Gophers @ Buckeyes - What we learned

To paraphrase the always quotable Denny Green, “The Buckeyes are who we thought they were.” That’s how I felt after watching this game. They beat us like a drum like they do every year. And much like the Penn State game, we hung tough with a superior opponent for a 30 minutes. We were one bad play where pass coverage broke down from being all even going into the half. All in all, not a bad place to be when playing Ohio State on the road. Then it all fell apart, and the second half devolved into series turnovers and miscues. The defense which had looked relatively solid in the first two quarters, started to come apart.

There were signs of this in the first half, of course - some bad penalties, the blown coverage on Posey, etc. Even still, with Theret’s pick in the endzone effectively ending the half, I felt good. It seemed like with a few adjustments in the defense, and if the receivers could actually haul the ball in, we had a chance.

So what do we do? We go and get hoodwinked by a pop-up kick, and Stoudemire is caught unawares. Ball goes to OSU and Pryor gallops into the endzone 3 plays later on the short field. For a team that can’t seem to find any way to score points, that became the tipping point.

Fisch reverted the offense back to its fallback formation when we’re down, the shotgun. The run was pretty much abandoned from this point on, with the exception of the designed QB draw. And not much worked from that formation either, (with at least one exception, the nice TE screen we ran to Tow-Arnett). Really though the stat line to remember from the offense is this: 3^rd Down converstions 1 for 10. That makes us a sizzling 4 for 21 in the last 2 games. The only thing not completely frustrating to watch on the offense was the play of MarQueis Gray (although he did take a sack in the 3^rd quarter that was absolutely terrible). I’ve watched his play in the final offensive drive several times now, and I have to say I was impressed with his accuracy and poise when throwing. Yes, it was against the OSU second-teamers. But he handled a blitz off the edge perfectly, and the timing and velocity of his throws was excellent, especially on the slant pass to Stoudemire for our only TD.

Given the situations the defense was put in during the second half (turnovers leading to very short field scoring opportunities), I thought the defense was at least competent despite the scoreboard. Lee Campbell in particular came to play, and was flying to the ball and hitting hard all day.

So what did we learn from Homecoming at the Horseshoe? Well, we caught a glimpse of the future with Gray under center for a full series, and despite the circumstances, it was nice. And we learned the offense’s commitment to the run is apparently just lip service, and we’ll just duck back into the shotgun at the first sign of difficulty rushing. We learned that Adam Weber doesn’t seem to have any interest in not throwing interceptions. And finalIy we learned that Bob Griese is an even bigger idiot than I thought.

An emotionally depleted Michigan State coming in on All Hallows Eve this Saturday night. Time to get right, and get back over 0.500 – this is a game that can and should be won, especially at home. Preview coming later this week, and possibly a MSU alum (Sparty Tom) take on the game as well. Stay tuned.