Dear Wisconsin,

[Senser81]

Name the last quarterback Ohio State's had that has had any sort of idea what he was doing. Troy Smith? Ohio State just can't develop quarterbacks, IMO. I think Smith was good mainly because he was a running threat. Zwick and Boeckman were pocket passers and they were terrible. Pryor may have the worst throwing fundamentals I've seen from a so-called "elite" QB. His footwork is awful and his ability to read a defense is nearly non-existant...just like Zwick and Boeckman. Remember their drops and happy feet when their 1st/2nd reads were not there? That's coaching.

Re: the offense as a whole - Tressel comes up with these gameplans that are sort of effective, but really, they're only effective because the players they have on offense are so talented. There's no real innovation. Their formations are interesting, but the plays they run are vanilla and show no real thought, but the biggest issue I have is there's no real identity.

I've never been a big fan of Pryor's and I agree that his fundamentals are non-existent, but I think OSU doesn't ask/allow Pryor to do as much as he should.

I think Troy Smith was able to look good because he had such a great team around him. Pryor doesn't have that luxury. OSU is pretty weak in both the offensive and defensive lines this year, which puts more pressure on Pryor to do well and score points. It seems that he can be effective when given the chance, but Tressel never really opens up on offense. I think OSU would do better if more of the offense ran through Pryor, not less.

[Senser81]

Are they? They looked like it for the most part against Wisconsin. To my shame, that was only the second game I was able to watch all year, so I really don't know much more than what I've seen in those two games. I'll take your word for it.

It sucks living so far away from my team.

I watched OSU play Illinois, and Illinois was able to run the ball on OSU and their D-line was in the OSU backfield for most of the game.

[Sportsbuck]

I watched OSU play Illinois, and Illinois was able to run the ball on OSU and their D-line was in the OSU backfield for most of the game.

We gave up 119 yards on the ground, with 26 of them coming on one play. Gave up 3.3 yards per carry and when you take out the 26 yard gain we only averaged to give up 2.6 yards per carry.

Our offensive line is very good IMO, and people are making way too big of a deal about the Wisconsin game with our defensive line. This is the same core group that dominated people last year and has been this year up to this point (Although a lack of sacks to show for it since teams have tried to get the ball out quick to neutralize our pass rush), yes we got dominated by Wisconsin, but they are probably the best offensive line in America. Give it a couple more games before you start calling our strength a weakness.

[nflman2033]

We gave up 119 yards on the ground, with 26 of them coming on one play. Gave up 3.3 yards per carry and when you take out the 26 yard gain we only averaged to give up 2.6 yards per carry.

Our offensive line is very good IMO, and people are making way too big of a deal about the Wisconsin game with our defensive line. This is the same core group that dominated people last year and has been this year up to this point (Although a lack of sacks to show for it since teams have tried to get the ball out quick to neutralize our pass rush), yes we got dominated by Wisconsin, but they are probably the best offensive line in America. Give it a couple more games before you start calling our strength a weakness.

what I see is a defense geared to stopping spread attacks and not equipped to line up against a smash mouth offense.

[Senser81]

We gave up 119 yards on the ground, with 26 of them coming on one play. Gave up 3.3 yards per carry and when you take out the 26 yard gain we only averaged to give up 2.6 yards per carry.

I love taking out plays as if they never happened. If we are going to play that game, then it would make zero sense to take out a 26-yard rushing play when we are talking about the effectiveness of the rushing game. It would make more sense to take out the 3 sacks for -17 yards, which would give you 136 yards on 33 carries for a 4.1 yards per carry, which is amazing for a poor Illinois team against Ohio State.