HIGHLY ranked team each year that hasn't been able to beat a higher ranked opponent 1-time in the past few years. Therefore, his score is only good.
#2 - Bowl Wins: Sucks
#3 - Bowl Appearances: Excellent
#4 - Conference Titles: Great
#5 - Rivalry Wins: Great
#6- Clean Program: Great
#7- Recruiting: Very Good

Tressel has a "Good" and "Sucks" rating for the two most important factors of a head coach. However, it's easy to see why he has so many apologists because all of the other ratings are good to excellent. Unfortunately, they're not the most important things in college football today, and that's why we're here. We want Tressel to be "Great" on the top two, not the bottom five reasons.

The truly sad part is this, Tressel could be excellent at all 7 aspects, but I believe his control freak nature and stubborness that comes with most head coaches keeps him from becoming one of the greatest college football coaches of all time. Instead of the former, he has sites like this with 100,000 hits in a week after big time losses and a 1-3 bowl record for the last 4 years with no wins against top ranked teams in the last few years.

If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong. -Charles Kettering

better yet....

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. -Epictetus

2-2 In HIs Last 4 Bowl Games?

2009-12-11T00:18:07Z

...and I'm not EVEN talking about Tressel. John Cooper was 2-2 in his last 4 bowl games, after all, we are a "what have you done for me lately" type of society, so I'm looking at recent history.

TRESSEL IS 1-3 IN HIS LAST 4 BOWL GAMES.

Select Prominent Coaches - Bowl Record from Last 4 Bowl Games Played (or as otherwise stated):
Pete Carroll: 3-1
Urban Meyer: 3-1
Nick Saban: 2-2 (4-3 in last 7)
Mac Brown: 4-0
Joe Paterno: 3-1
Brian Kelly: 2-1 (3 bowls are all that's applicable)
Steve Spurrier: 2-2
Rich Rodriguez: 3-1 (including the bowl game right after he accepted UofM job)
Bob Stoops: 1-3
Lloyd Carr: 1-3
Charlie Weiss: 1-2 (only made it to 3 bowl games)

Ironically enough, I actually think Tress will probably win this year against the Ducks. Not because of Tress' coaching, but because the Bucks defense has become, "that good". I know the Ducks have a very potent offense, but unless they find some weakness to exploit in the Bucks defense (or if the defense doesn't show up), I think the Bucks can squeak this one out. Tressleball can possibly pull this thing off, and it seems some of the bookies think that way too since they have Oregon at only 3.5 point favorites. They apparently like the Ducks firepower, but not enough to make them at least a one touchdown favorite (or even 6pt favorite). That tells me if it comes down to a close scoring game, Tresselball will have a chance at winning. If the defense doesn't shut them down, watch out, we'll see what Tressel ball CAN'T do, and that's play with a prolific offense (unless there's absolutely no defense being played). If they pull this thing off, I don't want to hear all the blind followers writing unintelligible posts on this site about how great Tress is because he won a bowl game…let’s nip that in the bud right now.

Ultimately, I truly believe that the Bucks have a good shot at winning this thing (contrary to my friend Jimbo in SoCal's belief, take a look @ his comments/reasoning below), especially since they're only 3.5 pt underdogs. Even if they do win...I think most (rational) people will agree that it won't mean squat in terms of how good or bad Tress is as a coach unless he completely revamps the offense and has a solid game plan. Otherwise, Tresselball will do what it's made to do, beat similar or lesser matched teams and lose to similar talent that is better coached."

Thanks for reading.

(post edited on 12/12/2009)

Another Win, Another Cycle Almost Complete

2009-11-24T19:30:00Z

I usually post something immediately after a win or loss when it incites emotion. This one, was a little different. I hate to even post something on one hand because I know it just fuels the OSU Apologists fire who think I'm some misreable cynic SOB. However, after digesting this thing for a few days...it finally hit me. While this win was important for rivalry and Big10 purposes, it embodies the problems many of us have with Tressel...which were also displayed in the previous week's game against Iowa.

First, my general epiphany is this, Tresselball's famous style of game planning is so damn conservative, if he doesn't have exceptional talent on both sides of the ball, he'll never win a big time match-up against even talent (we've all know this to be true, but here's the science behind it). Tresseball conservatism works great against lesser talented teams, it's like investing 100% of your 401k earnings into money market accounts or savings accounts. That's the lowest risk investment possible so you almost always come out ahead because it's so conservative. However, you never get far enough ahead in asetts so you are truly comfortable, you're ahead, but a sudden loss or fluxuation can really hurt you because it's takes you so long to amass what you have. Tress is happy if he's up by 1 point, that's all he needs in his book. It's the whole risk/reward principle...the greater the risk, the greater the reward - the lower the risk, the lower the reward. Tress (and many Tress apologists) would much rather have a 10-win season with a win over Michigan rather than try to take some risks to really tweak out his offense and go for the glory against top matched teams (like taking some of your 401k and putting it into high-risk/high-reward mutual funds instead of leaving it in a crummy savings account). Most people diversy their investments so they have some in low risk and some in high risk, Tress is the type of guy that puts all 100% in low risk investments, because he has better control on it and knows for the most part, what the outcome will be. He's always ahead from where he started, and finishes ahead of most people that go all high-risk, but just about NEVER finishes ahead of the top earners because the laws of logic are against him.

Take the Michigan game for example (Iowas was an even better example, but this one works too)...we won by 11 points (21-10) against a team that finished the year 5-7. Seven of those eleven points were handed to us by Michigan via a fumble in their endzone that our defense simply had to strip & pounce on (NO offense involved). Now, let's take away those 7 points from the 11 we won by for offensive discussion, that puts our offense at plus 4 points in this game over Michigan. In addition to the free fumble/touchdown they gave us, Michigan threw 4 interceptions to boot. You mean to tell me that we could only muster up +4 points over Michigan who pretty much sucks, and gave us 4 interceptions? To be fair in the discussion, we did score 2 touchdowns that comprimised the +4 points in offensive scoring, but that still sucks in my book. The reason it sucks that if Forcier wouldn't have forgotten what color jersey his team was wearing, the Bucks would've had their back against the wall because Tressel DOES NOT CHANGE. He manages the game to win by 1 point, and when you do that, you're too close to the edge of losing which is why this team has lost every big game they've played in for the last 6+ years.

The apologists can call me a glass "half-empty" kinda guy, and that's OK. I like to think of it in more neutral terms, "there's a glass of water filled half-way". I'm happy as hell they won and that the players (as well as the apologists in all their mom's basements plus Mark May) get to celebrate another Big10 title . But, Tress has done NOTHING to prove that he's corrected the problems that caused HIM to lose every big game he's played in recent years (I say "HIM", because the players have changed...he has not). Again, I emphasize, NOTHING. So the vicious cycle will most likely repeat itself again, unfortunately. I'll sound like the same old broken record predicting the same exact results. Beat up on a downtrodden Big10, lose against any top ranked team, go to BCS Bowl and lose to (insert name here) high profile coach and a bunch of apologists call the supporters of this site crazy because all the "glory" Tress has bestowed upon OSU. We might even get a lesser quality team in a BCS bowl...giving us a chance to squeak one out every once in a while, that'll really make us look "stupid" on this site.

Go Bucks!

Tresselball Finds A Mate...

2009-11-15T05:01:28Z

First, I think Kirk Ferentz is a very good coach (most of the time) - I need to get that out of the way. But, Marty Mornhinweg (he's the ex-Detroit Lions coach that tried to jedi-mind trick his team by electing to kick the ball to go on defense after winning the coin toss in an OT game) thinks that Ferentz is crazy for his game management at the end of regulation.

Bucks Pros (globally speaking):

They've finally figured out a way to get some short, high-percentage pass completions for Pryor that's helped open up the running game and other phazes of the passing game.
They found a solid running game
No turnovers
They found a way to win without relying on Pryor to throw the ball (much)

Bucks Cons (again, globally speaking):

93 yards of passing (only)
Never really worked on stretching the field
OSU had only +22 yards in total offense even though they led in virtually every other offensive stat (Iowa had 3 turnovers to boot)
Tresselball nearly found another way to LOSE rather than cementing the win (save the "almost" only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades rebuttal)

Was it a win for Ohio State or a battle of Tresselball verses his new best friend, Kirk Ferentz?

Here's how I look at it, the Buckeyes: were playing in front of their home crowd, were +3 in turnovers, had more total yards of offense, had roughly 5 minutes more in ball possession, had fewer penalties, were nearly 3 times more efficient on 3rd down conversions, but STILL needed Iowa to lay down like a beaten dog at the end of regulation in order to survive into overtime. A team that leads in virtually every major stat (especially +3 in turnovers) shouldn't feel lucky just to make it into overtime. I understand "a win is a win", but the apologists have been saying that for the last 3-4 years about Tressel. Had the Bucks been facing slightly better talent, or had they faced an opposing head coach without a temporary lobotomy, the Bucks would have acquired another sad loss to their resume due to ultra conservative coaching (shocking).

I suppose that Tresselball is here to stay for a while longer since we won at least a share of the highly "coveted" and "respected" Big10 title tonight. However, I still think that control freak Tresselball sucks in the greater scheme of college football.

Honestly, we do need to offer many congratulations to the Buckeye players on another Big10 title, it might be less valuable from a global view of college football, but that title means everything to those players and the rest of the league. For that, we don't want to take anything away from them, great job. (Especially considering they were almost "Tresselball'd" out of it.)

Media Verses Perspective

2009-11-07T22:26:00Z

... just had some random thoughts on college football.

I think one thing that seems to be lacking in today's sound bite media and ridiculous banter that passes for analysis is perspective.

I was reminded of this again this morning while watching the various blathering idiots of TV (Mark May anyone?). But ESPN ran a "this day in college football history thing" on Reggie Bush. Now, I've made no secret of my disdain for USC, I live in the midst of these front running USC boobs. Nonetheless, this spot was raving about Reggie Bush's 513 all-purpose yards in a Nov.2005 matchup with Fresno State. (Full disclosure: I love what Pat Hill has done at Fresno State and the Bulldogs are probably my "local" favorite). At any rate, the spot raved about Bush's performance which, on the surface of it, would seem HUGE. However, here's the perspective ... without Bush's 513 yard performance, USC loses that game badly. The final score was 50-42 USC. Not exactly the blowout Bush's stats would otherwise have signaled.

Perspective. It's crucial.

Written by Jimbo In SoCal

Browns, ManCo, Lerner, and the Fans

2009-11-02T20:23:00Z

Since there's not a whole lot else to say about the Buckeyes beating up on some High School team last week, I'd like to vent a little on the Browns. But, UNLIKE most everyone else, I'd like to dish a little out to everyone involved, the players, the fans, ManCo (Mangini & Khokins), and Lerner.

People I'm Putting on Blast:

#1 - Some of The Fans : I had umpteen debates with fans this offseason that were lauding ManCo (Mangini & Khokinis) for getting rid of the attitude problems on the Browns. My take was this, how about at least TRY to get them disciplined and part of the program rather than dumping all the talent to try and make a "statements" to your players. I'm not sure what people were expecting to happen when they dumped all the talent on this team...but that's kinda "what we get" for getting rid of all our playmakers.

#2 - Mangini : To continue the first blast of the fans, who the hell gets rid of all their good players and then thinks they're going to have a respectable team? The team is a joke, and Mangini is an even bigger joke. I don't care if he turns this thing around and rips off 3 Super Bowl wins in a row, I still won't believe that his initial tact was the best route. His "initial strategy" may not only cost him at chance at seeing a second season, but may also cost him the chance at EVER being a head coach in this league again.

#3 - Lerner : I'm not quite as critical of Randy as most of the fans, I believe he's really trying and gives his guys the best resources possible...he just hasn't found the right mix of coaches/administration yet. My critique of Randy Lerner is NOT about him quote "not being serious about the Browns" or the other cockamainy BS the fans dream up, but becausea he hired a headcoach without looking at hardly ANY other options, and without having a Front Office or OVERALL direction in place!!!! That's my biggest problem, he brought in ManCo to run this thing HOWEVER they want, and now he wants to go back and hire a president...which will probably result in another regime coming in here and starting over. Had we started with a PRESIDENT, then the GM and Coach...we'd be a lot further ahead. This is football ownership 101...that was a HUGE mistake Mr. Lerner.
Additionally, I think he should have brought someone in that was willing to rebuild around the talent that was in place...assuming he could fit them into a more disciplined mold. It's obvious that Mangini had NO requiredments on working around ANYONE on this team...he was free to get rid of whomever he wanted. I think that was another HUGE mistake.

#4 - Players : I can't pinpoint if the players are really that bad, or if the coaches are really that bad, or if the coaches and players are really that bad all together. Either way, I find it hard to believe that the defensive backs blow as many coverages as they do if they were even giving a 75% effort to the team (not just games, but a 75% effort to EVERYTHING such as practices, film prep, playbooks, self preparation, etc). The same holds true with the offense, I know we don't have many playmakers, but it seems really difficult to believe that we're really this bad. But again, maybe we really are this bad and the players probably deserve the least amount of blame as anyone...would you want to play for this team and organization right now????

Mangini reset this team at least 3-4 years from winning anything, and has probably caused reason for the entire regime to be fired and a new one brought in which will again take another 3-5 years before they accomplish anything worth mentioning. We're all pretty much at fault...the fans that praised ManCo's dumping of talent in the name of discipline, Lerner for hiring a Coach before setting a team administration in place, the Players for a terrible lack of execution (no matter how outmanned they are), and the coaches for TERRIBLE game plans and a TERRIBLE plan to rebuild this team.

Go Browns!

45-0, Tress is the best coach ever

2009-11-02T18:31:00Z

First, I must address the Tress apologists before they fill up the blog with stupid comments...please save the "don't you have anything else to worry about in your mom's basement" blasts, and "you're the type of misreable person that wouldn't be happy with anything" analogies. Thank you.

Now, to the rest of us...the team did look pretty good, but it also looked and felt like a pretty meaningless game (which it was, obviously). I'm happy the Bucks scored 45 and held their opponent scoreless, but it's VERY hard to determine what that exactly means. The Bucks were 44 point favorites by some bookies leading into this game, even with Tresselball at the helm...Florida would've probably been 90 point favorites, seriously! In all, I guess it means the Bucks beat the 111th ranked team (out of 120) in Division 1 College Football by 45 points, and that's about it.

Aside from that, I've still managed to find some concern with lingering issues regarding our Offense, even though they put up 45 points and had over 550 yards of offense. Again, even though the points and stats say one thing, I (along with many other Buck Offense "Questioners") still saw some of the crap that's been severely holding back this team against top talent.

Notable Buckey Offensive Stats:

45- Points Scored (second team played much of the 3rd-4th quarters)
559 total yards of offense
229 total passing yards
310 total rushing yards

My stats of note that raise concern:

Pryor was 11/23 against one of the worst teams in all of college football (bottom 10 of D1) - you mean to tell me Pryor can't complete more than 50% of his passes against New Mexico State? No wonder our offense is terrible against good teams nor can they come through in the clutch.
Pryor only had 135 total yards passing against NMSU - again, 135 yards against the 111th ranked team in D1 college football? That's not good, even if you're primarily running the ball and even if you only played most of 2 quarters, sorry.
With over 300 yards of rushing, the Buckeyes leading rusher was Hall with only 90 yards - I hate to sound like a broken record, but it strikes me as being a bit odd not seeing someone hit the century mark (or least a couple of guys) considering the amount of rushing yards the team accomplished.

In the end, I'm amazed that Pryor had less than a 50% completion rate (rhetorically), less than 150 yards total passing, and we did not have anyone rush for more than 100 yards against the 111th ranked team in all of college football. I know the starters were pulled early, I also know that we had more than 550 yards of total offense and the Bucks basically dominated these guys. HOWEVER, I've pointed out some key stats that have hurt us in the "real" games against teams with "real" talent. Ultimately, Pryor needs to complete more than 50% of his passes to beat most anyone on our schedule (outside of NMSU and Toledo outside of this year) along with someone dependable to run the ball for 100 yards a game, especially against top defenses in order for this team to have a chance. Congratulations on the recent wins (and Go Bucks!), but this game really didn't prove a whole lot to the growning nation of detractors.

Loss to Purdue...beginning of the end for Tress?

2009-10-18T02:12:00Z

OSU vs Purdue Lowlights

5 Turnovers
9 Penalties
66 Yards Rushing / 34 Yards by Pryor (although he got 35 yards on one play) / 32 Yards by Running Backs
5-14 on 3rd Down Conversions
Purdue was 1-5 heading into this game
12 First Downs to Purdue's 24 First Downs

What else can you say that hasn't already been said? We started raising red flags on Tressel more than 2 years ago. We started raising some red flags on this year's team after the Navy let down...now we have a let down against Purdue. I heard one of the Bucks defensive players say that "Purdue had a better game plan" in a post game interview...to me, that's a between the lines blast against Tressel. It's apparent that Pryor is NOT prepared, and we are still running the same type of plays unsuccessfully in every game (except against Toledo). We had ONE good running play ALL game. You mean to tell me that Pryor's 4.3 speed can't get more than 35 yards rushing from one play against PURDUE??? The players keep changing, but our offense looks worse each year as the rest of College Football starts to run NFL style spread offenses and their skilled players get better to boot.

College Football is like a business, either you continually make changes and progress, or you get left in the dust. OSU is getting left in the dust because we're still trying to win games like we did in 2001-2002 with completely different personnel, against teams that have completely revamped their offensive and defensive strategies from 8-10 years ago.

We're racing a '95 Ferrari Testarossa against guys in 2010 Enzo's. The old Testarossa will beat most things out there, but it gets smoked by the new super sports cars.

Food For Thought

2009-09-28T16:12:00Z

A little different entry this time...there's a lot of interesting stuff out there right now, nothing worthy of an entire entry to itself.

Ohio State not the best team in the state????
There are at least 2 ESPN rankings that have Cincinnati ahead of Ohio State, ESPN's Power Rankings and ESPN's Fan Rankings. Who would've thought in a million years that Ohio State would have a top 12 team that's not ranked as the best team in Ohio??? (this video is probably a little over zealous, but moderately entertaining at the least)

Oregon reinstating LeKimbo Blount
Oregon is actually "thinking" about reinstating LeGarrette Blount after suspending him for the "entire" season. Interestingly enough, the "lift" comes after they've rattled off multiple wins since losing the season opener (whene LeFighter Blount sucker punched a Boise State player). What's not being reported in most of the major news organizations is that this decision came after he and his attorney approached the team about reinstatement. This couldn't possibly be happening because they don't want a lawsuit, could it? (The irony of the video below is that the best one I could find was posted by some idiot with a site called urbanREUP.com, maybe we should start a blog called... UrbanComeHome.com)

The Browns are in BAD shape...
They have the 32nd ranked offense and 30th ranked defense, hopefully they won't screw-up another top pick in the draft this year. Who would've EVER thought Mangini would be on the hot seat after 3 games? Even if you didn't think he was a good hire.
(this video is a little over the top depressing, but brings back some interesting memories of the Browns)

Kimbo Slices loses to Fat White Guy
Kimbo Slice lost to a fat guy on the reality show, Ultimate Fighter. Looks to me like he might want to mix-in some toe raises and an occasional leg press or something. The dude has muscles popping out of his upper body in places I didn't think it was possible to even have muscle. But, his legs look like toothpicks...and his ground game sucks. I still wouldn't want to get punched by the dude, hopefully he gets it figured out...would be fun to see this guy actually compete in some real MMA fights

It's amazing how the past repeats itself...

2009-09-19T04:03:00Z

Well, it's been a hot week as you could imagine on the FireJTressel.com blog since the USC game...more than 100,000 hits in less than a week for a blog that does NOT advertise is reason enough to believe that MANY people are questioning some aspects of Tressels coaching that we've been discussing since the LSU Nat'l Champ Game.

Honestly, I'm kind of "analyzed out" after the last couple of weeks of analyzing, re-analyzing, and reading tons of other analysis, especially since the USC game. There's not a whole lot more you can say than whats posted and commented all over this blog from the past week. So, I started looking back at my posts from the past 2 years and thought I'd copy & paste some portions of entries from the past 2 years with dates...I think most of you will be entertained to see how history has essentially repeated itself and how we're having the same exact arguments.

Posted 09/08/2009 After the Navy Scare, was also a precursor post for the USC Game
I'm sorry, but "a win isn't always a win". This one will go down on the stat sheet as a win, but that's the only positive to take from it right now. It's definitely going to take a couple of more games to see if this team played down to their competition, or if that's as good as the team is this year. It will surely be interesting to find out.
I know that many of the Ohio State Die Hards feel that Tressel earned the right to do ANYTHING he wants after the National Championship win, but I (along with many others) think he has some making up to do to get this program back to top respect on the national level.

It's hard to pinpoint a primary reason, is it:
A. Offensive play calling?
B. Recruiting and developing the wrong type of football for National Championships?
C. Has Tress simply lost some of th edge he seemed to have in his first few seasons?
D. All the Above

Posted 01/08/2009 After the Texas Bowl Game Loss
Now look, I love Jim Tressel, I think he's a classy, respectable individual where coaching runs through his veins. However, I can't figure out for the life of me how someone so intelligent can't seem to get ready for the big one anymore. Once upon a time, we thought this guy was "Big Game Jim", now he's a punch line for Leno and Letterman. Granted, the Texas game was a much better representation over some of the other blow-outs, but how do you not see that something is wrong by this point?? I hate to admit it, but I think I might be getting to the point of Apathy. I read through some of my old posts and I remembered how excited and fired up I was about Ohio State Football because I expected them to win most of the big games or at least compete like hell, now I'm waiting for them to lose and that's friggin' depressing!!!

Posted 01/06/2009 After the Texas Bowl Game Loss
I would love to make this entry more about JT making progress in his changes for the big game, but the changes just weren't enough, he still needs to take about 5 more steps...he took perhaps one small step last night.

Boeckman looked like a lost "puppy dog" out there (that hasn't changed since pre-season unfortunately, we heard that same statement about a million times after the USC game) and Pryor's throwing motion seems to have gotten worse since the regular season....I sometimes get confused and think he's shooting a 3 point shot everytime a short pass leaves his hand.

Thank God for Beanie...we would have witnessed a 41-3 blow-out without Beanie, hopefully that dude sticks around, but doesn't seem likely.

Defense looked great for the first half but "gassed" in the second half...the inadequate offense sure didn't help them.

Well, at least we made this one "a game"...one small step for OSU fanatics, one giant leap towards nowhere for the rest of us.

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
-Sir Winston Churchill

Posted 09/22/08 After the Troy State Win (first Pryor Start, first game after the USC Debacle)
The good news is that we'll probably win the Big10, might even win out the rest of the season, go to a decent bowl game and probably win that. Bad news is this; it will still take years or at least a huge win (a but-kicking) outside the Big10 (preferably against a top SEC team) to start to get any respect for this program nationally.

The REALLY good news is that we've seen some change from Tress, albeit a little late...but Pryor looked AWESOME for a Freshman in his first start. The more optimistic I get about Pryor, the more PISSED off I get that the almighty Tress didn't latch onto this earlier and develop pryor over the course of the summer so we were ready for USC. I also get more pissed thinking that after the piss-poor game plans we had for Florida & LSU, we have an even worse game plan for USC (referencing a prior post; Boeckman = Pass, Pryor = Run). But now, after 3 national but whoopins' we get it all together and prepare our QB for Troy State?

Posted 09/13/2008 After the USC BLOWOUT
I think it's clear OSU has taken themselves out of these big games, end of story. I can't say we're better than USC, LSU, or Florida - but I can say with 100% confidence we're not as bad as we've looked, hell - we haven't even been competitive.
Tressel CAN be an awesome coach, but I'm positively convinced he's also his own worst enemy. We can't keep putting blame on players, injuries, and ref's when the same exact things keep happening, it's like making excuses for the cheating hot wife, drug addict family member, or friend that keeps stealing from everyone. At some point, the excuses NEED to stop, and CHANGE needs to happen, or the past will be the biggest indicator of the future.

Posted 01/09/2008 After the National Championship Beat-Down #2 vs LSU
I can take getting beat, but I think we beat ourselves overall, badly, with the help of LSU and their coaches. Do I think LSU is a better team than Ohio State, probably (I lean more towards “possibly”, but is hard to flat out say that and maintain credibility after the final score). Do I think they are 31 unanswered points better than Ohio State, ABSOLUTELY not.

Every coach including Jim Tressel will tell you one of the most important aspects of a big game is controlling mistakes and taking care of the things that are within your control (I’ve heard him say this many times on his radio show). Things like: penalties, turnovers, adjustments, and general mental mistakes. I think it’s safe to say that we failed miserably in all of these.

Unfortunately, the coach who I thought had the potential to be the greatest college coach ever has been humiliated in 2 of the 3 biggest games of his career, end of story. I truly feel for Jim Tressel, the Ohio State Buckeyes team, and for the fans, because there are too many great accomplishments, too many great players, and too many great coaches/support staff only to have another black mark on our program after a successful ride to get to the big game. I hope Coach Tressel has the courage to make changes and can improve the 1 for 3 record in National Championships (yes, I know about the Div 2 stuff, but let’s focus on the big time for now. I also don’t want to hear about I’m crazy for even saying that because we GOT to 3 national championship games, if you think that way ,re-read this blog until you understand it). Otherwise, I will personally be pushing hard for a coaching change if there isn’t a change in the big time bowl games and National Championship bids. Could we regress if changes are made? Yes. But, if nothing changes (not necessarily in coaches – but in strategy, planning, preparations, and ultimately in coaches if needed), we won’t progress either or even be competitive in the biggest of big games.

------------------------------------------------------

Who's All Coming To The Dark Side?

2009-09-16T17:00:00Z

I’m not trying to pat myself on the back, but I think it’s interesting that I was screaming from the mountain top after the LSU game that 2-Big Time debacles provided 1 too many for a program that strives to be one of the top 3 in the country each and every year. I was basically getting death threats from this blog, there were some that saw the light early…but most people laughed, or even worse, made threats and constant disparaging remarks because they couldn’t believe that someone had even “thought” about getting rid of the beloved JT.

I would read other blogs like “Bucknuts” where they basically said anyone that read www.FireJTressel.com was a lunatic, let alone the creator. But, we kept shouting from the mountain top to try and get people to listen. The funny thing is that one of my first posts stated that the initial point of the blog was NOT to get JT fired, it was to raise awareness to a glaring problem in his program and was asking for JT to make some changes in his organization – or this blog WOULD be about getting JT fired. I’ve made that point several times now over the past couple of years, and after a few death threats and becoming nearly apathetic to OSU’s big games, many of the former haters have now joined the www.FireJTressel.com team, which we’re happy about and welcome them aboard. Another interesting aspect is how this whole thing has naturally changed it’s own course from “wanting change” to actually getting JT fired.

For me personally, if JT doesn’t make a significant shake-up to his staff by the end of the bowl season, I believe he will be asking for the full-court press on getting fired from the general OSU Fandom.

And to all those that have recently got on the www.FireJTressel.com bus, you’re welcome to ride along…we don’t discriminate unlike some of the other sites out there!!!

I would like to also point out that I read a decent article posted on Bucknuts from Duane Long…I logged into their site on Monday because I was wondering how long it’d actually take them to cross over to the dark side. I think the article sums up many die-hard JT supporters’ feelings in case you’re looking for a decent read (link down below). But, I’d also like to point out that Bucknuts basically abhorred, laughed, and went crazy anytime someone would even bring up the thought of getting rid of JT on their site since the Florida or LSU debacles (I think some of the Bucknuts members were ones making threats towards me, but that’s my own opinion). Now, one of their feature articles/blog posts (link below) basically says that JT needs to “Change” or “Go”. WOW, you don’t say??? That’s totally prophetic…too bad it’s about 3-4 years too late, but at least the article is well written. Bucknuts & the Jim Tressel marriage (I do like Bucknuts, it’s just a little over the top in my mind) is equivalent to a guy that divorces his wife only after she’s screwed 6 different people. The guy will make all kinds of excuses and come up with all kinds of reasons because he’s afraid that she’s the hottest “piece” he might ever get, there’s a chance he might downgrade if he goes through with the divorce so he has all kinds of reason why the first 5 guys really didn’t happen, but after 6, he plays it like he’s a wise guy and hero for figuring things out and laying down the law with a divorce. But, the article is a good read: http://bucknuts.com/index.php/component/option,com_idoblog/Itemid,1347/id,7909/task,viewpost/

If you want to read something even better, see the Rivals.Com article I posted previously...it is the best In-Depth Tressel breakdwon I've ever seen (mine are the best short break-downs )!!!
http://firejtressel.com/2009/09/14/from-rivalscom--deconstructing-the-grisly-demise-of-tresselball--you-gotta-read-this.aspx

Another good read is a short article/tidbit from the Sporting News' Matt Hayes on the OSU Quarterback Coach. http://www.sportingnews.com/college-football/article/2009-09-15/hayes-hot-seat-pryors-position-coach-had-better-buck?loc=interstitialskip

Ohio State's QB Coach, Nick Siciliano,...who?

2009-09-15T18:38:00Z

The article below is taken from the Sporting New's Matt Hayes. I really feel bad (a little) for Nick Siciliano...Tress is the one that put him there without experience, mainly because he was a Youngstown State guy, that's not completely his fault for having to come under such scrutiny (who wouldn't take the position?). I absolutely find it hard to believe that Tressel, as smart as he is, couldn't figure out that naming a quarterback coach with virtually no experience when you have the top rated quarterback recruit (who coincindentally needs a lot of work) in recent history is a bad idea...it is truly hard to believe. But, on the other side, it seems to fit into the Tressel puzzle we're all trying to put together as we figure out and analyze what has been wrong with Tressel's teams over the past few years. Perhaps, Tressel does have a huge ego problem deep down that forbids him to make major changes or accept that his style of offense and play calling isn't working in the new era of College Football? There's always been rumors that Tressel is a complete control freak, but it seems that his control freak nautre probably ties into an ego problem where he needs to control everything without input. Then, add in the fact he doesn't really think there's a problem in his program either, and you end up with poor decisions and the losses he's had for the past few years on national stages.

Oh yeah, one more thing, although I like the article below, I actually think Matt Hayes doens't know what the hell he's talking about most of the time (read this article if you want where he calls OSU fans turning on Tressel as complete lunacy, http://www.sportingnews.com/college-football/article/2009-09-14/what-we-learned-some-ohio-state-fans-turning-on-tressel .) He also recognizes another fire tressel blog in that article that has 1 post and 6 followers, we've had over 50,000 hits in 2 days after the game with the top search results in Google for 2 years...plus we've had national recognition from several sources on this site, douchebag)
Big M

Hayes' hot seat: Pryor's position coach had better buck up

Matt Hayes

Tuesday, Sep. 15, 2009 - 1:09 p.m. ET

Sporting News' Matt Hayes looks at five feeling pressure in Week 3:

Nick Siciliano

Nick who, you say? Get to know him, folks.

Siciliano is the quarterbacks coach at Ohio State, the guy who this season officially replaced longtime successful Buckeyes assistant Joe Daniels, who was moved to an administrative role while he courageously fights cancer. I say "officially" because Siciliano coached Buckeyes quarterback Terrelle Pryor last season while Daniels fought the disease.

Here's the problem: When faced with the possibility of hiring an outsider who could expand his team's methodology, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel gave the third-most important assistant coaching spot (behind the two coordinators) to a 34-year-old whose coaching career includes jobs with Oklahoma (assistant video coordinator), Youngstown State (tight ends), Urbana (offensive coordinator/offensive line) and North Carolina A&T (receivers and quarterbacks).

Siciliano might be a terrific coach someday. But right now, one of the most talented players in the game (Pryor) isn't reaching his full potential. The biggest jump a player makes is from his freshman season to his sophomore season, and Pryor doesn't look any better—or any worse—than he did last year.

He still makes bad decisions, still has poor mechanics, still bails and still doesn't trust his protection or progressions. Bill Walsh taught me years ago a simple phrase that holds true to this day: Players play how they're coached.

Look at the other side of the field in last week's game against USC. When Pete Carroll needed a quarterbacks coach to replace Steve Sarkisian, he hired Jeremy Bates, a successful, experienced NFL coach. USC freshman quarterback Matt Barkley didn't win the game for USC, but he didn't lose it, either. And he played with a ton of poise.

Now look at the other sideline. You do the math.

http://www.sportingnews.com/college-football/article/2009-09-15/hayes-hot-seat-pryors-position-coach-had-better-buck?loc=interstitialskip

Deconstructing: The grisly demise of 'Tresselball' - You Gotta Read This, From Rivals.com!

2009-09-14T17:07:00Z

I wish I had this kind of time, this is one of the best break-downs on Tressel and the USC Game I've seen, ANYWHERE...

Taken from Yahoo Sports on Rivals.com

Mon Sep 14, 2009 12:41 pm EDT

Deconstructing: The grisly demise of 'Tresselball'

By Chris Brown

Post-facto Xs and Os from Saturday's Ohio State-USC showdown from the proprietor of the essential Smart Football.

There's no sugar-coating this: Jim Tressel and his staff were outcoached against Southern Cal and Pete Carroll, . Again. Particularly on offense, Ohio State's gameplan against the Trojans was utter rubbish, and it failed to meet the number one requirement of every gameplan: put your players in position to succeed.

When I watched the game live, I was struck by what I considered poor playcalling and mediocre execution. But after watching the game again in detail, going over replays and studying all the players, I'm convinced the situation in Columbus is nearly hopeless. For all the talk of Tressel's buttoned-down, conservative approach, and how his teams don't make mistakes, the most basic and fundamental errors permeated throughout Ohio State's offensive plan like cancer in its late stages, and the only conclusion I could draw from this game is that Tressel -- whatever he may be as a motivator, a recruiter, a teacher of technique or as a disciplinarian -- is not up to the challenge of leading his team past others that equal his in talent. He is not good enough of a tactician to win against the national elite who, unlike practically everyone he schemes against in his conference, have the talent to match Ohio State's, and those are the only games where coaching really matters. With his facilities, talent, and resources, winning the Big Ten is not the test.

Look at the numbers. Ohio State's failure to beat a quality opponent since defeating Michigan to punch a ticket to the national championship game in 2006, Tressel's teams have been outclassed, outsmarted, outplayed and outprepared in every big game they've played.

Yet the saddest part about the Buckeyes' 18-15 loss to the Trojans is that, for the first time in the last few tries against similar opponents, the Buckeyes were not outplayed. That's what made Saturday night's performance almost disgusting: OSU's players played a hard, fast and determined game; the crowd in Columbus seemed nothing short of unreal; and the pomp and majesty of playing there more than drowned out USC's exotic traveling road show, known to transform opposing stadiums into home venues. No, this loss falls squarely on the coaching staff. And the fissures run deep.

Note that I had no stake in this game. I don't really follow either team that closely, and to be honest I can have a kind of sterilized, academic approach to football that focuses (maybe too much) on schemes, coaches, and the overall structure and flow of a game. Sometimes this leads to my undervaluing the importance of a gutsy or amazing performances by players that change how a game turns out, but my view also lays bare the raw injustice when players and fans commit everything to their team, only to have their efforts undermined and them made to look foolish simply because the plan of attack lacked any insight or creativity or was just generally too insipid to be overcome by any individual effort. Against USC, although the final score was close, the Buckeyes never really had a chance; 15 points will never get you a victory against Southern Cal. (Imagine if Mark Sanchez had started for the Trojans?) Football might merely be a game, but seeing the talent gone to waste through the insipience of their superiors will always be too much to bear.

Tragicomic. As I said, when I watched the game live I simply thought OSU could have deployed Terrelle Pryor better than it had. But re-watching the game exposed a lot of tactical mistakes by the Buckeyes, almost all of which made it exceptionally difficult for them to move the ball.

First and most obviously, OSU never once called the zone-read play. Never mind that last year it was the Buckeyes' only effective play against USC, averaging more than 6.8 yards per attempt; Saturday, the Buckeyes averaged a gangrenous 2.7 yards per carry, a number that infected the rest of the the simple-minded affair that the Buckeyes called a playbook, especially considering that the number is inflated by Pryor's third-and-long runs against umbrella coverage. Ohio State tailback Boom Herron averaged a mere 2.4 yards, and his longest gain was eight yards.

When I previewed this game, I said that mobile quarterbacks presented Pete Carroll with a math problem: How do you cover all of a team's receivers, guard the box for the run game, and account for the mobile quarterback? Fortunately for Carroll, he didn't have to solve this tricky arithmetic problem because Jim Tressel can't count.

Indeed, the overrated Senator Sweatervest essentially gave away one of his most important tactical advantages by not understanding the concept of constraint plays. Routinely, the Buckeyes lined up with two or three receivers. USC managed to play their preferred two-deep defense much of the game, which should have meant that OSU had a favorable box to run in. Except OSU forgot to make USC care whether it had its receivers split out.

USC literally lined no one up over the slot receivers, and yet not once did Tressel instruct Pryor to immediately take the snap and throw the bubble screen. For most teams this is an automatic check or sight-adjustment, and it is by no means difficult (every high school runs it). Unless you force the defense to care that you are spreading the field, then all you're doing is hurting yourself; Tressel would have been better keeping an extra fullback in the game. Thus the rushing results were obvious. In the diagram above, USC has only one safety back and eight guys in the box, compared to seven blockers for OSU, not counting Pryor. Tressel called an inside handoff that was stuffed -- USC had more guys than OSU could block.

But when OSU wanted to go to the bubble screen, boy did you know it. OSU used the most idiotic formation, where they split one running back/slot out wide but kept him back at six yards deep in the backfield, where he was a threat to do nothing but run a bubble screen.

Were the intended receiver lined up near the line he would be a threat to run a normal route or get vertical, but instead OSU preferred to announce its intentions ahead of time. Pryor never threw the bubble because it was always resoundingly covered. And, even worse, this let the defense completely eliminate one receiver for one offensive player; a bad tradeoff for the offense, when the Trojans still have a defensive counterpart for the quarterback.

Booted. One of the most perplexing things to me when I rewatched the game is why Southern Cal's backside pursuit was always making the tackle on Ohio State's running backs on their straight-ahead power plays from traditional, I-formation sets. I thought, shouldn't they be worried about the bootleg threat from Terrelle Pryor? But as I watched closer ,I realized, "No, not at all." The reason is because Pryor was not coached to make a bootleg fake at all. Instead, he would hand the ball off to the running back and, as if he was Dan Marino, stand there and watch the play. How insane is that? You take your most talented runner, and ask him to hand it off and then stand there to ensure that the defense knows it need not worry about him? And not worry about him they did; OSU's power plays were overwhelmed with Trojan defenders. The bootleg fake is one of the keys to making the power stuff go; that's why the zone-read stuff was invented, to better control that backside defender. Quarterbacks from Fran Tarkenton to Joe Montana -- guys with sensible coaching -- paved the way for this for years.

Indeed, compare Tressel's use of Pryor with Rich Rodriguez's use of freshman quarterback Tate Forcier. Against Notre Dame, Michigan had some issues with Notre Dame trying to gum up its zone reads by crashing the defensive end to always take the running back while a linebacker would "scrape" to take the quarterback -- a common defensive adjustment to the zone read. To counteract this, Rodriguez would line up with an H-back who would run counter to the direction the play was to go and simply block that defensive end, thus opening the hole for the running back. See the image below, which is from Michigan's game against Western Michigan, but the alignment is the same the Wolverines used Saturday against the Irish.

This was a good adjustment, but there's more. When Notre Dame reacted by using the linebackers to attack the quarterback, Rodriguez then called the adjustment off the play: the bootleg pass to the H-back, who faked blocking the end and then released into the flat. On the play the quarterback, Forcier, had a run-pass option, where he could throw it to the H-back or cut upfield for yards himself. Several times in the game the H-back was wide open in the flat. But Forcier could also take off and run; this was the playcall on his 31-yard scamper for a touchdown on fourth and one. The linebackers overplayed the H-back, and he cut upfield.

The point is not that Pryor should be in the spread, necessarily. But Forcier is nowhere the talent Pryor is, and has succeeded wildly because he isn't stuck in an offense that refuses to play to his strengths. Against Southern Cal, the bootleg and roll-out passes Tressel called for Pryor were not the well-designed counters to looks they had shown previously, but brand new designed-just-for-this-play formations that gave away the whole game to USC. In the post-game press conference, linebacker Chris Galippo began his description of the first quarter interception that set up the Trojans' first touchdown by saying, "We talked about it all week. I saw them get into their roll-out formation ..."

And yet, OSU's offense was poorly organized even when going to their base looks, the stuff they should be decent at. Ohio State's abysmal two-minute drill (if it can even be called that) aside, Tressel and Pryor played right into Carroll's hands on defense. When Southern Cal kept two safeties deep Pryor often audibled to a run play, yet either the defense still had extra guys in the box because they ignored Ohio State's receivers, as shown above, or Carroll would rotate a secondary player down at the last minute to serve as another run stuffer. On one particularly savvy call, Carroll called a cornerback blitz from the weakside and stunted his defensive front away from the blitz, and completely cut off a Buckeye run play.

But the upshot is that Tressel got outschemed, outplanned, and outmaneuvered. He has a lot of talent on his roster, and used barely any of it. And while much credit must go to the Buckeye defense for holding the USC offense in check, OSU was lucky to even have 15 points. The Buckeyes' first 10 points were set up by good throws by Pryor that were only possible because of egregious errors by USC's safeties. On the first, safety Taylor Mays made a bonheaded play trying to get in position for a killshot on a slot receiver and completely overran him; on the second, Pryor threw a nice post route while the safety turned his back and got out of position.

This was a giveaway game, one the Buckeyes absolutely should have won. But it wasn't the kind where the quarterback makes a boneheaded play at the end of the game, or where the runningback fumbled, or the cornerback slipped and fell, or the kickoff coverage broke down. It was a game where the coaching staff let everyone down by asking its team to execute a rubbish gameplan. Many of the mistakes were subtle and maybe not evident to most fans. Indeed, one of the problems with a plan that relies on fitting square pegs into round holes is that it makes the players look really bad -- the line doesn't look like it can block, the quarterback is always running for his life, and the running backs never have a hole.

And make no mistake, this was the game for OSU to win. This USC team is very vulnerable. For three and a half quarters, freshman quarterback Matt Barkley played exactly like a freshman; as of this moment, I do not see this USC team winning at Cal. But the problems for the Buckeyes run much deeper. They go to the past and future of the program.

It would be one thing if these problems were limited to just one game, but Tressel has shown a systematic failure to adapt. "Tresselball" might have been enough in 2002, but football has evolved, and I don't just mean the "spread" offense. Tressel is apparently convinced that "conservative" playcalling is synonymous with not understanding the percentages, and consistently playing suboptimally -- he has clearly never read his David Romer. And, even more fundamentally, his brand of football is a relic, for good reason. As the great Bill Walsh explained in the L.A. Times after Pete Carroll's Trojans demolished the Oklahoma Sooners to win the 2004 BCS title:

We're witnessing the evolution of offensive football. Anyone who says you have to establish the run before you can do anything is fooling themselves. They’re living in the deep dark past. It’s just not the way the game’s played now. ...

We're never going to see that Woody Hayes-, Bo Schembechler- style of football again, that run-first mentality. The game has totally changed in a matter of eight to 10 years, and especially in the last three or four.

Walsh wrote that in 2005. And he's right. Jim Tressel is the closest thing we have to that Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler style. This is not to say power running is gone, but the absolutely ridiculous idea that you can beat Southern Cal by running the same power play -- what Tressel calls "dave," with a pulling guard and a fullback who kicks out the defensive end -- over and over again, is to "live in the deep dark past." Jim Tressel is a dinosaur, and like all dinosaurs, not like for this world. And if I was the multi-talented Terrelle Pryor, stuck in the straitjacket of the OSU offense, I'd be thinking long and hard about where I might transfer to.

- - -
Chris Brown writes the strategy and philosophy site Smart Football. You can reach him at chris at smartfootball.com, or follow him on Twitter.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Deconstructing-The-grisly-demise-of-Tresselbal?urn=ncaaf,189322

You Are Not Alone - Hit Updates

2009-09-14T13:17:00Z

I know we don't have a counter on this site, but thought it's worth mentioning that you are NOT alone, http://www.firejtressel.com has had well over 40,000 hits from the end of the USC Game on Saturday night through 8:00am Monday morning.

BigM

09/18/09- the site is up to well more than 100,000 hits since the USC Game

10/18/09- the site has had over 156,000 hits since the USC Game

10/23/209- day before the Minnesota game, we've had over 180,000 hits since USC

Without Change, the Past is the BIGGEST Indicator of the Future -BigM

2009-09-13T04:07:00Z

"Without change, the past is the biggest indicator of the future"
Big M

"The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don't count"
Dr. Robert Anthony

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results"
Sir Winston Churchill

What can I say that hasn't been said? How many times can you sing the same crappy song before you feel like you're going to rip your hair out if you sing or hear it again? I read through all of my prior entries in this blog and it's all been said....bla, bla, bla, Tressel's teams that used to be prided on time management, discipline, smart football, and not making mistakes seemed to have left town about 4 years ago against Florida.

When you are happy with your results, you do not make significant changes. When you don't make significant changes, you end up with the same results over and over again. Tressel's teams mop up on inferior teams, beat 99% of the half-way decent teams, but consistently lose to the top ranked teams.

Tressel changed up some of the ingredients to his recipe and ended up with a little better version of his Ohio State Pie, but it's still never going to be better than Carroll's, Meyer's, or Saban's until he totally reworks the recipe.

C'Mon Tress....you gotta get your crap together, what happened to mistake free, disciplined football with good play calling and time management? Did they all suddenly skip town a few years ago? It's no secret, these things are amplified 100 times over in the big games because the talent is comparable...so it's the "little things" that matter which we've all heard a thousand times over. Your team and coaching staff did way too many of the little things wrong tonight, surprise, surprise.

Sorry, but I'm now tired of clichés & quotes...if Tressel doesn't take a hard look in the mirror after this game, we're going to be stuck with an upgraded model of John Cooper for a while until everyone has finally had enough, or until he starts loosing recruits because of it.

What's your take? Keep 'em comin'!!!

USC Game Analysis

2009-09-13T04:00:00Z

This is my no frills, no BS game analysis:

First Half Synopsis:

Issue	Notes
Pryor Interception	Mistake on Pryor, willing to write that one off (for the most part) since it was so early in the game - still shouldn't happen though, they had a year to plan for this game and they throw an interception on the 3rd play????
3- bad offensive plays in a row to end out first half offensive possession	Mistake on Pryor, O-Line, Receivers, Coaches for Play Calling (they were in complete control of the game at that point)
(continued from prior issue) 2 of the 3 plays at the end of the first half were TERRIBLE play calls. They ran ALL low percentage passing plays rather than high percentage completion plays to eat up the clock and give them a chance to score (slip screen, quick out, sweep/option), but instead, they gave USC time to score berfore the half, which they did.	HUGE Coaching Mistake
Rushing 4 guys w/out a blitz as USC marched down the field at the end of the first half	HUGE Coaching Mistake

Second Half:

Issue:	Notes:
Getting a field goal after driving inside the 5 yard line?	Inexcusable all around
3 crappy running plays on first & goal?	Awful Coaching Mistake
Rushing 4 guys on USC's final drive w/out 1-Blitz on a Freshman QB?	Just Dumb. Especially after what happened in the first half.
Using all of your 2nd half timeouts long before 2 minutes are even left in an extremely close game?	Not Smart
Penalities, Bad Decisions, No Execution in your 2-minute offense when the game is on the line (when you're @ home?)?	Priceless

Summary:
Ohio State was in good control of the game but Coaching Mistakes, Poor Player Decisions, and Terrible Clock Management got the best of them. Same broken record...

Stats from Fox Sports:

Team Statistics
	USC	Ohio State
First Downs	20	11
Rushing	10	6
Passing	10	5
Penalty	0	0
3rd-Down efficiency	6-16-38%	4-13-31%
4th-Down efficiency	3-3-100%	0-1-0%
Total net yards	322	272
Total plays	72	56
Average gain	4.5	4.9
Net yards rushing	127	96
Rushes	39	30
Average per rush	3.3	3.2
Net yards passing	195	176
Completed-attempted	15-31	11-25
Yards per pass	5.9	6.8
Sacked-yards lost	2-10	1-4
Had intercepted	1	1
Return Yardage	116	118
Punts-returns	0-0	3-15
Kickoffs-returns	3-65	4-99
Interceptions-returns	1-51	1-4
Penalties-yards	4-30	5-38
Fumbles-lost	1-0	1-0

SCORING SUMMARY

1st Quarter
	TD	11:37	Stafon Johnson 1 yard TD run (Jordan Congdon Extra Point)
	TD	8:06	Daniel Herron 2 yard TD run (Aaron Pettrey Extra Point)
2nd Quarter
	FG	14:56	Aaron Pettrey 18 yard field goal
	FG	0:00	Jordan Congdon 20 yard field goal
3rd Quarter
	S	9:03	Safety
	FG	4:44	Aaron Pettrey 22 yard field goal
4th Quarter
	TD	1:05	Stafon Johnson 2 yard TD run (2pt conversion attempt GOOD)

Navy?

2009-09-08T14:47:00Z

I'm sorry, but "a win isn't always a win". This one will go down on the stat sheet as a win, but that's the only positive to take from it right now. It's definitely going to take a couple of more games to see if this team played down to their competition (nothing against Navy because they've built an excellent program over the past 5 years, but Ohio State is ranked #6ish in the country, it shouldn't be that close), or if that's as good as the team is this year. It will surely be interesting to find out.

I think it's amazing that Tressel seemed to have his teams ready to play with guns a blazin from the opening bell through the Bowl games for his first 4-5 seasons. It seemeed to be one of Tress' major strengths (I also thought he'd go down as one of the best coaches ever in college football after his first couple of seasons @ Ohio State), his teams never seemed to break down...a la Cooper. It's no secret that Cooper's best teams were good for at least 1-2 let downs per year. Fast Forward to 2009, and Coach Tress is starting to wander closer into the Coach Cooper zip code when you add up the types of losses he's had over of the past 4 years. I know that many of the Ohio State Die Hards feel that Tressel earned the right to do ANYTHING he wants after the National Championship win, but I (along with many others) think he has some making up to do to get this program back to top respect on the national level.

It's hard to pinpoint a primary reason, is it:
A. Offensive play calling?
B. Recruiting and developing the wrong type of football for National Championships?
C. Has Tress simply lost some of th edge he seemed to have in his first few seasons?
D. All the Above

Whatever the reason, the end result will be the same until there's some noticeable changes...his teams will probably continue on the trend of going flat at least 1-2 times per season, which is the recipe for finishing near the top of the Big 10 (because of Tressel's recruiting power) and then getting your _ss kicked in a BCS game.

Go Bucks, let's get this thing figured out!

Beat USC for ALL of our sakes!!!!

AP - Ohio State Poised to Score Big on Signing Day

2009-02-04T03:32:00Z

Tressel might not be able to win a BCS game to save his life as of late...but he sure can still recruit. We'll keep our fingers crossed that this is the year Tressel get's things back on track w/ the BCS and other "big" games...but won't hold my breath, that would probably end badly.
BigM

Ohio State Poised to Score Big on Signing Day
Feb 3, 9:17 PM (ET)

By RALPH D. RUSSO

NEW YORK (AP) -Three straight BCS breakdowns aren't keeping the big-time recruits away from Ohio State.

Coach Jim Tressel is set to turn another batch of blue-chippers into Buckeyes, putting together a class that should rate among the best in the nation Wednesday, the first day high school players can make their verbal commitments to colleges official.

Most of the usual suspects have been cleaning up on the recruiting trail: Southern California, Texas and LSU have classes the experts are touting as top-10 caliber.

Defending champion Florida's class is small - that's what happens when a team wins a national title with a roster full of underclassmen - but strong.

Michigan's first class fully recruited by new coach Rich Rodriguez should give Wolverines fans some hope for a brighter future after a 3-9 debacle in 2008.

Miami coach Randy Shannon is poised to have a second consecutive promising signing day, if star running back Bryce Brown of Wichita, Kan., keeps his commitment and signs with the Hurricanes. He also has taken visits to Oregon, Clemson and Missouri.

And at Alabama, Nick Saban has another top-rated class lined up to help him keep the Crimson Tide where he had them for much of the 2008 season: atop the polls.

The national championship has been elusive for Tressel and the Buckeyes in recent years, despite Ohio State's domination of the Big Ten. Ohio State has won or shared four straight conference titles, but lost three consecutive Bowl Championship Series games, including back-to-back title games after the 2006 and '07 seasons.

The Buckeyes had their hearts broken again in January, losing 24-21 to Texas in the Fiesta Bowl on a last-minute touchdown.

Maybe a recruiting national title will lift the spirits of Buckeyes fans? (sure, I suppose)

Ohio State was expected to receive national letters of intent from 26 recruits, including most of the top players in the Buckeye state. Going into signing day, Ohio State was ranked No. 1 by both Rivals.com and Scout.com.

Tressel dipped into western Pennsylvania for his two highest-rated recruits. Linebacker Dorian Bell and defensive back Corey Brown, teammates at Gateway High School in Monroeville, Pa., were both given five-star ratings (out of five) by Rivals.com.

Ohio State even managed to convince a few four-star recruits from the Sunshine State - running back Jaamal Berry of Miami and wide receiver Duron Carter of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - to leave the Deep South and brave chilly temperatures in Columbus. (that's good news!)

Coach Urban Meyer's Florida Gators made it three consecutive national championships for the Southeastern Conference with their 24-14 victory against Oklahoma in Miami last month.

And when it comes to recruiting, the SEC is just about as good. Scout had 10 of the 12 SEC programs among its top 25 recruiting classes on Tuesday. Rivals' top 25 had nine SEC teams. (that's not so good news)

The Gators were expected to hand out only 16 scholarships Wednesday, a number which will hold down their overall class ranking. But Florida's prospective class includes receiver Andre Debose of Sanford, Fla., rated the second-best at his position in the country by Rivals, and Gary Brown of Quincy, Fla., Rivals' No. 3 defensive tackle.

LSU was a disappointment in 2008, going 8-5 a year after winning the national title in '07. Tigers coach Les Miles responded by lining up what he has said will be one of the best recruiting classes LSU has ever had.

Miles reached into Texas for a couple of five-star prospects - safety Craig Loston from Aldine and quarterback Russell Shepard from Houston - to go with the Tigers' usual haul of homegrown talent.

USC's latest heralded recruiting class features the consensus No. 1 quarterback in the country. Pete Carroll didn't have to go far to find Matt Barkley, who is from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, the same southern California school that produced USC Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart.

Barkley could be in the mix to replace starter Mark Sanchez, who decided to bypass his senior season and enter the NFL draft.

Texas coach Mack Brown also found a five-star quarterback prospect in his backyard. Garrett Gilbert from Austin highlights a Longhorns' class that is, as usual, highly rated and loaded with in-state talent.

Script Ohio In The Snow

2009-02-03T02:56:00Z