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Not that it matters, but........THE GAME:

"Great punting, great kicking and great return teams and an offense as exciting as a Henry Kissinger speech. Welcome to one more year of Tressel-ball."

The defense makes you so proud you want to cry tears of joy and the offense sucks so pathetically you want to cry tears of woe. The defense holds them lights-out for three and a half quarters and gives the offense great field position time after time after time and the offense appears to be brain dead and stuck in the mud. Great punting, great kicking and great return teams and an offense as exciting as a Henry Kissinger speech. Welcome to one more year of Tresselball.

I lay this loss purely on the coaching. Jim Tressel is as fine a man as you will ever meet. He runs a clean program, more kids are graduating, their grades are better, they speak English proficiently, they say the right things at the right time and for the most part, they stay out of trouble. But his offensive philosophy is out of the stone age. Good special teams, no turnovers, score just enough points to get ahead of the opposition and turn it over to the defense to win the game. It works most of the time but it sure doesn't work against elite teams like USC. I'm not saying Tressel has to go but he needs to hire an offensive coordinator and turn over the play calling to someone from the twenty-first century. Surely there is an offensive coordinator at one of those Big 12 schools that can be bought. How can we continue to have top five recruiting classes year after year and average 16 points a game against top 10 teams? They don't recruit any better than we do but they all have the ability to move the ball down the field and score. Hell, we're playing with one hand tied behind our back.

And when is the last time you watched an Ohio State game and you didn't see at least one penalty for delay of game? How hard is it for Tressel to get the play in to the quarterback? We have to be the worst first down team in the country. At least 50% of the time we hand the ball off to the tailback up the middle for one yard and the other half is spent backing up from delay of game and motion calls. Again, I don't care how great of a man Jim Tressel is but he needs to make some offensive coaching changes at the end of the year or people are going to start calling for his head. With the talent we bring in every year there is no excuse for us not to be able to score at least 30 points on any team in the country.

It is sad for me to say but I am actually getting used to it. Every big game we play ends the same. We could not find a way to stretch a five point lead after being given opportunity after opportunity. Just like Texas in 2005 and just like Texas and Penn State last year. Offensive opportunity after opportunity and we couldn't score one more time to save the win. Vince Young, Colt McCoy, Darryl Clark, it doesn't matter, they all drove down the field in the final minutes just like Matt Barkley and we couldn't stop them. Like I said, Its Groundhog Day all over again.

THAT WHICH WAS:

Minni-soso opened their brand new stadium with a 20-13 win over Air Force and Akron opened their brand new stadium with a 41-0 win over Morgan State. The economy is booming in the midwest.

Cincinnati beat Southeast Missouri State 70-3. There just might be an offensive coordinator available right here in Ohio.

Toledo beat Colorado 54-38. That is Toledo as in "Holy Toledo" and that is Colorado as in not Colorado State or Northern Colorado. So how low has the Buffalo program sunken? Another possible offensive coordinator here in Toledo, Ohio? Hmmmmm

Clem-son lost to Georgia Tech 30-27. No matter what happens in the shoe, any time Clem-son loses is a good day in my book.

The Pirates lost to the Mountaineers. Arrrggghhh, was the Morgan in Morgantown the same as in Captain Morgan?  Arrrghh, he sails my ship.

After falling behind to subdivision Jacksonville State, Florida State came from behind to win underwhelmingly 19-9.

Kansas State lost to La. Lafayette to once again prove that cupcakes do not always go down easily.

In one of the better games of the weekend $Notre Dame fell to the meeeshitagin wolverettes 38-34. At the end of the game Cheeseburger was leading with about two and a half minutes left and decided to go to the air instead of running the clock to use up meeeshitagin's time outs. The Great Tate got the ball with 2:13 on the clock and two time outs and that is exactly what he needed to put Cheeseburger on the hot seat and grill him medium well. And after the game when DickRod was asked if he had any sympathy for Charlie Weis and the Fighting Irish he said, "You think they would've felt bad for us?"

Mark Dantonio joined Jim Tressel and Danny Hope in embarrassing the Big Ten this week. At least Tressel and Hope lost to USC and Oregon. Dantonio lost to one of the directional teams in Michigan. The Big 10 now stands at 18-4.

Oklahoma beat Idaho State 64-0. Nothing like taking out an upset on a poor team like Idaho State.

Coach Lane Kiffin at Tennessee put 63 on Western Kentucky last week but found out players in division I are a little better as the UCLA pretty boys in pastel came to Rocky Top and showed some of that western speed to the SEC.

Wake Forest beat Stanford 24-17. After the game the offensive linemen from both teams squared off at midfield and debated "The Singularity Theory as it Pertains to Black Hole Horizons and Particle Physics."

THAT WHICH WILL BE:

Indiana at Akron. The Big 10 is actually traveling to a MAC school. That's sad. Do not be surprised if the Zips upset the Hoosiers in their new stadium. I think this will be a really good game.

Arizona travels to Iowa. Both teams are 2-0 with wins over cupcakes so this game should be a real test for both. Captain Kirk takes on the Arizona Klingons and he doesn't have his Phaser set on "Stun."

West Virginia travels to Auburn to get some of that good SEC love. Again, neither team has been tested so it should be a good game. Go Mountaineers!

Florida State at BYU. Whoa, now that sounds like a great match up. Bobby Bowden is traveling to Utah to take on a team that has already upset Oklahoma. Bobby barely beat subdivision team Jackson State this week. Well, if he loses maybe he can find another wife while he's out there. Hell, maybe four or five.

Cincinnati at Oregon State. Just ask USC, Oregon State is a tough place to play but I look for the Bearcats to stick it to the Beavers.

East Carolina at North Carolina. The Tar Heel asked the Pirate how he got the patch over his eye and the Pirate said, "Arrrghh, it were a sea gull that shat in me eye." The Tar Heel asked, "And that made you go blind?" The Pirate says, "Nay, but it were the day after I got me hook."

Tennessee at Florida. Lane Kiffin turned in Florida for recruiting violations implying that Pope Urban of Meyer was cheating. As it turned out, The Pope did nothing wrong (that time) but Kiffin was cited by the NCAA for some rules violations of his own. Man, is Tennessee going to get their ass kicked this weekend. After the game Tim Tebow's words to Lane Kiffin will be bronzed and etched onto a plaque to be placed above the Tebow family fireplace on the planet Krypton.

Georgia with a Tech at Miami. Can the Canes shut down the new Georgia Tech flex bone triple option spread and shoot wildcat veer offense? Only if Dan Foutz is in the booth screaming "Bad Call, Bad Call."

Michigan State at $Notre Dame. You just have to think that Dantonio is still really, really pissed after losing to a directional state school and Cheeseburger could well feel his pain this weekend. When The Weis Guy looked at that easy schedule this year there were six games that he saw as automatic wins. One of them was meeeshitagin. Oops.

Nebraska at Virginia Tech. Two second tier teams (like Ohio State) go at it in Blacksburg with the winner making a second tier bowl in late December.

Suckacuse has already lost to Minni-soso and State Penn and this week takes on Northwestern. If they are trying to get into the Big Ten they sure haven't impressed anybody in the league yet. Is the third time a charm?

Ohio State plays Toledo in Cleveland. Who cares? The season is over and we don't have an offense anyway.

Utah at Oregon. After Boise State I don't think Oregon is going to let a team from the Mountain West Conference sneak up on them. The problem is that it doesn't matter as Utah is going to beat them anyway.

Texas Tech at Texas without a Tech. After toying with La. Monroe and Wyoming, Colt McCoy takes out his six guns and starts aiming for the Heisman Trophey. If you don't like defense you will love this game.

In division III, #1 Mount Union travels to #7 Ohio Northern. Both of these teams will score more points in one quarter than Ohio State does the whole game against Toledo.

ONE LAST NOTE:

Get used to it, just get used to it. I have been waiting for nine years for Ohio State to have an offense. Ain't gonna happen. Jim Tressel actually believes that Tresselball is the best thing for Ohio State specifically and college football in general. He will win more than his share of football games but it will never be because the offense dominated anybody. Look back to 2002, our National Championship year. Six games were won by seven points or less. The defense played lights out all year and the offense just flat out sucked. There was the interception in the end zone against Cincinnati, the "Holy Buckeye" pass against Purdue, the late Gamble interception against Wisconsin, the overtime win against Illinois and the 14-9 squeaker against meeeshitagin. We were up by two TD's against Miami in the second half and let them come back and tie the game and put it into overtime. We were very lucky that day and had Willis MaGahee not broken his leg it probably would have been another crushing loss on the big stage. I highly recommend taping or DVR'ing all Ohio State games and if they win, watch it, if they don't, go mow the yard. It will save a lot of damage to your heart, blood pressure and psyche. Why sit and watch all of that ineptness when you know it is going to come down to who gets the on-side kick anyway?

The Coach

Tags: jim tressel, ohio state football, usc football